Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Mario766]

F-Smash isn't safe on shield, wut.

This ain't MK. It's frame 16 as well. That isn't super quick.

 

[Jaguar360]

F-Smash isn't safe on shield, wut.

This ain't MK. It's frame 16 as well. That isn't super quick.

I said fairly quick for a Smash attack. Frame 16 isn't bad for a Smash attack. Shield pushback makes Zelda's f-smash safe on shield, especially in version 1.11.

 

[Amadeus9]

It's almost like an aerial, vertical, unchargeable Meta knight f-smash.

I assume what you mean by that is that the hitbox is too high to hit anything with?

Edit: Oh, also... as an aside, MK's Fsmash is frame 24. It does have 18 frames of endlag tho, instead of Zelda's 34. (whoops its actually 26. In my defense I used the first active frame instead of the last to determine this)

 

[Vipermoon]

1. ZeRo
2. Nairo
3. Dabuz
4. Anti
5. Vinnie
5. Rayquaza07
7. Abadango
7. Zenyou

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I was there and this is what I remember. The characters used are only for top 8.

Updated with Zenyou

 

[Amadeus9]

1. ZeRo
2. Nairo
3. Dabuz
5. Anti
5. Rayquaza
7. Abadango
7. Vinnie

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I was there and this is what I remember. The characters used are only for top 8.

Forgetting who else was in here, I have 7 so far...

That's correct, but listing MK under Nairo is a bit of... nonsense

 

[HeroMystic]

Anti also used Luigi vs Abadango and used Sheik during pools and Top 32.

Abadango also used Rosalina.

 

[Mario766]

I said fairly quick for a Smash attack. Frame 16 isn't bad for a Smash attack. Shield pushback makes Zelda's f-smash safe on shield, especially in version 1.11.

26 frames of lag, with the change to shield lock would make it NOT safe on shield actually.

 

[Emblem Lord]

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.

Remember that one time where I said hit confirm death combos and you started talking about **** that can be DIed out of and stuff thats not true or guaranteed?

That was alot of fun.

 

[Amadeus9]

26 frames of lag, with the change to shield lock would make it NOT safe on shield actually.

9 frames of shield stun on a 13 damage move. So, not safe. rofl

 

[Jaguar360]

I assume what you mean by that is that the hitbox is too high to hit anything with?

Edit: Oh, also as an aside, MK's Fsmash is frame 24. It does have 18 frames of endlag tho, instead of Zelda's 34.

I was referring to fast fall U-air specifically, which doesn't have that problem. FF U-air autocancels near the ground like I said, so it doesn't have that problem with lag.

 

[Mario766]

...Up-Air NEVER auto cancels.


It just ends at frame 55.

 

[Amadeus9]

I was referring to fast fall U-air specifically, which doesn't have that problem. FF U-air autocancels near the ground like I said, so it doesn't have that problem with lag.

Uh, how is the hitbox coming out if you are auto canceling it. That doesn't make any sense. It auto cancels before frame 5

 

[Jaguar360]

...Up-Air NEVER auto cancels.


It just ends at frame 55.

http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Zelda

U-air autocancels near the ground. I use it every day I play Zelda. I know this.

Uh, how is the hitbox coming out if you are auto canceling it. That doesn't make any sense. It auto cancels before frame 5

The same way that Greninja's N-air and f-air hitboxes come out before they are autocanceled when fast falled?

 

[Mario766]

If you're using it for the 1-4 frame AC, then why bother when you can just empty jump LOL

 

[Amadeus9]

http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Zelda

U-air autocancels near the ground. I use it every day I play Zelda. I know this.

The same way that Greninja's N-air and f-air hitboxes come out before they are autocanceled when fast falled?

Uh no. Sorry. You get no points.

 

[Jaguar360]

If you're using it for the 1-4 frame AC, then why bother when you can just empty jump LOL

It's supposed to be used when your opponent is able you, usually when you're already in the air. Empty jump isn't used for remotely the same reasons lol.

