Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Vipermoon]

One thing that I disagree with about most tier lists is how low Little Mac is always rated.

IMO, he's in the 25th-35th area. From what I've seen from the best Mac's is that they can avoid going off-stage entirely from the pure stage control Mac forces (of course it's MU dependent). Even when they do go off-stage, it is more likely than not that they will make it back safely (this is also a shoutout to how crappy we are at edgeguards atm but that's besides the point right now).

The kill power, mobility, every aspect of his frame data, kill setups, damage, god-tier normals, and armored smashes are too much of a factor here. He's so slept on.

 

[Trifroze]

I think Falcon will do fine, he never really showed up in top 16s a lot except in Japan, and in fact it's been picking up in America in the past few months mostly due to Fatality attending more tournaments. Also, even though I think he's amazing and would probably body me in a ditto, he relies on dash grab too much. Since 1.1.1, dtilt (in particular), ftilt, utilt and dair are safe on shield and falling uair can't be shieldgrabbed before Falcon's jab comes out, so I think his neutral has gotten more complex and options like dtilt and falling dair are actually worth going for now. Everyone just knows how to play against Falcon, but eventually other less popular characters will reach this status as well. Hell, ZSS still keeps getting kills she shouldn't be getting because people are DI'ing her up b wrong.

I think Falcon will always be a sort of gatekeeper and I might even move him up +1 on my list. His matchup vs Ike seems fine, they're both pretty lethal but the other has speed and the other has a sword. They wreck each other's recoveries, and while Ike has a more viable side b it's very easy to dair him out of his up b if he has to recover from very deep. At the same time, Falcon's recover isn't a free gimp by Ike's neutral b unless he has to recover from far away, but in that scenario you've earned your kill vs Falcon regardless.

RE: Mac, I play vs a very good Mac consistently and we go pretty even, yet you just have to play it unlike any other matchup in the game and lame him out as much as you can. Abuse shield and punish everything, and when your shield is about to break run away. Throwing Mac offstage is not a free gimp but it's literally a 50:50 from there whether you read his airdodge/counter right or wrong, as he has to keep moving forward and can't stall when he's offstage. You just have to chase him, make the correct read and hit him once. Preferably do this well before he gets KO punch on any given stock, but if you can't then you have to play super safe, run away and zone him out. It's still much more likely that you hit him with anything that knocks him in the air before he hits you with a move that has to be used right next to you. Mac is by no means a helpless character, but in my opinion he's still among the worst with good reason.

 

[Djent]

Top groupings (IMO and unordered):

Spoiler

S
A+
A
A-

No characters included here will surprise you (it's basically everyone else's top 15ish picks lol), but some of the labels and groupings might. I think it will be very important for characters to not have green in their default palette match up well against the top-ranked characters going forward. If you beat or go even with at least two of them, you're in good shape. OTOH if you don't (or if you have a really rough MU vs. even just one of them) you're in for a bad time.

 

[bc1910]

Trifroze move Greninja and the Pits to the top of B and you've got a workable list. They shouldn't be below Peach or Lucario, both have better results and more impressive MUs. If Greninja does go +1 against Mario, Villager, Peach and Pac-Man as people have said, and maybe even ZSS, I don't think he can justifiably be below top 20.

Djent I agree with all your picks, you've got a top 14 with the exact same characters as me lol. I'd swap Ryu and Sonic and bump Rosa up but still, looks good.

 

[Jehtt]

Trifroze If Greninja does go +1 against Mario, Villager, Peach and Pac-Man as people have said, and maybe even ZSS, I don't think he can justifiably be below top 20.

