Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[David Viran]

Umm is this legit way to escape cloud's limit break side b or is it just a fluke?

https://twitter.com/SolidStrato/status/705553378407886848

 

[Y2Kay]

I have heard time beating Cloud with greninja, but it's probably because I suck

the matchup is probably even tho, I haven't really had the time to develop any counterplay yet.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Umm is this legit way to escape cloud's limit break side b or is it just a fluke?

https://twitter.com/SolidStrato/status/705553378407886848

Bah I can't slow it down to see exactly what happened but, some of the hits you can dodge between. I'm gueeeessing he airdodge just right to dodge the first hit, and then rolled between hits that have enough time between them where you can do so.

 

[ARISTOS]

Unfortunately many people in the smash community seem to have the mindset of Results > Theory. My issue with this is that there are too many outside factors that can play into a characters results:

Overall health of the player

skill level of the player in comparison to their opponent

lack of representation for ______(insert character here)

lack of competition in smaller/non-major tourneys

Ive always wondered what kind of results some of the other top/high tier characters would have if they had a player like Zero backing them up. Zero's diddy beating every sheik he runs into. No other diddy main has accomplished what Zeros diddy has. Same goes for Ranai and villager. No other villager player comes close to the level of accomplishments of Ranais villager. Also, villager is considered top tier in many japanese tier list while in America he rose up on the tier list (still high tier) only after Ranais performance at G3.

Theres just too many outside factors that come into play when looking at a characters results

Yeah, Results should drive theory, because doing otherwise means we're failing to take into account new information, or possibly old information that we're missing.

I'm typing up a post about how we use results/ the ways numbers can lie and how we need to be careful about the results we use; however I am in firm belief that holding onto theory despite evidence to the contrary is similar to dogmatism. Like in other facets of life, evidence based approaches should be how we take things into account.

 

[David Viran]

Bah I can't slow it down to see exactly what happened but, some of the hits you can dodge between. I'm gueeeessing he airdodge just right to dodge the first hit, and then rolled between hits that have enough time between them where you can do so.

Well he definitely was hit by the first hit and then then he immediately did what looks like a tech. He definitely did not incur the landing lag from an AD.

 

[Smog Frog]

i noticed he did a down air, then was hit by the cross slash.

maybe he sdi downwards?

 

[Fatmanonice]

To be honest, it doesn't sound like the Cloud is the problem. I doubt the player was that good if you're switching between a whopping four characters and getting away with it.

I used eight the whole tournament: . I KNOW! I KNOW! It's a terrible practice but this is the first time I've gone to a local tournament and actually dropped a set so the habit is miserably burned into me. This is just the reality of living in Pigfart, Flyover State when you're lucky if 20 people show up for a local tournament.

I dunno. I'm such a Nintendo fanboy that I have a hard time dedicating myself to 1-2 characters. Plus, I'm freakin' 28. If I was a racing horse, I'd probably be a couple of months away from being taken out back and shot because people my age usually RETIRE from competitive gaming around this time while I've gotten more into it because I'm unemployed and using my winnings to buy groceries. I'm just looking for advice about Cloud, not hoping to go to EVO.

 

[C0rvus]

Cloud is like Pikachu and Fox, you cannot take the easy road against them. Just have to learn the matchup and outplay the player. Taking a page out of Reflex's book, I took the time to practice spacing and counterpoking against a high level Cloud bot. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think it helped.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I used eight the whole tournament: . I KNOW! I KNOW! It's a terrible practice but this is the first time I've gone to a local tournament and actually dropped a set so the habit is miserably burned into me. This is just the reality of living in Pigfart, Flyover State when you're lucky if 20 people show up for a local tournament.

You're in better shape than I am tournament wise: I'm lucky if 15 people show up, and only 2 can really compete with me. Next biggest scene is like 45 minutes away with maybe 25 people of which I'd say about 4 are competition for me. And only 1 set up in both locations. Biggest tournament we've had besides the "SSB4 Wii U just launched!" tournament had people from the second location come over for a doubles tournament. Had about 30 people total, but it was doubles only. With one set up.

@ Cloud thing: could be, people aren't exploring SDI much in general. Would be worth looking into SDIing the first hit/second hit downwards and then teching out of there before the big hit.

