Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[**Gilgamesh**]

I speak from my own experience although, of these six, I have much more experience with (one of my mains) and (my most used secondary after ). vs or is frustrating because they can do almost everything she can but better. It also doesn't really help that doesn't have a whole lot of answers to being chased from below or getting hit with strings of attacks in the air. is more manageable though. has most of the same problems but much worse because getting knocked into the air is a lot easier for a character that has high risk kill moves, a terrible grab, and how the mecha koopa can easily backfire against quick characters with good dash attacks. I'd say both are equally rough here.

Actually it's interesting that you brought this up, if you think about it keeps a lot of characters from being taken seriously IMO. has a really bad Sheik MU [-2] , ZSS MU [-1.5 / -2 depends how his neutral vs her is before he inevitably gets boost kicked] and Tweek has gone and stated that Bowser.Jr vs Rosalina is really really bad [-3] he also plays Dabuz in his region] and that he uses Wario instead for the MU. gets destroyed by Sheik / ZSS and the Rosa MU is in theory craft atm where it's around even. also gets countered by them or straight up invalidated by them. also hated the fact [Pre-Patch] that he loss hard to 2 of them [Sheik / Rosa] and prolly loses harder to all 3 of them now. is actually good vs Rosa, slightly bad vs ZSS and is just plain awful vs(FYI: Fatality got 3-0'ed REALLY bad by Zero, 3-1'ed by False where he only won one cause he got a lucky up-b when he was in disadvantage and at high percent and clearly loss the other 3 games, and 3-1'ed by Mr.R and the last 2 games here he clearly loss / weren't close).

Also I'm fairly positive that Nairo will body any Ike he plays just because ZSS advantage state vs him is just lol (uair -> uair -> boost kick seems fairly easy and consistent against Ike. (remember this is just theory; I'm not stating that ZSS counters Ike but that she has the traits and tools to make that MU bad or rather if Ike does end up having 1 counter later on in the meta, it most likely will be ZSS).

 

[Nobie]

Also, I don't get why everyone says use zair, I'm not gonna run around zairing the entire match, after 5 zairs thats 10 damage, if they just get one hit it's already in their favor. He has a good and useful zair but please stop acting like zair is going to just start killing people, because I swear that's what people make it sound like.

Other people call that "Playing Mega Man."

Also, Bowser's Jab SHOULD outrange a lot of things. What, are we going to take away even a decent boxing game from him?

In other discussion, I know Jigglypuff isn't considered to be that great, but wow its nair is AMAZING. It doesn't have much range but it's active for 25 FRAMES on top of Jigglypuff's ability to just hang in the air. You want to talk about exploiting ledge grabs? This is your move.

 

[Mario766]

Ike actually can DI out of boost kick rather easily. Hold down and profit. He also doesn't get bodied by it like other characters.

Ike gets a lot of mileage out of a hit because ZSS is tall + Falls fast. ZSS dies to a grab at the ledge at 90 with no rage at all.

The only Ike vs ZSS there has been is 'serious friendlies' *Not my actual words* between Ryo and Nairo, with Ryo winning a Bo5 set.

 

[BlueberrySyrup]

Other people call that "Playing Mega Man."

Also, Bowser's Jab SHOULD outrange a lot of things. What, are we going to take away even a decent boxing game from him?

In other discussion, I know Jigglypuff isn't considered to be that great, but wow it's nair is AMAZING. It doesn't have much range but it's active for 25 FRAMES on top of Jigglypuff's ability to just hang in the air. You want to talk about exploiting ledge grabs? This is your move.

I'm not saying take it away, I'm saying make Lucas be able to utilize his moveset, don't cripple his strengths, that is not good game design.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

:"Hello!"

This IS the character that many are putting as top 3, right? If Lucas is being put lower on tier lists because of his bad matchup vs those 2, then what about her? Sure, her matchup spread is (probably)better vs a lot of the lower tiers, but her weaknesses get exploited vs top tiers, where it matters.

I would actually like to hear your opinion on this. Did you just make an oversight, or is she a super special snowflake?

There is literally nothing special about Rosalina. She's trash.

Luma is the one who's top 3. Also Lucas has other bad matchups. For Rosa, it's pretty much just those two and like, Olimar.

 

[meleebrawler]

There is literally nothing special about Rosalina. She's trash.

Luma is the one who's top 3. Also Lucas has other bad matchups. For Rosa, it's pretty much just those two and like, Olimar.

Not really. Luma can't grab or shield and tends to die if you so much as look at him funny near the ledge.

 

[Radical Larry]

@KuroganeHammer Thank you! One of the times I do my research and I still got discredited, but you had my back at least.

NachoOfCheese You shouldn't say that; she is the one with one of the two best disjointed U-Airs in the game (the other being Link's larger disjoint), and she's got that incredibly disjointed U-Tilt and D-Air. She's also the one with the KB behind her attacks, and can still do pretty well by herself. And let's not forget that she has, well, the grab game. Luma adds extra power to her otherwise decent and solid attacks.

If Rosalina had her disjointed attacks turned into projectiles, she'd be nerfed. The little halos that come from her feet and head becoming projectiles would hurt her heavily against the Ganondorf MU, because she'll just be another super light character to fall victim to Ganondorf's reign of terror with Wizard's Foot.

I mean, believe me when I say that Ganondorf has an easy time taking off Luma quick. Kind of reminds me of Melee Ganondorf vs Ice Climbers, where Dorf could take out Nana quick.

 

[Y2Kay]

There is literally nothing special about Rosalina. She's trash.

Luma is the one who's top 3. Also Lucas has other bad matchups. For Rosa, it's pretty much just those two and like, Olimar.

Rosalina's Up Air called. It wants to have a talk with you.

 

[meleebrawler]

@KuroganeHammer Thank you! One of the times I do my research and I still got discredited, but you had my back at least.

NachoOfCheese You shouldn't say that; she is the one with one of the two best disjointed U-Airs in the game (the other being Link's larger disjoint), and she's got that incredibly disjointed U-Tilt and D-Air. She's also the one with the KB behind her attacks, and can still do pretty well by herself. And let's not forget that she has, well, the grab game. Luma adds extra power to her otherwise decent and solid attacks.