I refuse to believe that Greninja beats Mario. I admit that I don't know a ton about the frog but doesn't he have a ton of properties that Mario exploits really hard? Specifically, he falls quickly so he's combo food, and he has poor OOS options so Mario can pressure him easily in those situations. His recovery also doesn't have a hitbox so isn't it feasible that Mario could cape him?
I also refuse to believe he beats ZSS for similar reasons. He's pretty tall, right? I'd imagine ZSS's Up B shenanigans catch him pretty easily.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

I refuse to believe that Greninja beats Mario. I admit that I don't know a ton about the frog but doesn't he have a ton of properties that Mario exploits really hard? Specifically, he falls quickly so he's combo food, and he has poor OOS options so Mario can pressure him easily in those situations. His recovery also doesn't have a hitbox so isn't it feasible that Mario could cape him?
I also refuse to believe he beats ZSS for similar reasons. He's pretty tall, right? I'd imagine ZSS's Up B shenanigans catch him pretty easily.

Greninja is actually one of the shortest characters in the game in a neutral and dashing stance due to his position when standing / running. I think ZSS might struggle w/ him slightly because of that.

 

[bc1910]

Various Mario mains and players in this thread have said they feel Mario struggles with Greninja. You can have a look through this thread for their reasoning. Boils down to Greninja's high range and mobility giving Mario trouble because he walls him out, runs away and is hard to hit.

On ZSS, Shadow Sneak hitstun cancel means she literally cannot kill him with Boost Kick.

You should see our MU thread for the full discussion but the jist of it is, it plays similarly to the Sheik MU where Greninja can out-neutral her but he's also heavier and kills ZSS more easily than Sheik does (ZSS can typically flip jump out of all Sheik's 50/50s past a lower percent than they usually stop working). Being unkillable with her main kill move (read: ZSS cannot kill Greninja from her grab until Dthrow Uair/Fair/Bair starts to work) also kinda sweetens the deal.

None of these assertions are coming from Greninja mains by the way, Mario and ZSS mains are talking about this.

 

[Jehtt]

Shadow Sneak is pretty laggy. Wouldn't ZSS just be able to bait it out and then Up B Greninja from there? It's way easier to punish than an air dodge because it is reactable and laggier.

What exactly are you walling Mario out with?

I don't mean to be blunt but are there any actually notable Mario or ZSS mains who have commented on the matchups? MU discussion threads aren't generally very useful for ratios because the players who comment there tend to be low to mid-level.

Maybe I just underestimate Greninja but beating two of the best characters in the game + various other high tiers would make him way better than than he's proving to be in the current meta-game. I looked at that matchup thread and it seems ridiculous to say that his only MU below 45:55 is Sheik. That would be the MU spread of a top tier character, which Greninja clearly is not.

 

[bc1910]

How will baiting it out help? He can Shadow Sneak out of Boost Kick on reaction to being hit by it. You can bait it out, and he just Shadow Sneaks out whenever you do hit him. It's not like baiting an airdodge, you are literally escaping hitstun.

I'd say HeroMystic and ZoZo (for ZSS) are pretty notable. So is DunnoBro though he's not a Mario main. They could probably explain why Mario struggles better than I.

In short you do underestimate him. He is proving to be a top threat in Europe (istudying wins nearly everything he attends lately, and Greninja's big in France) and pretty effective in Japan. It's just in the US where nobody plays him. So whilst it might seem strange for him to have such a good MU spread it's entirely possible for his spread to be this good.

But then I have a lot of vision for the character.

 

[Trifroze]

Trifroze move Greninja and the Pits to the top of B and you've got a workable list. They shouldn't be below Peach or Lucario, both have better results and more impressive MUs.

My list isn't based on results, hence ZSS being #2 for example, but...they do?

 

[warionumbah2]

Boost kick has multiple hits before the finisher, the greninja user can roll his or her face on the controller and they'll get it most of the time(probably ALL the time).

 

[TriTails]

Can we talk spotdodges?

When Mario dashes and spotdodges, he slides.
When Luigi dashes and spotdodges, he stops immediately.

What gives? There's no way a character with 0.024 value of traction can't do that. I mean, Mario has nearly DOUBLE of that traction. But wut.

 

[bc1910]

My list isn't based on results, hence ZSS being #2 for example, but...they do?