I'm done talking about Zelda in this thread for now. Don't want to derail the thread anymore by saying that Zelda is just not a punching bag.

 

[Thinkaman]

I don't think you understand what autocancel means.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Jaguar360 Yo my man...really? Are you for serious?

Yo what the ****

 

[Rizen]

Anyone have G&W experience, using or playing against him? He feels underwhelming but there easily could be combo potential I'm missing. He has trouble killing and dies so early, it feels like he has to get in 3 times as many hits as most opponents. Where would you guys place him?

 

[Quickhero]

The thing I'm starting to like about this game is that people are REALLY starting to discover kill-confirms. You saw Anti with the jab lock to f-smashes, you saw Meta Knight with the foot stool to Ike at 20% that led to a kill, and you saw Trela's Ryu able to kill-confirm well. You see characters like Ike, who can kill with safe moves like b-air and f-tilt and can even kill confirm with u-throw to u-air/b-air (choice depends on DI) start to rise and perform very well. If you notice, ZeRo wasn't on tilt this time, but he had ridiculous close games because he had to deal with characters who had kill-confirms while having very situational kill-confirms of his own because ZeRo was using Sheik.

I think as time goes on, characters with raw kill-confirms that can kill quite early will shine. I can imagine the characters shown in the tournament like MK, Mario, Luigi, (I am pretty sure in 1.11 he still has kill combos, but don't quote me on that) Ike, and Ryu be used more. I could even imagine some characters not shown in the top 64 of the tournament to get used more who have strong kill-confirms, like DK and Marth, really start to get used more as well.

I can see games not only start to get much shorter, but I can see Sheik potentially start to fall down (at least slightly) due to not having non-pretty situational kill-confirms and start to lose the title as The King of Smash. (Not saying Sheik will ever strand too far from #1, that frame data just too good, but I'm just saying I'm noticing the meta change in the manner that might actually start to give Sheik very real issues)

 

[Dcas]

While we don't know how a character's design is focused, we can make assumptions.
We do know that the game is considered for more than just 1v1s with most game options ignored.

Logically, they always would be appealing to the widest/grandest audience.
For it's own longevity, a balance team are going to "fix things not truly broken" and focus on the middle class (applicable majority); just like economics assures us India and China are going to dominate markets in the coming generations, anything but gearing towards them is insanity. We are playing a game with downloadable content, and they want us to continue purchasing this content, the likelihood of us doing so hinges on interest not only maintaining itself but also growing!
Character balancing is just a marketing strategy, and (painfully) they don't provide patch notes likely for increased social media exposure that results from widespread placebo outbreaks (it's deadly and contagious!).

Sakurai has frequently implied other ways of playing the game that he prefers when queried about balance. Free for alls, items, doubles, varied stages, different scrub win conditions, engine options, NON-BATTLE MODES (single player, etc), heck even 5+ player games may be considered, and likely a lot more than we'll ever know for certain: online interactions.
Unlike previous Smash games it seems there has been more focus on keeping character's capabilities to passable in the most frequent multiplayer options, some characters being particularly more capable than the average in the more "fun" types have seen reservation from the balance team. Certain characters who have been overtuned by our perspective have more issues in free for all than they end up having in singles; for example (not necessarily still, but at least at game release) Falcon's disadvantage state, Ness' recovery and poor mobility, Diddy's batmanesque prep time requirements etc etc.

Meta Knight in Brawl was particularly average in the non-battle modes [and with items] if you consider his normal took kit rather than his specials, I assume most agree he's awful in those areas now. His low damage, transcended priority normals and all specials putting him into free fall just screams "weak" when you compare to how strong we feel Ganon and Bowser can be in those contrasting situations. The compensation they gave him was not very well thought out; shuttle loop and tornado were so strong (almost like how they are in Kirby games) that they nullified a lot of the cast in multiplayer modes without real counter play. ​

Just like how we have to consider viability with the perspective of multiple grades of tournament and multiple levels of play, we have to realise this game isn't being changed for us but all the varying demographics. It's feasible things change by our actions, low level replicable strategies spread like wild fire and the original source may be a zero video or someone like you or me, but I can't truly imagine we would be even an eighth of the equation let alone half or a majority.