If Rosalina had her disjointed attacks turned into projectiles, she'd be nerfed. The little halos that come from her feet and head becoming projectiles would hurt her heavily against the Ganondorf MU, because she'll just be another super light character to fall victim to Ganondorf's reign of terror with Wizard's Foot.

I mean, believe me when I say that Ganondorf has an easy time taking off Luma quick. Kind of reminds me of Melee Ganondorf vs Ice Climbers, where Dorf could take out Nana quick.

Um no, Luma's the one packing the knockback. His fsmash and dair speak for themselves.

 

[TurboLink]

Ike also loses to MK 6-4 imo, he is pretty easy to Uair combo and has a relatively wide range where it confirms into a kill. (inb4 but we outrange you so how will you get in?? )

Also Rosa is solo viable atm but once MKs bar Aba and Leo start getting optimal with their punishes, Rosa mains will be having a very hard time without a secondary to deal with him [on top of her other bad matchup(s)].

How is Rosa solo viable with Sheik around? :/

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Rosalina's Up Air called. It wants to have a talk with you.

Luma answered. "Uair you at without me?"

 

[DblCrest]

How is Rosa solo viable with Sheik around? :/

Maybe a bunch of Sheiks can't handle the buzz she gives off? ;D

Though really it's probably because how good she is against the rest of the cast. I mean which character doesn't have any problems facing Sheik?

 

[Radical Larry]

Um no, Luma's the one packing the knockback. His fsmash and dair speak for themselves.

But what's more efficient? Getting your opponent further down so they don't recover, or risking your opponent DI'ing greatly and actually managing a recovery? And Rosalina's F-Smash alone does serious knockback alone.

But anyways, you know as well as I do that Ganondorf can take a good punish from Rosalina if he can manage to get Luma off stage or dead. If he does that, Rosalina can't do as much as she can, similar to how the Ice Climbers can't do much against Ganondorf in Melee if one's gone. Most of Ganondorf's attacks will cause Luma to go into tumble. When Luma's gone, Rosalina can't do much like she can.

Gravitational Pull is useless against Ganondorf since he has no projectiles and Rosalina's Up B toward Ganondorf is death if he's near the ledge, also. That's a big factor too.

 

[Nobie]

I'm not saying take it away, I'm saying make Lucas be able to utilize his moveset, don't cripple his strengths, that is not good game design.

I'm not a Lucas player or anything, nor did I ever use him in Brawl, but the descriptions you're giving on how to improve Lucas seem to be pushing him towards being arguably even better than Sheik or ZSS. Between the request for auto-canceled aerial(s), the ability to be very strong in both zoning and approaching, longer/more reliable tether, low-risk kill confirms, and combos, that sounds like pretty much a character who can do anything.

 

[Trifroze]

Here's my tier list in its entirety (I'm making such a big deal about it here because I'll probably make a video version of it eventually).

A+:
A:
A-:
B+:
B:
B-:
C+:
C:
C-:
D+:
D:
D-:

Instead of putting out character specific explanations most of which I've already done in two previous posts, I'll do something different and make categories that explain some crucial strengths and weaknesses of different characters. I'm not going to list everyone, just high and low tiers to justify why they're the way they are. Mid tiers are generally mid because they don't possess particularly polarizing traits of any sort, or because they possess both positive and negative ones. Basically the entirety of B- to D "has some really cool stuff" but as we go lower their negative points get more and more noticeable. For example, Robin probably has the best aerials in the game overall, good projectiles and decent CQC options, but is very slow on the ground and struggles to reset to neutral. Go lower along the mid tier and we have Samus, she has a good projectile as well but her aerials are "only very good", and she struggles to reset to neutral even harder due to her floatiness. Her CQC also is somewhat worse mainly due to her slow grab even though she has up b OoS for instance. Next, go even lower and look at Mewtwo or Mac and now you should see the trend.

Godlike frame data / good frame data: Sheik, Ryu, Mario, Diddy, Fox, Pikachu, MK, Luigi / Rosalina, Ness, Pit, Dark Pit, Peach, Mega Man

Great mobility / good mobility: Sheik, ZSS, Sonic, Fox, Pikachu, Falcon, Yoshi, Greninja / Ryu, Mario, Diddy, MK

Campers prevalent enough to control the match: Sheik, Rosalina, Sonic, Villager, ROB, Olimar, Pac-Man, Mega Man

Clutch factor / strong reward: ZSS, Ryu, MK, Wario, Lucario / Rosalina, Ness, Fox, Falcon, Luigi, Ike, DK

Noobslayers: Yoshi, Link, Roy, Shulk, Ganondorf

Now I'll have to start explaining myself, these are the characters that are commonly seen as much better characters than what they, in my opinion, really are because of their ability to overwhelm and/or hard punish people who rush in and aren't very experienced either versus those characters or overall. Meaty attacks, especially smashes, that hurt a lot, but if you play patient against them and space and punish properly there's relatively little they can actually get done. I think most people here see these characters for what they are, but this is here for less experienced people (Roy and Ganondorf still get overrated here too though). Even if you're experienced, it's easy to get biased by the sheer power and damage of characters like Ganondorf as a whole or Roy and his smashes and ftilt, but you have to realize that if their options are unsafe (and in the case of Ganondorf also slow) they suffer more and more as the meta advances. Roy basically relies on "bad" spacing, but at the same time he's given the mobility specs to do it, yet his frame data and landing lag isn't nearly what you'd expect for a character that plays rushdown.

Terribad neutral: Zelda, Ganondorf, Jigglypuff

Maybe the worst 3 neutrals in the game, although not going to make that a heavy claim. They're all slow, Zelda in particular has bad hitboxes and unsafe attacks, Ganondorf can't whiff anything and has relative trouble getting grabs, and Jigglypuff has to put herself in the air which is generally a disadvantageous position if you stay there a lot.

Tough disadvantage: Robin, Samus, Roy, Bowser, Charizard, Shulk, Zelda, Ganondorf

Notice that Dedede isn't here, as I feel like he's a special case for a superheavy because of his multiple jumps, lagless nair and disjoints. Landing probably still isn't easy for him, but it's not on the same level as these characters. There are characters like Rosalina, Falcon, ROB and DK who also have severe trouble in disadvantage, but I won't officially list them here because it doesn't keep them from being good due to their strong positive traits. Robin still gets a mention though.