In that case Greninja is definitely too low IMO.

Peach has SlayerZ and kinda Dark.Pch (doesn't go to much) but I'm not aware of any worldwide presence. I haven't seen Lucario do anything notable in a long time. Pit performs consistently well thanks to Earth and others, as does Greninja with Some and istudying.

 

[Wintropy]

Top groupings (IMO and unordered):

Spoiler

S
A+
A
A-

No characters included here will surprise you (it's basically everyone else's top 15ish picks lol), but some of the labels and groupings might. I think it will be very important for characters to not have green in their default palette match up well against the top-ranked characters going forward. If you beat or go even with at least two of them, you're in good shape. OTOH if you don't (or if you have a really rough MU vs. even just one of them) you're in for a bad time.

Pit goes even (or near enough to matter) with most of the characters here. He doesn't necessarily beat any of them (he might beat Mario, maybe Falcon depending on the nature of the matchup, some people think he beats Diddy and Ness might be a special case where a very good Pit can shut down most of what Ness can do), but none of these characters make him sweat. I think he struggles a bit with Sheik, ZSS and Sonic, maybe Meta Knight and Rosie if it's vanilla Pit instead of Dark Pit, but none of these are very bad matchups. Everything here is doable. Not fun, but doable.

Palutena...ehhhh, maybe she just about kinda beats doesn't get bodied by Villager? Maybe~? Kind of irrelevant either way, because she's got a hell of a time with ZSS, Fox, Sonic and MK.

Can we talk spotdodges?

When Mario dashes and spotdodges, he slides.
When Luigi dashes and spotdodges, he stops immediately.

What gives? There's no way a character with 0.024 value of traction can't do that. I mean, Mario has nearly DOUBLE of that traction. But wut.

I just presumed it's because of his weak traction. Sort of a dead man's switch in case he wants to stop mid-run.

I don't know if there's any practical application to it, but that's just my theory. I might be wrong.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

So out of the last 3 tier lists posted in this thread 2 have Mario above Diddy Kong, one has him above Sonic and all of them have him above Fox.

... what's wrong with you guys?

 

[Wintropy]

So out of the last 3 tier lists posted in this thread 2 have Mario above Diddy Kong, one have him above Sonic and all of them have him above Fox.

... what's wrong with you guys?

This is the one that intrigued me the most. I can't see Diddy as anything but a great character, he's still taking names well after the nerf (and subsequent re-buff) to his kit. The fact that his meta advanced so quickly in the Hoo-Hah era is a big help. Even as a devoted Mario optimist, I don't think he has anything close to that.

 

[Megamang]

People keep saying pika doesnt have landing options from aerials... He may not be mario or Ryu, but he got a lot better at it in 1.1.1. fair is now a good landing tool, given decent timing and control on pikas part. Properly timed it can be +1 on shield drop stuff. If autocancel'd nair is laggy, but its frame 3 so you can win some odd landing situations reactively due to the mixup of nair or just landing and grabbing... or, as always, quick attack. You can also do a late fair ; if successful, it sets up into grabs or high damage ftilt kills.

For someone giving chase at high percent, you can b reverse a tjolt and trip them and be right on them for followup. This is risky but works on obvious reads (oh, fox is running towards me at 90%)

 

[Trifroze]

In that case Greninja is definitely too low IMO.

Peach has SlayerZ and kinda Dark.Pch (doesn't go to much) but I'm not aware of any worldwide presence. I haven't seen Lucario do anything notable in a long time. Pit performs consistently well thanks to Earth and others, as does Greninja with Some and istudying.

You forget Umeki, who has quite consistent results with Peach in Japan. I suppose Greninja and possibly Pit could be higher though, but there's nothing right now that convinces me of either of them being above Peach, mostly the same level. Greninja has mobility, a great dash grab, a great projectile and some neat setups and combos, but his frame data, damage output, kill power and grab game leave a lot to be desired. I hate desperately trying to tie things together somehow, but in this case it works, and so I'll say that Peach is basically the opposite of that.