 

[Lavani]

Umm is this legit way to escape cloud's limit break side b or is it just a fluke?

https://twitter.com/SolidStrato/status/705553378407886848

The first two hits are autolink and he was at the top of the move, so he got spiked and was able to tech. It's only going to work if you're being hit by the move in a very specific way.

rage might also be necessary

 

[Mario766]

I'm not even upset that ESAM put it as a 6-4. Everyone does it.


His words though, are legit


TRIGGERING

ME

It's as farfetched as him saying Pikachu goes even with MK back in Brawl.

 

[HFlash]

Pika is probably not beating 60:40. A slight advantage is definitely believable seeing ESAM's record against Nairo and seeing the pressure Pika puts on ZSS, but ZSS's kill power, N-air and general range are way too good for Pika to have that much of an advantage.

The big thing is that (similar to Falcon) Pika can stay avoid alot of ZSS' neutral game (particularly nair)

I wonder what makes ESAM think greninja and fox are winning match ups even though he lost to istudying and got man handled by Larry Lurr in the grudge match.

A good player beating a good player doesn't necessarily reflect a MU. ESAM has said himself that recently he isn't playing consistently, losing to random players.

Marth depending on his spacing has two option trees he can follow. He can poke you out for better reward if you are at tipper distance OR with closer spacing more follow ups become available and he actually has tighter traps due to less hitlag.

He LITERALLY has twice the depth of his descendant.

That alone isn't enough to merit a huge gap in the tier list between the two characters. Sure Marth is better, but let's not jump the gun.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Marth vs Lucina is so damn pointless.

Her meta has a definitive cap and she will never outperform Marth or any other FE rep.

There..I just **** on every waifu scumlords parade.

You're welcome.

 

[Jehtt]

Her meta has a definitive cap and she will never outperform Marth or any other FE rep.

I'm not a believer in Lucina, but do you want to give any actual reasons? Other participants in this discussion have brought up legitimate advantages of Lucina, such as her Fair and Bair being more reliable and consistent for killing. You have not argued anything, but still speak as if your word is law.

 

[Kofu]

Here's the way I see it.

Lucina is consistent. This isn't a bad thing. She has to worry less about spacing (not that she should ignore it though, she's got a sword and should play like it) and thus doesn't have to worry about getting a sweetspot to kill. She's probably easier to learn and can be more sure of her followups as she doesn't have to make a split-second reaction on whether a move was a tipper or not.

However, Marth has greater rewards for a trivial amount more risk (could be wrong here and there may not even be more risk). There are certainly instances where Lucina will kill before him. But played right Marth can get more reward and seal stocks faster than Lucina could ever hope to do. It's not a perfect analogy, but think of Zelda's FAir and BAir. Those moves are terrifyingly powerful when sweetspotted but are terrible when not. I kind of think of Marth's tippers as a dispersed lightning kick. Until kill percent they're not game-changers individually but over the course of a stock, game, and match the damage and safety add up, and he's got this extra kill potential on all of his moves that Lucina doesn't.

Basically it's Marth's higher reward (and slightly better range) that invalidate Lucina. Across the game's life the benefits you get from playing Marth and getting all those tippers (even though not all hits will be tippers) far outweigh the consistency you get from playing Lucina.

 

[C0rvus]

I think he means she caps sooner as in, she has little room for advancement compared to Marth. Strictly speaking, she does, as her moves are more consistent because they lack dynamic hitboxes. Her followups and kills and spacing and stuff are all very straightforward. Marth's tipper/sourspot on his moves allow for more dynamic spacing, longer or more varied combos and followups, and just more interactions overall. He has more to explore and employ, further improving his gameplan and the results of the players who use him.

Edit: Ninja'd :U
But the point still stands/bears repeating

 

[ILOVESMASH]

Lucina having overall safer attacks on shield is a pretty big advantage over Marth since it makes her landings and pokes safer when compared to him. From my experience she also has better strings with her unspaced moves since they deal more hitstun and damage, allowing her to followup more easily. I feel these advantages will be more noticeable in the future when her metagame develops a bit more.

 

[PK Gaming]

Is there any good footage of post patch Lucina?

 

[Ghostbone]

Marth vs Lucina is so damn pointless.

Her meta has a definitive cap and she will never outperform Marth or any other FE rep.