Bad survivability: Mewtwo, Mac, Jigglypuff

These characters may or may not have some things going for them, but then they die. Still, out of these characters I still feel like only Mac could rise beyond lower mid tier if this problem was completely removed. The other two don't have enough strong traits compared to their negative ones (Jigglypuff in particular).

Severe trouble killing: DHD, Lucina, Palutena, Shulk

This is the main reason Lucina is so much lower than Marth. None of her aerials kill before about 155-160%, and most of them take way more than that, fair taking past 200% to kill. Her fsmash and usmash are good, but smashes are not good kill options in general because of how predictable they are unless they're really powerful and (at least fairly) safe at the same time, and that means very few in the game none of which Lucina possesses. Palutena has bair, uair and sort of dash attack, but none of them are particularly strong except uair which is somewhat tough to land due to the position it requires you to be in. Shulk has really slow attacks overall and mostly also relies on smashes to kill, except they're slower than Lucina's. He also has bair and uair, but bair is very slow and uair is quite hard to land. I originally said Marth also struggles to close off stocks, but he's definitely not as bad and I'll also give him the benefit of a doubt and say that a Marth player who plays the character optimally can land tipper aerials and fsmashes so consistently that getting kills is simply not a problem. Duck Hunt gets a special mention because trouble killing is probably the only reason he isn't lower high tier, although I'm not fully aware of the setup DunnoBro discovered.

EDIT: Well, character specific explanations are definitely better and clearer but hey I tried something else. The noobslayers thing though was something I wanted to mention and what also started this idea.

 

[DblCrest]

Surprised Mac isn't one of the noobslayers.
Are you going to talk about tiers for customs as well in your video as well out of curiosity?

 

[Trifroze]

Surprised Mac isn't one of the noobslayers.
Are you going to talk about tiers for customs as well in your video as well out of curiosity?

I think people saw through Mac pretty early on and that's simply because it's easier to throw a scrubby Mac offstage than it is for a scrubby Mac to avoid it and then recover without dying.

I'm probably leaving customs out because they overcomplicate it so much, but I might throw out some mentions about characters who become considerably better with them.

 

[Vipermoon]

Trifroze Overall it's a pretty good tier list. About Marth's placement, I don't think too highly of him but I think he's too low on yours. For example, most people usually agree that he's above every character that you have in your C- tier. Same with Roy I guess. I don't think highly of him either but no one with that kind of mobility should be D tier. And seeing Bowser next to M and R is just odd.

 

[Rikkhan]

Trifroze Pretty good tier list, imho Marth and Roy are better than all C- characters and maybe better than Duck hunt, Link and Bowser Jr.

Edit: ninjaed by Vipermoon lol

 

[meleebrawler]

Here's my tier list in its entirety (I'm making such a big deal about it here because I'll probably make a video version of it eventually).

A+:
A:
A-:
B+:
B:
B-:
C+:
C:
C-:
D+:
D:
D-:

Instead of putting out character specific explanations most of which I've already done in two previous posts, I'll do something different and make categories that explain some crucial strengths and weaknesses of different characters. I'm not going to list everyone, just high and low tiers to justify why they're the way they are. Mid tiers are generally mid because they don't possess particularly polarizing traits of any sort, or because they possess both positive and negative ones. Basically the entirety of B- to D "has some really cool stuff" but as we go lower their negative points get more and more noticeable. For example, Robin probably has the best aerials in the game overall, good projectiles and decent CQC options, but is very slow on the ground and struggles to reset to neutral. Go lower along the mid tier and we have Samus, she has a good projectile as well but her aerials are "only very good", and she struggles to reset to neutral even harder due to her floatiness. Her CQC also is somewhat worse mainly due to her slow grab even though she has up b OoS for instance. Next, go even lower and look at Mewtwo or Mac and now you should see the trend.

Godlike frame data / good frame data: Sheik, Ryu, Mario, Diddy, Fox, Pikachu, MK, Luigi / Rosalina, Ness, Pit, Dark Pit, Peach, Mega Man

Great mobility / good mobility: Sheik, ZSS, Sonic, Fox, Pikachu, Falcon, Yoshi, Greninja / Ryu, Mario, Diddy, MK

Campers prevalent enough to control the match: Sheik, Rosalina, Sonic, Villager, ROB, Olimar, Pac-Man, Mega Man

Clutch factor / strong reward: ZSS, Ryu, MK, Wario, Lucario / Rosalina, Ness, Fox, Falcon, Luigi, Ike, DK

Noobslayers: Yoshi, Link, Roy, Shulk, Ganondorf

Now I'll have to start explaining myself, these are the characters that are commonly seen as much better characters than what they, in my opinion, really are because of their ability to overwhelm and/or hard punish people who rush in and aren't very experienced either versus those characters or overall. Meaty attacks, especially smashes, that hurt a lot, but if you play patient against them and space and punish properly there's relatively little they can actually get done. I think most people here see these characters for what they are, but this is here for less experienced people (Roy and Ganondorf still get overrated here too though). Even if you're experienced, it's easy to get biased by the sheer power and damage of characters like Ganondorf as a whole or Roy and his smashes and ftilt, but you have to realize that if their options are unsafe (and in the case of Ganondorf also slow) they suffer more and more as the meta advances. Roy basically relies on "bad" spacing, but at the same time he's given the mobility specs to do it, yet his frame data and landing lag isn't nearly what you'd expect for a character that plays rushdown.

Terribad neutral: Zelda, Ganondorf, Jigglypuff

Maybe the worst 3 neutrals in the game, although not going to make that a heavy claim. They're all slow, Zelda in particular has bad hitboxes and unsafe attacks, Ganondorf can't whiff anything and has relative trouble getting grabs, and Jigglypuff has to put herself in the air which is generally a disadvantageous position if you stay there a lot.

Tough disadvantage: Robin, Samus, Roy, Bowser, Charizard, Shulk, Zelda, Ganondorf

Notice that Dedede isn't here, as I feel like he's a special case for a superheavy because of his multiple jumps, lagless nair and disjoints. Landing probably still isn't easy for him, but it's not on the same level as these characters. There are characters like Rosalina, Falcon, ROB and DK who also have severe trouble in disadvantage, but I won't officially list them here because it doesn't keep them from being good due to their strong positive traits. Robin still gets a mention though.