Pit is....solid (´◔ ‿ゝ◔`)

Any reason Pit and Dark Pit shouldn't be right next to each other? The specials create some difference but is it big enough that some characters would happen to go right inbetween?

 

[Wintropy]

Any reason Pit and Dark Pit shouldn't be right next to each other? The specials create some difference but is it big enough that some characters would happen to go right inbetween?

No.

Except for three moves (neutral-b, side-b and f-tilt), everything is the same. Dark Pit's side-b is better for certain matchups than Pit's (Rosalina especially) and his arrows and f-tilt don't have the same kind of immediate use, but other than that, they're fundamentally the exact same character.

 

[TriTails]

Pit goes even (or near enough to matter) with most of the characters here. He doesn't necessarily beat any of them (he might beat Mario, maybe Falcon depending on the nature of the matchup, some people think he beats Diddy and Ness might be a special case where a very good Pit can shut down most of what Ness can do), but none of these characters make him sweat. I think he struggles a bit with Sheik, ZSS and Sonic, maybe Meta Knight and Rosie if it's vanilla Pit instead of Dark Pit, but none of these are very bad matchups. Everything here is doable. Not fun, but doable.

Palutena...ehhhh, maybe she just about kinda beats doesn't get bodied by Villager? Maybe~? Kind of irrelevant either way, because she's got a hell of a time with ZSS, Fox, Sonic and MK.



I just presumed it's because of his weak traction. Sort of a dead man's switch in case he wants to stop mid-run.

I don't know if there's any practical application to it, but that's just my theory. I might be wrong.

Eh, shields exist. There's no need to lock you half a second while doing nothing unless they go for a dashgrab.

Besides, I can see sliding spotdodge be a buff to Luigi's approach game, how big it is depends on how far he slides. This can mean he can slide through projectiles, so he isn't going to be camped out as easily.

IDK. Ally use sliding spotdodge from time to time and I hella envy the ability. Let our traction be useful for one thing for once plz T_T.

 

[Megamang]

If he could slide dodge he'd be better vs zoning. Back when his throw was stupid, this luigi would be a huge problem for a lot of the cast. I can see it now, but i definitely see why it wasnt included...

Imagine if he kept sliding after rolls too

 

[meleebrawler]

RE: Mac, I play vs a very good Mac consistently and we go pretty even, yet you just have to play it unlike any other matchup in the game and lame him out as much as you can. Abuse shield and punish everything, and when your shield is about to break run away. Throwing Mac offstage is not a free gimp but it's literally a 50:50 from there whether you read his airdodge/counter right or wrong, as he has to keep moving forward and can't stall when he's offstage. You just have to chase him, make the correct read and hit him once. Preferably do this well before he gets KO punch on any given stock, but if you can't then you have to play super safe, run away and zone him out. It's still much more likely that you hit him with anything that knocks him in the air before he hits you with a move that has to be used right next to you. Mac is by no means a helpless character, but in my opinion he's still among the worst with good reason.

Unlike Mewtwo, who can stall pretty much anywhere he wants offstage because his airspeed is great and second jump is huge, heck it's not even necessary to use most of the time.

He's also the kind of character you usually have to approach instead of the other way around, what with the threat of a charging projectile and a reflector that deflects others. And he has the range and disjoints needed to pull this off.

Yet with his good mobility he's not helpless when he has to approach either.

 

[Radical Larry]

Trifroze I kind of dislike your Link placement due to the fact that he's the most middle tiered character anyone can get in the game. He has doable MUs and even great ones compared to Toon Link, and does even with Sheik, someone Toon Link gets countered by. I like your tier list, but Link at least needs to be above Lucas or around the 25 to 27 spot.

Also, got any explanation to why the Miis aren't there? I'm not sure if I've seen it.