So what are we meant to do?
We'll likely only ever have assumptions. But we have objective data on which characters are getting changed, the patch cycle is closing in on a year now and certain things stick out for what actually happens verses our opinions (Zero Suit and Mario, Jigglypuff and Dedede). I've always stipulated a correlation between Japanese tier lists and patches, but it could only be coincidence; their tier lists do take into consideration online competitive play, they may naturally reflect the statistics we can only dream about knowing. If a character is not receiving love, then there is enough to analyze with varied or personal anecdotes to bolster the idea they are happy with where they are for the sake of something other than offline 1v1s, or like any balance team is afflicted with how to cater to minorities without negatively impacting the majority.
We don't know how much longer content is going to come for this game, but as a group of people trying their best to understand the game, we do have to accept the product we receive and mold a "metagame" around is not going to have the same field of view as Nintendo. If we can understand why a character is low tier, while assuming the paradoxical idea that Smash4 is a "very well balanced game for competitive play", then the only conclusion is they are balanced -- just not for us.

This, i think, is really the first post that has made any sense in this forum in a looooong time. Sadly lots of people wont read it.

Hence i think tiers list should be less detailed same as viability, is not like sheik is top tier because the smash team designed it for the competitive smashers. No, its a mix of a lot of things. And as Shaya stated, the changes are to appeal a broader audience and just the leftovers in a bigger scheme.

 

[Thinkaman]

It's way too premature to call an end to Sheik's claim to the top.

But I 100% agree that Sheik feels closer to the rest of the cast every tourney, and reigns not as a god or king but as a mortal who can only achieve wins through intense persistence and consistency.

 

[Rikkhan]

So Big house is over and with this it ends a cycle from post diddy nerf to patch 1.1.0, so here is the final results from my tournament data ranking (well I need to verify some data but still).

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dc5FhYjDliK7Eefx5W7AJruSgH6gNnWWaYn7AZCA6n0/edit#gid=0

So far the results are looking pretty much what a tier list would look like:

SS


S


A+



A


B


Notes:

• Ike arrived late to the party, so far is sitting at 27th place with only results at Big House 5.
• Ryu keeps climbing I'm pretty sure he is going to be in top 10 very soon.
• Even though most people agree that are good characters they have almost zero representation at national level tournaments.

Patch 1.1.1 seems to bring big changes to the competitive scene so by this I think I'll make a new tounament data ranking stating the next national tournament.

 

[ATH_]

1. ZeRo
2. Nairo
3. Dabuz
4. Anti
5. Vinnie
5. Rayquaza07
7. Abadango
7. Zenyou

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I was there and this is what I remember. The characters used are only for top 8.

Updated with Zenyou

As far as I know, Abadango never used Rosalina in the top 8. I may not have seen it though, so apologies in advance if I am wrong.

 

[Vipermoon]

As far as I know, Abadango never used Rosalina in the top 8. I may not have seen it though, so apologies in advance if I am wrong.

He did but I don't remember exactly when. It was just 1 game and he lost.

 

[|RK|]

It's way too premature to call an end to Sheik's claim to the top.

But I 100% agree that Sheik feels closer to the rest of the cast every tourney, and reigns not as a god or king but as a mortal who can only achieve wins through intense persistence and consistency.

You sound like you're talking about ZeRo here, lol

 

[ATH_]

He did but I don't remember exactly when. It was just 1 game and he lost.

I swear he played MK mostly, only bringing out Pac nearing the end against Anti. He got 7th, so that would mean that his set against Anti was the only top 8 set with him, right?

 

[|RK|]

1. ZeRo
2. Nairo
3. Dabuz
4. Anti
5. Vinnie
5. Rayquaza07
7. Abadango
7. Zenyou

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I was there and this is what I remember. The characters used are only for top 8.