Bad survivability: Mewtwo, Mac, Jigglypuff

These characters may or may not have some things going for them, but then they die. Still, out of these characters I still feel like only Mac could rise beyond lower mid tier if this problem was completely removed. The other two don't have enough strong traits compared to their negative ones (Jigglypuff in particular).

Severe trouble killing: DHD, Lucina, Palutena, Shulk

This is the main reason Lucina is so much lower than Marth. None of her aerials kill before about 155-160%, and most of them take way more than that, fair taking past 200% to kill. Her fsmash and usmash are good, but smashes are not good kill options in general because of how predictable they are unless they're really powerful and (at least fairly) safe at the same time, and that means very few in the game none of which Lucina possesses. Palutena has bair, uair and sort of dash attack, but none of them are particularly strong except uair which is somewhat tough to land due to the position it requires you to be in. Shulk has really slow attacks overall and mostly also relies on smashes to kill, except they're slower than Lucina's. He also has bair and uair, but bair is very slow and uair is quite hard to land. I originally said Marth also struggles to close off stocks, but he's definitely not as bad and I'll also give him the benefit of a doubt and say that a Marth player who plays the character optimally can land tipper aerials and fsmashes so consistently that getting kills is simply not a problem. Duck Hunt gets a special mention because trouble killing is probably the only reason he isn't lower high tier, although I'm not fully aware of the setup DunnoBro discovered.

EDIT: Well, character specific explanations are definitely better and clearer but hey I tried something else. The noobslayers thing though was something I wanted to mention and what also started this idea.

Mewtwo is weird compared to Mac and Jigglypuff in the sense that he doesn't possess an "extreme" attribute like being able to KO super early with Rest or KO Punch or being absolutely dominating on the ground/air. What he does have is versatility. He's got good spacing moves, good mobility (seriously if nothing else at least give credit to his mobility, if Ryu's is considered good), a powerful projectile and a reflector that doubles as a command grab, among other things. Could say more but suffice it to say that Mewtwo is rarely hard countered by anything. I'd put him in C- to be honest. He does have the tools to combat his weaknesses, even if it's not always easy to implement them.

 

[Patriot Duck]

Legend has it if you say some combination of "Lucas" and "tier" in front of a mirror three times, you will summon some moron named Patriot Duck, who will then proceed to seek out the nearest computer and type a long-winded rant on Smashboards.

Okay, every now and then I see people comment on how Lucas needs to be "fixed" or some such. This is one of my biggest pet peeves. I honestly don't think Lucas needs fixing. He has clear-cut strengths and weaknesses, and I'd say he's no lower than mid tier.

Lucas is a combination of zoner and anti-zoner. Once he gets a percent lead, he forces the majority of the cast to approach him. Optimal Lucas forces the opponent to play his game, even if it means you have to slow the game to a crawl. For the record, I think only Sheik, Pac-Man, and maybe Megaman and Villager have the tools to force Lucas to approach when he has the percent lead. From there, Lucas's opponent has to get past not only his mid range zoning, but also his great close range tools.

BlueberrySyrup Let me just say that you are a fantastic Lucas player, but I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you on Lucas's ground game being bad. His jab is frame 2 and has an absurd hitbox that covers his entire body. Hell, I've hit people standing directly behind me with his jab. Then you have his disjointed forward tilt being safe on shield, his down tilt being frame 3 and comboing into his grab and other ground moves, and his frame 4 disjointed up tilt that serves as a great anti air.

Lucas has the tools to deal with any opponent not named Sheik from long, mid, and close range environments. I don't see the problem here.

One more thing. His zair's low damage output is mitigated by the fact that you can combo out of it.

Okay, I'm done.

 

[Nu~]

Here's my tier list in its entirety (I'm making such a big deal about it here because I'll probably make a video version of it eventually).

A+:
A:
A-:
B+:
B:
B-:
C+:
C:
C-:
D+:
D:
D-:

Instead of putting out character specific explanations most of which I've already done in two previous posts, I'll do something different and make categories that explain some crucial strengths and weaknesses of different characters. I'm not going to list everyone, just high and low tiers to justify why they're the way they are. Mid tiers are generally mid because they don't possess particularly polarizing traits of any sort, or because they possess both positive and negative ones. Basically the entirety of B- to D "has some really cool stuff" but as we go lower their negative points get more and more noticeable. For example, Robin probably has the best aerials in the game overall, good projectiles and decent CQC options, but is very slow on the ground and struggles to reset to neutral. Go lower along the mid tier and we have Samus, she has a good projectile as well but her aerials are "only very good", and she struggles to reset to neutral even harder due to her floatiness. Her CQC also is somewhat worse mainly due to her slow grab even though she has up b OoS for instance. Next, go even lower and look at Mewtwo or Mac and now you should see the trend.

Godlike frame data / good frame data: Sheik, Ryu, Mario, Diddy, Fox, Pikachu, MK, Luigi / Rosalina, Ness, Pit, Dark Pit, Peach, Mega Man

Great mobility / good mobility: Sheik, ZSS, Sonic, Fox, Pikachu, Falcon, Yoshi, Greninja / Ryu, Mario, Diddy, MK

Campers prevalent enough to control the match: Sheik, Rosalina, Sonic, Villager, ROB, Olimar, Pac-Man, Mega Man

Clutch factor / strong reward: ZSS, Ryu, MK, Wario, Lucario / Rosalina, Ness, Fox, Falcon, Luigi, Ike, DK

Noobslayers: Yoshi, Link, Roy, Shulk, Ganondorf

Now I'll have to start explaining myself, these are the characters that are commonly seen as much better characters than what they, in my opinion, really are because of their ability to overwhelm and/or hard punish people who rush in and aren't very experienced either versus those characters or overall. Meaty attacks, especially smashes, that hurt a lot, but if you play patient against them and space and punish properly there's relatively little they can actually get done. I think most people here see these characters for what they are, but this is here for less experienced people (Roy and Ganondorf still get overrated here too though). Even if you're experienced, it's easy to get biased by the sheer power and damage of characters like Ganondorf as a whole or Roy and his smashes and ftilt, but you have to realize that if their options are unsafe (and in the case of Ganondorf also slow) they suffer more and more as the meta advances. Roy basically relies on "bad" spacing, but at the same time he's given the mobility specs to do it, yet his frame data and landing lag isn't nearly what you'd expect for a character that plays rushdown.