@Blobface In terms of Ganondorf, I don't see why people can't be threatening shields and opponents as much with a Retreating SH B-Air, which lets Ganondorf get away from characters and pokes their shields. His B-Air is safe on shield because it comes out fast and has low landing lag (fast if you think about it being one of Ganondorf's aerials).

 

[momochuu]

illusion does well in texas as well

damage output, kill power

lol what in the world. greninja actually does a little too much damage imo.

 

[bc1910]

You forget Umeki, who has quite consistent results with Peach in Japan. I suppose Greninja and possibly Pit could be higher though, but there's nothing right now that convinces me of either of them being above Peach, mostly the same level. Greninja has mobility, a great dash grab, a great projectile and some neat setups and combos, but his frame data, damage output, kill power and grab game leave a lot to be desired. I hate desperately trying to tie things together somehow, but in this case it works, and so I'll say that Peach is basically the opposite of that.

Pit is....solid (´◔ ‿ゝ◔`)

Any reason Pit and Dark Pit shouldn't be right next to each other? The specials create some difference but is it big enough that some characters would happen to go right inbetween?

I don't really aim to convince you otherwise but I just can't help but defend some of those points...

Greninja's damage output is very, very good (everything combos into a 14 damage Fair, airdodge traps into a 19% Up Smash, long low % footstool combos and chains) and his grab game is fine. He has two combo throws which true combo at low percent and 50/50 at high percent including 50/50 kill setups. Kill power isn't great I agree but it's better than a sizeable chunk of the cast including characters around him like Pit. Various 50/50s including one from Dthrow, fast Fsmash and Usmash, and he does have a lot of kill confirms, they're just not safe on block. Uthrow kills Mario at 160 with no rage so he falls back on that if he can't find the KO. And his frame data is fine outside Nair and Fair (crucially he has good frame data on his tilts and jab) though I concede Nair and Fair are important moves to have good frame data on so that assertion's not totally wrong.

I think the differences between Pit and Dark Pit would be enough to separate them a little now, yes. At the very least there's no justification for listing them together on a tier list any more. Pit is quite clearly better and I think DP's arrows being worse for edgeguarding is big, as is the worse launch angle on his Side B (makes it easier to survive) and weaker Ftilt. Pit is already a character who struggles to KO and 3 of his decent KO options (I'm counting arrow edgeguards as being a KO option) are significantly worse on Dark Pit.

I could see Pit being better than Peach but Peach being better than DP, for example. They'd still only be like 1 or 2 spots apart but the difference is there now.

 

[Trifroze]

RE: why is Mario above Diddy and Fox

I considered Diddy better than Mario for a long time, but I don't think it was ever that clear cut. To be honest Diddy has to work pretty hard for stocks, he kills with smashes that aren't particularly strong, and he doesn't get that much off of throws either. Bananas are essentially his projectile but they can also be used against him quite easily by shielding and z catching them, and some characters can get quite a lot more out of banana confirms than Diddy himself when they do happen to get their hands on one.

I can't say Mario clearly has that much more going for him either, but as a ZSS player I feel his pressure can be pretty ridiculous due to his aerial mobility, frame data and rising shorthop game. He can also just up smash over and over and if he gets to charge it for even a little bit before landing the front hit on your shield, you don't even have the time to punish him with a dash attack before he gets to continue his Mario ****

Fox I also don't feel has that much going for him compared to the characters around him. He's really fast, does a lot of damage and has amazing ground game and CQC but also takes a lot of damage, struggles offstage and can't do much about shields. That balances him out pretty effectively in my eyes, and I don't think he has that easy of a time getting kills once you look past up smash (because it's a very unsafe ground move). I'm open on him though, as well as Diddy, and would like to get a clearer reasoning on how to order these characters.