There..I just **** on every waifu scumlords parade.

You're welcome.

Nah I gotta disagree

Lucina can do all the same combos Marth can do with sourspots, she just does them at earlier %s and does more damage with them.
Her f-smash is actually usable to punish things like rolls and people air-dodging into you, Marth has to be at a specific spot to get his reward, otherwise his sword is super weak.

All the buffs that Marth got apply to Lucina, and now you have a character whose whole sword hits as hard as tipper marth from the previous patch. This gives her much more reliable edgeguarding, since if she actually hits you off-stage at over 100 you will die, whereas Marth still has to tipper his aerials which depends on him reading the exact spacing of your recovery options.

Marth was better before because Lucina's reward/damage was just bad, you needed Marth's tippers to actually get anywhere in terms of dealing damage or taking your opponents stock. Marth was still more inconsistent before but consistently killing your opponent at 150 wasn't a very good reason to play Lucina lol, so the reward of Marth's tipper aerials/f-smash was the only reason to pick one of the two. Now that the gap is much closer, Lucina's strengths shine a lot more.

Lucina also easily does better against any small or fast character, especially characters fast in the air, as Lucina/Marth don't have the aerial mobility to space perfectly every time in the air, so Lucina's higher damage output compared to Marth when they're close gives her the edge.

 

[C0rvus]

Lucina also easily does better against any small or fast character, especially characters fast in the air, as Lucina/Marth don't have the aerial mobility to space perfectly every time in the air, so Lucina's higher damage output compared to Marth when they're close gives her the edge.

This point always comes up, but I honestly have to disagree with it. Yes, it's always easier to not have to space. Duh.
Marth players ought to know the spacing regardless. Not being able to hit tippers all the time is a part of every matchup, and part of the character. Having a smaller target shouldn't be a factor. The point just sounds like a dig to Marth players to me.

 

[L9999]

Lucina having overall safer attacks on shield is a pretty big advantage over Marth since it makes her landings and pokes safer when compared to him. From my experience she also has better strings with her unspaced moves since they deal more hitstun and damage, allowing her to followup more easily. I feel these advantages will be more noticeable in the future when her metagame develops a bit more.

The only way Lucina's metagame will advance is having players. Really, who plays her? There are more freaking Zelda players than Lucina players

 

[Emblem Lord]

I'm not a believer in Lucina, but do you want to give any actual reasons? Other participants in this discussion have brought up legitimate advantages of Lucina, such as her Fair and Bair being more reliable and consistent for killing. You have not argued anything, but still speak as if your word is law.

Bro look at her DATA!!!!

There is nothing to argue.

The patch itself is my argument.

 

[Luig]

They should've stopped just tacking buffs on Lucina that were really made for marth and thought of a change more specifically made for her. A lot of those buffs were a lot better suited for Marth than lucina.

 

[Trifroze]

You can't really ignore the fact that spacing isn't only up to one player but both of them, and having leeway on your hitboxes lets you gain something in situations where you otherwise wouldn't. Marth is most likely a more potent character at the end of the day, but to say that Lucina has no noticeable advantages over him is pretty shortsighted. I only have to be scared of Marth at a very particular range and try to play around that, but I have to fear Lucina even when I'm right in her face, although less so. In addition burst speed and mobility specs in general are higher in Smash 4 than any other Smash game, so spacing characters out just because you have a sword is harder.

 

[Fatmanonice]

On the topic of character potential, who else is really supporting Pikachu aside from ESAM? Seems like one of those characters that's talked up a lot but primarily has one person really doing anything with them.

 

[Luco]

In regards to FOW's match-up chart

Do people take skill player skill into consideration when looking at the performance of a character? I feel that a lot of people over-look this very important aspect.

Out of all the ness players out there, who has accomplished anything noteworthy aside from FOW and Shaky? Im only looking at MAJOR TOURNAMENTS WITH A LOT OF COMPETITION. Both of these players have placed top 8 or 32 in the major tourneys that they have entered. I don't know of any other ness player that has gotten close to FOW and Shakys level of accomplishments.

S1-14 looks impressive getting 9th at Beast 6 but im not quite convinced since Beast 6 didn't have too many notable players.

L9999 you said that theres a fair amount of ness players out there that consistently beat sheiks.

Who?