Terribad neutral: Zelda, Ganondorf, Jigglypuff

Maybe the worst 3 neutrals in the game, although not going to make that a heavy claim. They're all slow, Zelda in particular has bad hitboxes and unsafe attacks, Ganondorf can't whiff anything and has relative trouble getting grabs, and Jigglypuff has to put herself in the air which is generally a disadvantageous position if you stay there a lot.

Tough disadvantage: Robin, Samus, Roy, Bowser, Charizard, Shulk, Zelda, Ganondorf

Notice that Dedede isn't here, as I feel like he's a special case for a superheavy because of his multiple jumps, lagless nair and disjoints. Landing probably still isn't easy for him, but it's not on the same level as these characters. There are characters like Rosalina, Falcon, ROB and DK who also have severe trouble in disadvantage, but I won't officially list them here because it doesn't keep them from being good due to their strong positive traits. Robin still gets a mention though.

Bad survivability: Mewtwo, Mac, Jigglypuff

These characters may or may not have some things going for them, but then they die. Still, out of these characters I still feel like only Mac could rise beyond lower mid tier if this problem was completely removed. The other two don't have enough strong traits compared to their negative ones (Jigglypuff in particular).

Severe trouble killing: DHD, Lucina, Palutena, Shulk

This is the main reason Lucina is so much lower than Marth. None of her aerials kill before about 155-160%, and most of them take way more than that, fair taking past 200% to kill. Her fsmash and usmash are good, but smashes are not good kill options in general because of how predictable they are unless they're really powerful and (at least fairly) safe at the same time, and that means very few in the game none of which Lucina possesses. Palutena has bair, uair and sort of dash attack, but none of them are particularly strong except uair which is somewhat tough to land due to the position it requires you to be in. Shulk has really slow attacks overall and mostly also relies on smashes to kill, except they're slower than Lucina's. He also has bair and uair, but bair is very slow and uair is quite hard to land. I originally said Marth also struggles to close off stocks, but he's definitely not as bad and I'll also give him the benefit of a doubt and say that a Marth player who plays the character optimally can land tipper aerials and fsmashes so consistently that getting kills is simply not a problem. Duck Hunt gets a special mention because trouble killing is probably the only reason he isn't lower high tier, although I'm not fully aware of the setup DunnoBro discovered.

EDIT: Well, character specific explanations are definitely better and clearer but hey I tried something else. The noobslayers thing though was something I wanted to mention and what also started this idea.

Surprised that pacman isn't in that good frame data pile. None of his aerials are slower than 9 frames (two of which autocancel very well while Nair has very low landing lag), his tilts are all very fast, and his DA has absolutely no cooldown. A frame 1 escape button in the form of trampoline is great too.

The only slow thing about us is our fsmash and dsmash. Frame 18 :'(

Meanwhile, mega man can't autocancel any aerial out of a short hop except for Nair and pikachu has landing lag for days.

 

[Vipermoon]

Surprised that pacman isn't in that good frame data pile. None of his aerials are slower than 9 frames (two of which autocancel very well while Nair has very low landing lag), his tilts are all very fast, and his DA has absolutely no cooldown. A frame 1 escape button in the form of trampoline is great too.

The only slow thing about us is our fsmash and dsmash. Frame 18 :'(

Meanwhile, mega man can't autocancel any aerial out of a short hop except for Nair and pikachu has landing lag for days.

Yeah seriously. In what world is MM's frame data good? Overall nothing stands out and some things are actually really bad.

 

[Antonykun]

Yeah seriously. In what world is MM's frame data good? Overall nothing stands out and some things are actually really bad.

saying that megaman has poor frame data is probably true but it still triggers me with traumatic flashbacks involving frame 7 lemons

 

[Zangold]

Trifroze Definitely an interesting list. While I by no means think he's a top tier, I can't agree with Roy being placed so low. For a character with great mobility/speed, decent throws, better than average frame data, and vast kill potential Roy has to at least be a mid/high C. Everything else is really just semantics. Looking forward to your video.

 

[DblCrest]

saying that megaman has poor frame data is probably true but it still triggers me with traumatic flashbacks involving frame 7 lemons

 

[Fatmanonice]

Actually it's interesting that you brought this up, if you think about it keeps a lot of characters from being taken seriously IMO. has a really bad Sheik MU [-2] , ZSS MU [-1.5 / -2 depends how his neutral vs her is before he inevitably gets boost kicked] and Tweek has gone and stated that Bowser.Jr vs Rosalina is really really bad [-3] he also plays Dabuz in his region] and that he uses Wario instead for the MU. gets destroyed by Sheik / ZSS and the Rosa MU is in theory craft atm where it's around even. also gets countered by them or straight up invalidated by them. also hated the fact [Pre-Patch] that he loss hard to 2 of them [Sheik / Rosa] and prolly loses harder to all 3 of them now. is actually good vs Rosa, slightly bad vs ZSS and is just plain awful vs(FYI: Fatality got 3-0'ed REALLY bad by Zero, 3-1'ed by False where he only won one cause he got a lucky up-b when he was in disadvantage and at high percent and clearly loss the other 3 games, and 3-1'ed by Mr.R and the last 2 games here he clearly loss / weren't close).

Also I'm fairly positive that Nairo will body any Ike he plays just because ZSS advantage state vs him is just lol (uair -> uair -> boost kick seems fairly easy and consistent against Ike. (remember this is just theory; I'm not stating that ZSS counters Ike but that she has the traits and tools to make that MU bad or rather if Ike does end up having 1 counter later on in the meta, it most likely will be ZSS).

I'm glad you brought up Megaman because I'm still fairly convinced that he could eventually evolve into the Brawl equivalent of Olimar or Diddy, a character heavily underrated for the first two years until people really start to get him down. I feel like his glide tossing, super dependable jab locks, and footstool options could really open things up for him in the future but, like you pointed out, a big thing holding him back is how discouraging it is to play against as him. The tools are there but the learning curve scares away a lot of people.