Greninja's damage output is very, very good (everything combos into a 14 damage Fair, airdodge traps into a 19% Up Smash, long low % footstool combos and chains) and his grab game is fine. He has two combo throws which true combo at low percent and 50/50 at high percent including 50/50 kill setups. Kill power isn't great I agree but it's better than a sizeable chunk of the cast including characters around him like Pit. Various 50/50s including one from Dthrow, fast Fsmash and Usmash, and he does have a lot of kill confirms, they're just not safe on block. Uthrow kills Mario at 160 with no rage so he falls back on that if he can't find the KO. And his frame data is fine outside Nair and Fair (crucially he has good frame data on his tilts and jab) though I concede Nair and Fair are important moves to have good frame data on so that assertion's not totally wrong.

I mean if you look at the biggest combos Greninja can pull off and sweetspotted up smash then yeah, he does damage, but if you look at his damage per hit and the stuff that's guaranteed and realistic to pull off after low-mid percents then it's among the lowest in the game unless smashes, nair and fair is all you'll be connecting. His pummel is slow for the damage as well. I'm not going to pretend I know more than the basics about Greninja though.

Trifroze I kind of dislike your Link placement due to the fact that he's the most middle tiered character anyone can get in the game. He has doable MUs and even great ones compared to Toon Link, and does even with Sheik, someone Toon Link gets countered by. I like your tier list, but Link at least needs to be above Lucas or around the 25 to 27 spot.

Also, got any explanation to why the Miis aren't there? I'm not sure if I've seen it.

I thought I'm being pretty fair to Link. Toon Link is higher than him because of bomb to fair/uair setups, higher speed, better rising aerials and a more potent kill throw. Link has some stuff over Toon Link like his ftilt which I only recently realized was one of the best tilts in the game because it's super safe on shield and kills at 120%-130% center stage. It's essentially an unpunishable, below average strength fsmash. Dtilt is also better than Toon Link's since it's very safe and has a lot of range and damage. TL has speed and combos, Link has range and damage, but ultimately TL works better in my opinion.

 

[bc1910]

Lowest in the game? Nair and Fair are two of his safest pokes and Usmash will catch any airdodge or bad landing so yes, it's reasonable to hit with a lot of those. Any Nair up to like 100% true combos into Usmash (mid percent) for 30% or Fair (any percent) for 25%.

His damage per hit is better than many characters above him like Sheik, Pika and Mario. He has less combo potential than them overall, but at mid-high percents Mario and Sheik have the same problem. Sheik reaches the point where she doesn't get much besides throw to aerial, tilt to aerial, or Fair/Nair to BF. Mario struggles to get much besides Dthrow Uair. Greninja shouldn't be singled out there.

On occasion the reads just don't go your way and you'll struggle to hit with anything but shurikens and dashgrab. I used to have that issue. But the more you play the character the less that becomes a problem. The shuriken buff also greatly improved his ability to punish overly defensive play, essentially by just running away and throwing **** to force approaches or at least reactions.

If you watch some high level gameplay from like Some or istudying, you'll see they have no trouble keeping up with the damage output of the top tiers. Even in sets they lose, it's never a whitewash. It's usually down to having more trouble getting the KO, which is a separate issue.

 

[David Viran]

Various Mario mains and players in this thread have said they feel Mario struggles with Greninja. You can have a look through this thread for their reasoning. Boils down to Greninja's high range and mobility giving Mario trouble because he walls him out, runs away and is hard to hit.

On ZSS, Shadow Sneak hitstun cancel means she literally cannot kill him with Boost Kick.

You should see our MU thread for the full discussion but the jist of it is, it plays similarly to the Sheik MU where Greninja can out-neutral her but he's also heavier and kills ZSS more easily than Sheik does (ZSS can typically flip jump out of all Sheik's 50/50s past a lower percent than they usually stop working). Being unkillable with her main kill move (read: ZSS cannot kill Greninja from her grab until Dthrow Uair/Fair/Bair starts to work) also kinda sweetens the deal.

None of these assertions are coming from Greninja mains by the way, Mario and ZSS mains are talking about this.

The death combo only killed from the ground with no other factors was when near the side blast zone. He's still not completely to the death combo in conditions like rage, use of platforms, on delfino, and halberd. It is annoying tho.