Updated with Zenyou

Should WFT be there for Anti? Since he didn't win a game with him?

 

[Nu~]

I swear he played MK mostly, only bringing out Pac nearing the end against Anti. He got 7th, so that would mean that his set against Anti was the only top 8 set with him, right?

Yeah It felt like all he did was play meta knight tbh. Then when he finally decides to use his main, he uses a sub optimal strategy against anti and pays dearly for it.

I didn't see one trampoline. It's like abadango was asking to get 7th place.

 

[|RK|]

Yeah It felt like all he did was play meta knight tbh. Then when he finally decides to use his main, he uses a sub optimal strategy against anti and pays dearly for it.

I didn't see one trampoline. It's like abadango was asking to get 7th place.

There were definitely a few trampolines. I don't remember them doing too much, though.

 

[Nu~]

There were definitely a few trampolines. I don't remember them doing too much, though.

What bothered me is that he tried to hide behind the hydrant all match. Like, that's not what you do against luigi. He can smack that away easily. Trampoline is the most important tool in that matchup and abadango just didn't get it. Makes me sad.
On another note, who else thinks that wario was heavily overrated? Low results and high theory composed of "stall and waft".

I still think he can scratch mid high tier, but I don't believe he's the beast people want him to be. But I can be wrong.

 

[Planet God Venus]

Ike's throw combos aren't escapable. If they get grabbed below 80 for like 90 percent of the cast, they are taking an aerial for ~20 percent and they can't do a thing about it. The main things they learn is not to air dodge an up throw at 90-100, and if they are a really fast faller, they get f-air'd at the ledge for a death that they can't do anything about. Even for a region like MI, where Ike is common with Ryuga, people still fall for air dodge read kills, like I got one on Loe1 last month when he has a ton of Ike MU knowledge.

Last time he played me I was trash

 

[Thinkaman]

I've ranted about this before, but I'd rather know the character someone lost with in grand finals than the character they won with in pools.

 

[Ghostbone]

MK/Robin probably shouldn't be listed for Nairo though since he wasn't really aiming to win the set with them.

 

[PK Gaming]

MAN

Nairo bustin out that Robin at GF at almost taking the whole thing

So glad he hasn't given up on that character

 

[FallofBrawl]

Some quick fire thoughts:
-TBH5 really solidifies Ikes placement as a national tourney viable character'

-Wonder what would have happened if Anti didn't choose WFT game one

-MetaKnight probably benefits from rage the most

-Midwest is a hidden boss region, I would say second strongest US region after Tristate

-I still wonder why Sheik's arm is intabgible when using f-air

-ZeRo is as persistent as Rosa mains claiming their character's bad.

 

[HFlash]

Have been on vacation all week and didn't get a chance to watch any bighouse. Anyone know where the videos are uploaded?

 

[Ffamran]

Have been on vacation all week and didn't get a chance to watch any bighouse. Anyone know where the videos are uploaded?

Going to assume they're going to be all uploaded on Tourney Locator since ZeRo and Seagull's set is on there.

 

[Kofu]

Anyone have G&W experience, using or playing against him? He feels underwhelming but there easily could be combo potential I'm missing. He has trouble killing and dies so early, it feels like he has to get in 3 times as many hits as most opponents. Where would you guys place him?

Once I am able to play again I'll get back to you but I assume the character is still relatively unchanged even with shieldstun mechanic changes. He'll forever be held back until he gets a more consistent killing move (the first hit of UAir autolinking or stronger FAir would probably do the trick) and/or autocancelling aerials. His ground game is fairly solid and he's reasonably maneuverable but the sex kick properties of his attacks often work against him in footsies (I think, still not totally aware of the proper definition of that term). But being so light with poor kill power/speed is crippling. Bottom half of the cast, possibly bottom third. I haven't really heard of GimR doing much lately, nor Songun or Regi, but I don't really follow them.

 

[Vipermoon]

Should WFT be there for Anti? Since he didn't win a game with him?

Doesn't matter. I am stating the characters that appeared in top 8.