 

[Nu~]

his glide tossing, super dependable jab locks, and footstool options could really open things up for him in the future

Well Pac-Man has the same stuff.
https://vine.co/v/e0g1Iaj9qD2

With even more options due to having 8 different fruit to play with. But I do agree. The character is largely unexplored.

 

[Blobface]

I still disagree with Ganon's placement.

...

Before you start...

Spoiler

Kimidori is ranked 4 on the EWA power rankings, and has played this matchup extensively since he's in the same area as Vermanubis. You can see it quite obviously in the video, he almost never commits.Yet still, Verm beats him in both these sets, and while they were close, he still won both in two of Ganon's worst matchups against a player who knew exactly how to fight Ganon optimally. If Ganon was straight up useless against campy, careful play, this should have been impossible.

Now obviously EWA is not to my knowledge a stacked region. But for an idea of Verm's skill, Vermanubis has gone essentially even with Shiny, 5-5, a player who's taken a game off of ZeRo. And if we were to blame that on Lucario's clutch factor, that only supports Ganon even more.

Nor is Verm the only one getting results with Ganon. Ganon the Beast and Ray_Kalm have both had strong showings, with Ray_Kalm making top 8 at a 144 person tourney with Ally, Holy, and others in attendance. In addition, @SmashCapps Power ranking based tier list ranked Ganon surprisingly high (can't remember where it was lol). It's a massive conjecture to say that power ranked players have won in their regions purely because of matchup inexperience. Ray_Kalm in particular is infamous in his region to say the least, and he's placed well long after that particular tourney.

Is Ganon a good, reliable tournament pick? Absolutely not. Is he bottom tier, nonviable trash? Absolutely not.

And Ganon's meta is still not done. it was recently found that you can follow up Aerudo on platforms with Tip N Slide, removing one of its biggest weaknesses, shields. If Ganon ledgehops after a trump, the lowest reward he can get is an offstage B-air. The two other things he can hit with are D-air and Reverse Wizkick Spike, both of which are instant death. Furthermore, the recent patch gave Ganon an actual, consistent, kill confirm with fastfall N-air into F-tilt. And there's still more we can do with exploiting ledge vulnerability, especially against characters with really good recoveries.

(inb4 I messed up one of these links)

 

[Fatmanonice]

Well Pac-Man has the same stuff.
https://vine.co/v/e0g1Iaj9qD2

With even more options due to having 8 different fruit to play with. But I do agree. The character is largely unexplored.

I know but Pac-Man has more high profile players than Megaman does who actually show off the goofy shenanigans he's capable of at the bigger tournaments. Pac-Man's player base isn't exactly bursting at the seams either but people at least grasp that he could be a threat in the future. From what I see most people say about Megaman, they think he's average or complete trash.

 

[FullMoon]

And Ganon's meta is still not done. it was recently found that you can follow up Aerudo on platforms with Tip N Slide, removing one of its biggest weaknesses, shields. If Ganon ledgehops after a trump, the lowest reward he can get is an offstage B-air. The two other things he can hit with are D-air and Reverse Wizkick Spike, both of which are instant death. Furthermore, the recent patch gave Ganon an actual, consistent, kill confirm with fastfall N-air into F-tilt. And there's still more we can do with exploiting ledge vulnerability, especially against characters with really good recoveries.

Let's be honest here, is any character's meta truly done? I mean some characters are pretty straightforward but even then there are always of improving them I'd say.

I mean, somewhat recently we Greninja mains found out kill setups using meteor D-Air when the opponent is grounded (footstool them when Greninja bounces off, then either do sourspot N-Air -> Up-Smash or do B-Air lock -> F-Smash). Most characters in this game still have room to grow.

Saying that Ganon's meta is still not done doesn't really do much for your argument I'm afraid. Though your point on Ganon results is valid.

 

[Trifroze]

There's a weird dissonance when I think of Marth's placement. I feel like he belongs in C- or C, but then I look at Lucina and I think that she's just about where she should be. This is followed by denying that there could be such a large gap between the two, so I've dealt with this by just keeping Marth where he is. Maybe I need to make the gap then.

Also I value killing reliability about as much as mobility in this game since it's proven to be just as important, and even then Marth's mobility is only above average. Bowser I don't think is terrible because he's basically Ganondorf with OoS options and a much easier time getting grabs (due to his grab range and running speed) with more reward out of them since his fthrow and bthrow kill and he has three throws that do 12% damage. His ftilt and dtilt are also actually good and the former is a very safe poke, much like how Ganondorf's dtilt is. Bowser's aerials are worse overall, but he has a better neutral game that he can also afford losing more than Ganondorf due to a better recovery and higher weight.

Roy was originally C+, but then I tried to look at where the game is ultimately going and I couldn't see how he ultimately functions that well at the top level. He does a ton of damage and his smashes kill early, but he has to go in and commit to get anything done because of his sword mechanics, and despite his speed his attacks and landings are laggy so as long as you abuse shield against him he can't close it out no matter how many times he grabs you until you hit like 150%+. His aerials aren't really that strong especially when the stronger hitboxes have effectively no range, but I think his speed is enough to carry him somewhat, just I don't see him doing better than Marth overall. Perhaps he's also a victim of the aforementioned Marth/Lucina dissonance in this way, and I need to move him up along with Marth.

Regarding Mega Man, I was actually looking at an old resource that had his jab, nair and ftilt all as f2 moves. Well, time to take him out. Pac-Man's frame data is pretty average, his total durations in particular, even if you take grabs out. Pikachu's landings don't matter because even if the numbers were low, he shouldn't land with his aerials due to the low range he has on them. It would always be a shieldgrab, unless something like nair had really low landing lag in which case it would be positive on shield vs shieldgrabs. I only have a list of average startup times when it comes to frame data though, not full durations, so the list may be a bit skewed. It's quite hard to look at frame data objectively when some moves simply shouldn't count to begin with, but then where do we draw the line? Some characters have 8 really fast and safe options while others have 1-3. Would be fun to make some kind of a criteria though, like jab, dash attack, fastest grab variation, 3 fastest aerials, 2 fastest smashes, 2 fastest tilts, and 2 fastest specials. This just because most characters usually have some laggy moves by design that never find any use and don't need to i.e. Falcon Punch and Ganondorf's utilt.