 

[LancerStaff]

Can we talk spotdodges?

When Mario dashes and spotdodges, he slides.
When Luigi dashes and spotdodges, he stops immediately.

What gives? There's no way a character with 0.024 value of traction can't do that. I mean, Mario has nearly DOUBLE of that traction. But wut.

I believe every grounded action is either flagged to slide or not slide. For example, Pit's Jab 1 and Utilt slide, but his Dtilt won't. Then Mewtwo only slides with his Dtilt. (Well, both slide with Usmash. I imagine everybody's Usmash slides.)

I think the differences between Pit and Dark Pit would be enough to separate them a little now, yes. At the very least there's no justification for listing them together on a tier list any more. Pit is quite clearly better and I think DP's arrows being worse for edgeguarding is big, as is the worse launch angle on his Side B (makes it easier to survive) and weaker Ftilt. Pit is already a character who struggles to KO and 3 of his decent KO options (I'm counting arrow edgeguards as being a KO option) are significantly worse on Dark Pit.

I could see Pit being better than Peach but Peach being better than DP, for example. They'd still only be like 1 or 2 spots apart but the difference is there now.

We didn't start grouping the two together because they're right next to each other (I'm pretty sure I came up with the idea and I don't think I ever thought they were close), we did it because Dark Pit isn't worth measuring as a separate character. I mean... Three, no, four moves are different between the two of them, and one's presumably because they forgot to buff Dark Pit. Might as well give Zelda and 1112 (IIRC, the Dspecial custom anyway) Zelda separate tier slots if you're going to separate them. (Well, nobody really uses customs anymore but you get what I mean.)

 

[Trifroze]

Related to up b not working, I think Ike may be an even or a disadvantageous matchup for ZSS as well because up b is very unreliable on him. He doesn't bounce out of it, instead he very often just gently drops before the last hit and usually gets a fair or a bair on you. Roy is the same, but he doesn't have anything as threatening to hit you with once he falls out. Maybe there are some other ZSS or Ike mains here that have also noted this. This happens on every character, but on Ike it seems to happen literally more than up b actually connecting properly or at least popping him out in a way that you can safely land afterwards.

There's also quite little ZSS can do on Ike's up b recovery, or I just haven't found anything reliable so far. Ike's rising aerials and his good hitboxes also seem effective at countering Zero Suit's aerial game. Missed grabs are also deadly and at the very least warrant a dash attack punish from Ike which can kill ZSS at 70% near the ledge if Ike has rage.

 

[bc1910]

I believe every grounded action is either flagged to slide or not slide. For example, Pit's Jab 1 and Utilt slide, but his Dtilt won't. Then Mewtwo only slides with his Dtilt. (Well, both slide with Usmash. I imagine everybody's Usmash slides.)



We didn't start grouping the two together because they're right next to each other (I'm pretty sure I came up with the idea and I don't think I ever thought they were close), we did it because Dark Pit isn't worth measuring as a separate character. I mean... Three, no, four moves are different between the two of them, and one's presumably because they forgot to buff Dark Pit. Might as well give Zelda and 1112 (IIRC, the Dspecial custom anyway) Zelda separate tier slots if you're going to separate them. (Well, nobody really uses customs anymore but you get what I mean.)

But if you don't think they're close isn't that even less justification to group them together?

 

[LancerStaff]

But if you don't think they're close isn't that even less justification to group them together?

Myself? No. If Dark Pit's arrows were buffed to, oh say, lightly spike people they'd be further separated and yet that'd move him up the tier list closer to Pit.

Basically, distance on the tier list =/= distance in playstyle or use. And Dark Pit's actual use in the meta is being a light counterpick against Rosalina for Pit players, so yeah.

 

[TriTails]

If he could slide dodge he'd be better vs zoning. Back when his throw was stupid, this luigi would be a huge problem for a lot of the cast. I can see it now, but i definitely see why it wasnt included...