Once again, FOW and Shaky are the only ness players I've seen do this; mostly FOW. And the sets that they do win are almost always close. On the other hand Void and Zero level sheiks have never lost to ness as far as I know.

IMO ness is being carried by FOW and Shaky. I think his placement on American tier list is heavily based off of FOW and Shakys results. Ness is good but just a tad bit overrated if you look at the theory behind his match-ups.

I've never lost a set to any competitive Sheik main I've ever played. I just don't live in a region that's notable enough, nor can I justify its strength in order for that postulation to carry any real weight (and now I never will because Ghost is a full Bayo main woot woot lawl). I think you're talking specifically about mid-high level results here, and then we start talking people you haven't heard about on either side.

The nice thing about having 2 top players as opposed to one is it becomes more believable that the character is better as opposed to just the player. It also helps them that they were also the top-level Ness mains of Brawl, which makes the comparison better. In any case, most mid-high Ness mains won't be pushed out of tournament by the -1's FOW mentioned (except for Sonic, but honestly he's not at the same level of difficulty as Shulk lol) unless they're facing someone who is actually better than them.

I think this was @Megamang 's query, but Lucas unfortunately loses pretty hard to Sheik. Not disgustingly so but it's a MU I'd be choosing Ness for in a heartbeat. Sheik's mobility + needles make playing the zoning game much riskier than usual, and her AC windows on aerials make punishing her whiffs using grab really hard. Lucas is kinda forced to play in ways he doesn't want to in neutral, and those ways are usually a lot riskier like over-reliance on FH Dair or SH cross up Nair if he even manages to get in.

EDIT: I need to stop talking about the PK Kids briefly. To whoever mentioned Fox's national results don't scrape up to Sonic's, I just wanted to remind you that Fox at least had a top 8 spot at Genesis 3, and I still don't believe Sonic has had any top 8's at nationals recently.

 

[Ghostbone]

This point always comes up, but I honestly have to disagree with it. Yes, it's always easier to not have to space. Duh.
Marth players ought to know the spacing regardless. Not being able to hit tippers all the time is a part of every matchup, and part of the character. Having a smaller target shouldn't be a factor. The point just sounds like a dig to Marth players to me.

You didn't really understand

It's not hard to space perfectly with Marth every time on an immobile opponent.

An opponent that moves can move into you before your attack comes out, leading to you hitting with the sourspot, and whenever that happens Lucina is better. A small character just makes this issue worse.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I'm willing to believe Lucina has a better off stage game than Marth.

Onstage, I'm willing to gamble a bit for a better trade off. Might not get tippers 100% of the time when you want them onstage, but most of the time its not going to cost you and the reward is much higher than consistency here. Thus Marth > Lucina there.

However offstage, I want consistency first and foremost. I've already committed to going off stage, I want to be absolutely sure that if I hit the opponent they are going to die. Otherwise I could be in a potentially bad spot, with the worst case result being me losing a stock instead of my opponent. Lucina is the safer option off stage between the two: yes Marth can secure the kill earlier with a tipper and against some characters its not that difficult. But if I'm gambling my entire stock by going off stage, it needs to work. I don't want to be off by pixels, get a sour spot, and then the opponent managing to get back onstage and punishing me somehow. Marth and Lucina particularly don't have much wiggle room: they have one swipe and then they're scrambling to get back onstage ASAP. They have one Side B as a mixup, Counter as a desperation option, not much else. If they commit it needs to work, and frankly Lucina is going to have a higher success rate here. Not by much, nowhere near enough to be a better character, but it is a place where Lucina > Marth.

That general line of logic is why despite Eruption being so amazing against many recoveries, in some situations Ike mains will favour Fair or Counter significantly more. Its just more consistent even if Eruption's reward is higher.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

The only way Lucina's metagame will advance is having players. Really, who plays her? There are more freaking Zelda players than Lucina players

She gets played by Players such as Ryo, and Nairo occasionally as a secondary, but I can't think of any notable players who main her. I feel a large reason why this is is because the community is bandwagoning the idea that she is a "trash clone with no advantages over Marth", ignoring key advantages she posses such as more consistent KO power, better strings / combos at lower percents, and attacks that are all around much safer on shield. I have a feeling that her playerbase will grow much larger once this sort of mentality goes down.