I'd really like to think Ganondorf is better than bottom and he might. I just can't picture how he gets things done at the very top level, and we've never seen it. He's the only superheavy who combines low ground speed, bad recovery, bad landing options and lack of kills out of grabs plus relative difficulty getting them due to his low ground speed and poor grab range. In fact he's the only superheavy who combines low ground speed and bad landing options period. He has some of the best individual moves in the game like dtilt, uair, bair, fair and dash attack, the problem is I don't see how he truly gets to utilize them. I feel like everytime Ganondorf wins it's because the opponent made x amount too many mistakes, and as the meta evolves this x will become consistently smaller.

Also one thing I forgot to emphasize is that look at the gaps between my tiers; there's only 4 separate ones and the difference between Marth and Ganondorf for instance is less than an actual tier.

 

[Tri Knight]

No that's Pit you silly billy~ ;3

I think Tink's pretty good. I think what holds Link back is his mobility and the fact that he gets good reward off of his grabs and setups, but can't reliably get into that position; Tink's mobility and smaller hitbox means he's safer and has more options in that sense, even if he does trade a bit of strength for it. I'd rather a character who's weaker but faster and has safer options to get their reward (i.e. the vast majority of top-tiers in this game).

I think? I confess, I don't know the Links very well. That's just what I gather from watching them do their thing.

And I live in Ireland, the Link capital of every-bloody-where~

Bright side is, the shield nerf really helped Link in regards to safe attacks on shield. I'd argue that the shield itself was his worst MU before the patch(lol).

But yes Tink is definitely quicker, safer, and has extremely reliable kill-confirms, but he has a MUCH harder time killing otherwise. F-tilt is a great quick example when it comes to the duo's trade-off. Tink's is definitely good. Its quick and reaches out far (for Tink at least) but Link's is deadly and covers a huge area. Link also edgeguards way better in my opinion. He can trap low recoveries with D-air or simply jump out with a N-air gimp, both which have long lasting frames. Link also reaches much farther obviously which helps him more than you would think. Tink can actually be out reached by some normal characters which is pretty bad considering his jab is frame6.

Both have their strengths and weaknesses. But Tink can have a lot of trouble killing without the set-ups whereas most of Link's attacks ARE kill options.

 

[Blobface]

I will cede that Ganondorf doesn't have anywhere near the kind of top-level exposure, say, Ike or Pacman have. Not to say that he's some kind of sleeper that's miles better than them, but both needed top level exposure to really confirm their potential.

 

[Locke 06]

Kimidori is ranked 4 on the EWA power rankings, and has played this matchup extensively since he's in the same area as Vermanubis. You can see it quite obviously in the video, he almost never commits.Yet still, Verm beats him in both these sets, and while they were close, he still won both in two of Ganon's worst matchups against a player who knew exactly how to fight Ganon optimally. If Ganon was straight up useless against campy, careful play, this should have been impossible.

Now obviously EWA is not to my knowledge a stacked region. But for an idea of Verm's skill, Vermanubis has gone essentially even with Shiny, 5-5, a player who's taken a game off of ZeRo. And if we were to blame that on Lucario's clutch factor, that only supports Ganon even more.

Why are you talking about my region like you know what's going on?

Verm is in Eastern Oregon and doesn't attend EWA tourneys very often. Kimidori is mad inconsistent and is described as someone who "loses to nobodies as often as he takes top 3." He's a really campy Sheik, but that's not how you beat ganon. You have to camp him, suffocate him with frame data, and then gimp him. Why do you think Kimidori knows how exactly to fight Ganon optimally? Have you talked to him? According to Verm's post about his EWA tourneys, this was the first time he had beaten Kimidori (since he lists him as notable and does not list him under notable wins).

Shiny's a good player, but it's not like he's winning everything consistently or beating up on everyone in the region or in Seattle when he comes.

If Verm comes to Seattle and beats/goes even with Cacogen, then I think you'll have something to write home about in terms of Ganon vs Sheik.

Regarding Mega Man, I was actually looking at an old resource that had his jab, nair and ftilt all as f2 moves. Well, time to take him out.

Pellets come out on f7, 19, and 31 in a pellet string. They are f2 moves in the sense that if you start a pellet string and then press A on f18, you'll get the 2nd pellet on f19, but if you press A on f19, nothing will come out.

 

[FallofBrawl]

Ganon's fair and reverse aerial rushdown is probably the most underrated aspect of his neutral imo. Bair and pivot ftilts are great spacing tools as well as upair Usmash is safe on block with a ridiculous hitbox,Fair is safer on block and can be canceled into a special move out of full hops (I dont think it's possible to retreat with a reversed down b, but side b works). I don't think his neutral is as bad as it's made out to be. But man his advantaged state is overrated (except when your opponent is off stage or when I get a good look at their controller to see which way they tech the side-b)
I think the only thing Ganon really needs imo is a 5 frame jab and a less reaction-able f tilt, I don't care if it gets the damage decrease, make it like Ike's.

 

[Vipermoon]

There's a weird dissonance when I think of Marth's placement. I feel like he belongs in C- or C, but then I look at Lucina and I think that she's just about where she should be. This is followed by denying that there could be such a large gap between the two, so I've dealt with this by just keeping Marth where he is. Maybe I need to make the gap then.

Also I value killing reliability about as much as mobility in this game since it's proven to be just as important, and even then Marth's mobility is only above average. Bowser I don't think is terrible because he's basically Ganondorf with OoS options and a much easier time getting grabs (due to his grab range and running speed) with more reward out of them since his fthrow and bthrow kill and he has three throws that do 12% damage. His ftilt and dtilt are also actually good and the former is a very safe poke, much like how Ganondorf's dtilt is. Bowser's aerials are worse overall, but he has a better neutral game that he can also afford losing more than Ganondorf due to a better recovery and higher weight.