Imagine if he kept sliding after rolls too

Eh, I can see it being a reasonable buff because his throw game is less stupid now.

And Luigi is one of the worst character you'd ever pick against strong zoning-based characters/players. He has the complete pack of weaknesses to screw him over vs zoning.

Bad mobility (ERESPID).
Lowest traction (HUGE gap vs Charizard).
Shooort range.
No reflects.

Most of the cast has at least one of these weaknesses, too. The stupid thing is: Luigi has all of them. Can't at least a sliding dodge be reasonable? Don't worry he ain't gonna KO you very well anymore with frame 6 or 8 moves. Pre-patch this buff would be damn stupid but I can actually see it now. Although, just take care not to overbuff it because the 2nd best CQC fighter is also his title.

And sliding rolls exist?

 

[Trifroze]

Myself? No. If Dark Pit's arrows were buffed to, oh say, lightly spike people they'd be further separated and yet that'd move him up the tier list closer to Pit.

Basically, distance on the tier list =/= distance in playstyle or use. And Dark Pit's actual use in the meta is being a light counterpick against Rosalina for Pit players, so yeah.

To be fair tier lists mainly measure the potential and the abilities of characters in the meta, not their usage in the meta. Competitive usage is one of the things tier lists can reflect, but it's not a criteria for building them.

Not directly related, but results are so important to tier lists because they can confirm viability or conversely suggest viability to be less and less likely, making the lists more accurate. There's a fine line between that and getting biased by the results caused by purely player related reasons though.

 

[Locke 06]

There's also quite little ZSS can do on Ike's up b recovery, or I just haven't found anything reliable so far.

She should be able to just flip kick above where he's going to be and then spike him, no? Or at least airdodge to get behind him and then BAir/back hit of uair>whatever.

Aether is pretty abusable.

 

[Trifroze]

She should be able to just flip kick above where he's going to be and then spike him, no? Or at least airdodge to get behind him and then BAir/back hit of uair>whatever.

Aether is pretty abusable.

I mean yeah, flip kick might even be reliable and back air works for sure. In my mind I was comparing to Falcon who can just dair and kill Ike out of it but maybe that's an unfair standard to set.

 

[bc1910]

Myself? No. If Dark Pit's arrows were buffed to, oh say, lightly spike people they'd be further separated and yet that'd move him up the tier list closer to Pit.

Basically, distance on the tier list =/= distance in playstyle or use. And Dark Pit's actual use in the meta is being a light counterpick against Rosalina for Pit players, so yeah.

Utterly confused.

I thought you were saying you don't think the characters are close in terms of how good they are. Which would separate them further on a tier list.

 

[Dabuz]

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.

As long as his most reliable zoning tool (pellets) do 1-2 damage and have no hitstun and his advantageous state isn't particularly scary, he's gonna remain where he is.

 

[LancerStaff]

To be fair tier lists mainly measure the potential and the abilities of characters in the meta, not their usage in the meta. Competitive usage is one of the things tier lists can reflect, but it's not a criteria for building them.

Not directly related, but results are so important to tier lists because they can confirm viability or conversely suggest viability to be less and less likely, making the lists more accurate. There's a fine line between that and getting biased by the results caused by purely player related reasons though.

Yeah I get that... But it messes with the statistics when people ignore one in a matchup for the other. Especially once you start dealing with low tiers because their recoveries are often Electroshock bait.

Utterly confused.

I thought you were saying you don't think the characters are close in terms of how good they are. Which would separate them further on a tier list.

I was making an example... If Dark Pit were to get something different from Pit and were a real buff they'd end up closer in tiers but farther in gameplay.

 

[Y2Kay]

As long as his most reliable zoning tool (pellets) do 1-2 damage and have no hitstun and his advantageous state isn't particularly scary, he's gonna remain where he is.

Aerial pellets actually have some stun to them. Just wanna mention that. Ur probably still right tho.