Roy was originally C+, but then I tried to look at where the game is ultimately going and I couldn't see how he ultimately functions that well at the top level. He does a ton of damage and his smashes kill early, but he has to go in and commit to get anything done because of his sword mechanics, and despite his speed his attacks and landings are laggy so as long as you abuse shield against him he can't close it out no matter how many times he grabs you until you hit like 150%+. His aerials aren't really that strong especially when the stronger hitboxes have effectively no range, but I think his speed is enough to carry him somewhat, just I don't see him doing better than Marth overall. Perhaps he's also a victim of the aforementioned Marth/Lucina dissonance in this way, and I need to move him up along with Marth.

Regarding Mega Man, I was actually looking at an old resource that had his jab, nair and ftilt all as f2 moves. Well, time to take him out. Pac-Man's frame data is pretty average, his total durations in particular, even if you take grabs out. Pikachu's landings don't matter because even if the numbers were low, he shouldn't land with his aerials due to the low range he has on them. It would always be a shieldgrab, unless something like nair had really low landing lag in which case it would be positive on shield vs shieldgrabs. I only have a list of average startup times when it comes to frame data though, not full durations, so the list may be a bit skewed. It's quite hard to look at frame data objectively when some moves simply shouldn't count to begin with, but then where do we draw the line? Some characters have 8 really fast and safe options while others have 1-3. Would be fun to make some kind of a criteria though, like jab, dash attack, fastest grab variation, 3 fastest aerials, 2 fastest smashes, 2 fastest tilts, and 2 fastest specials. This just because most characters usually have some laggy moves by design that never find any use and don't need to i.e. Falcon Punch and Ganondorf's utilt.

I'd really like to think Ganondorf is better than bottom and he might. I just can't picture how he gets things done at the very top level, and we've never seen it. He's the only superheavy who combines low ground speed, bad recovery, bad landing options and lack of kills out of grabs plus relative difficulty getting them due to his low ground speed and poor grab range. In fact he's the only superheavy who combines low ground speed and bad landing options period. He has some of the best individual moves in the game like dtilt, uair, bair, fair and dash attack, the problem is I don't see how he truly gets to utilize them. I feel like everytime Ganondorf wins it's because the opponent made x amount too many mistakes, and as the meta evolves this x will become consistently smaller.

Also one thing I forgot to emphasize is that look at the gaps between my tiers; there's only 4 separate ones and the difference between Marth and Ganondorf for instance is less than an actual tier.

Actually, when I say Marth I usually mean Marth & Lucina. But who wants to do that every time? There is no reason why there should be more than a tier between them (maybe two tiers in this case since yours is many small tiers). They are too similar for her to be that much worse. I agree the ability to end stocks is one of the most important things but she can usually make things work (usually because of Fsmash). People don't survive against Lucina quite as long as you see them surviving against some of the other characters.

In your tier list, I personally see Marth somewhere in C, Lucina as first in D+ or somewhere in C-. Roy..... he's tough to place but in my opinion he probably deserves C.

Edit: in tournament, a lot of my kills come from gimps and rage Uthrow. Lucina doesn't lack here.

 

[Steelballray]

Ike also loses to MK 6-4 imo, he is pretty easy to Uair combo and has a relatively wide range where it confirms into a kill. (inb4 but we outrange you so how will you get in?? )

Also Rosa is solo viable atm but once MKs bar Aba and Leo start getting optimal with their punishes, Rosa mains will be having a very hard time without a secondary to deal with him [on top of her other bad matchup(s)].

Meh. Pretty sure the Rosalina matchup isn't in MK's favor. Rosalina is way too janky and there are many stuff that MK has no answers to against her, like Luma's auto cancelled aerials for example (unless you do PSOS)

And if you're going to say that all our attacks take Luma out, no. That's only if the Rosa player decides to stay still. Making attacks clank so luma survive is not hard. The way falln plays against MK (setting Luma midrange) is really bad against MK and its basically like him screaming PLEASE KILL LUMA

I mean sure, if we are talking about that kind of play, its in MK's favor, but we are talking optimally here so ehhhhhh.

Edit: just to add more information, no attack we have beat her aerials, and I'm talking about Rosalina's aerials not Luma. You can drill rush her bair and her bair would win, and that's just an example. Our Uair combos have to be 100% perfect because if there is one frame window luma will act and destroy you when you are most vulnerable, and even when you do it perfectly, sometime with enough jank power luma can act and ***** slap you into the upper blastzone.

Rosalina is stupid as heck. You take luma out and think you can approach safely but she still have disjoints everywhere. also, stalling for 13 seconds is not hard. If anything, if the stage can be travelled below she will and thats like, 10 seconds wasted.

And even when it comes to killpower, the window for killing her early is very small, and if that window is closed than she have the better and safer killing power with disjointed aerials that autocancel and don't lag.

The arguments for why MK>Rosalina are the most straw-ish stuff ever and they disregard tons of stuff to the point that I really don't know if you guys are really ignornat to how stupid Rosalina is or just want to make a bad MU looks better so you can be less stressed.

 

[Rikkhan]

Since I like Trifoze design and placement I'll post mine (plz dont kill me):

A+:
A:
A-:
B+:
B:
B-:
C+:
C:
C-:
D+:
D:
D-:

Considerable changes
Ryu: The more I see Ryu the more broken it looks, he is probably better than Rosa because of his MU spread and silly kill combos but I guess is to soon to put him in #3 slot.

Falcon: Does anybody feel he is going down? As the meta progreses he is looking more and more in a worse spot, newcomers ike and Ryu both beat falcon imo 6:4 or even worse.

Marth: Just like Aura that makes lucario better than half of the cast, Marth tipper pushes marth outside of low tier, he also has good mobility, good edgeguard, and that insane game changer that is rage + tipper Fsmash.

Shulk: I think he is not terrible the thing is that he requires a lot of effort to be good and at the end this is to much work for just lackluster results.

Little mac: Just like marth his "cheese" factor is enough to keep him away from bottom 5.

 

[Jehtt]

I'm not really sure where this idea that Mega Man gets destroyed by Zero Suit Samus came from. It really isn't that bad of an MU. He still has a slight disadvantage of course, but it is only that; slight. Mega Man's general gameplan makes it harder for ZSS to get grabs and he isn't as susceptible to Up B shenanigans because he has a small frame. He's also heavy enough that he can survive a lot of Up B shenanigans should they connect.

I'd go into a lot more detail but I'd actually like to page Locke 06 for this one. He has a lot of MU experience and can probably say anything I'm thinking but better.