 

[L9999]

She gets played by Players such as Ryo, and Nairo occasionally as a secondary, but I can't think of any notable players who main her. I feel a large reason why this is is because the community is bandwagoning the idea that she is a "trash clone with no advantages over Marth", ignoring key advantages she posses such as more consistent KO power, better strings / combos at lower percents, and attacks that are all around much safer on shield. I have a feeling that her playerbase will grow much larger once this sort of mentality goes down.

Those 2 do not count. Nairo can make anyone look amazing, and Ryo plays the entire roster for the lolz against players weaker than him. They are not Lucina mains.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Ryo has beaten Static Manny multiple times with Lucina, does that count as a good enough opponent?

(Might have included his Sonic, can't remember)

 

[Cereal Bawks]

Lucina is Ryo's secondary, not just one of the random characters he plays.

 

[Shaya]

Lol, this **** again.

Lucina needed to have the damage values accentuated on her attacks to be much closer to Marth's tippers to not invalidate her.
All of Marth's tipper attacks have better knockback scaling.
I'm just going to have to assume everyone thinks that Lucina's half damage less means she's actually coming close to the reward on hit Marth is.

Prior to now Marth's always had an advantage on hitting shield as well. These damage values have actually been picked, for the most part, to be just worse than Marth's tippers on shield (-1) but safer than his sour spots (for the first time ever) while still giving comparative damage (which she needs as she isn't being rewarded on hit better in anything other than forward smash)

This patch turned Marth's tipper hitboxes from having 2/3rds of it overlapping with sour spot to only 1/3rd of it.
They made the part which separated Marth from Lucina significantly easier for Marth while still maintaining on average better to significantly better reward.
Should I be able to say Marth's tippers are objectively twice as easy as they were before?

Lucina is roughly closer now to before because her game plan isn't always giving worse results than Marth's is. She's getting closer to an in between (on average) whilst unable to tap into the incidental better rewards Marth can get from using the other half of his sword.

But Marth now tippers significantly easier.
While those tippers are always doing better still.

Lucina does not feel worse in most situations like she used to, as I suggested it's a more realistic middle point between Marth's tippers and sours. She likely can find different play patterns, such as relatively worthwhile frame trap reward with the looming pressure of 'stronger' smash attacks, to more accentuate her as her own character.
But Marth still got buffed a lot more than Lucina did this latest patch because of the aforementioned (who can now just apply raw kill pressure in numerous dynamic ways).

I otherwise think Lucina could still get various damage buffs. In every move she mimics Marth's sour knockback numbers, she could deal as much damage as Marth's tipper (maybe maintaining the -1 on shield but still trivially less damage) and still be a worse character.
This 'gem' of foresight and understanding in the balance team has been almost unseen prior to now though. Which is a shame if this were to be the last patch as they could use this type of understanding to do many a great thing.

 

[Charoite]

Nobody is saying that she is a better character that marth, but why she is still placed at the bottom tier, not only that but marth now is considered as mid tier or even low high tier, that is a big gap, and is annoying that the only arguments used for placing her at the bottom of the tier list, is she is a "worse marth" at optimal play, i dont think that's correct or objective.

 

[Bobert]

On the current tier list, Lucina is 6 placements under Marth. Does anybody agree that she should be this far behind Marth or should she be closer? Some people seem to think she's even worse than that.

 

[Shaya]

Well, most of their relevant moveset having Marth being insignificantly harder to get more reward with could see a solid argument for the gap to be bigger than before.
But at least not from me, for now.
Although...
It's complicated.

People are lazy to put her in bottom tier though.
I was mostly mad people are saying their differences are trivial. Yuck.

 

[C0rvus]

Honestly, I wouldn't mind her just being right after Marth. Many of her tools are worth, but is her MU spread much different from Marth's? Someone fill me in. If it's enough to warrant a difference, is it an entire tier or a few spots? Generally, when I make tier lists, each tier is made of characters who are roughly equivalent (order doesn't matter within tiers after top tier). So I could see her being a single tier below Marth, but no more. She's not THAT different.

 

[FallofBrawl]

I don't see an MU where Marth has a significant advantage in it over Lucina.

Sure you could say "BUT MARTH'S TIPPERS AND KILLS EARLIER", but same could go for the other way, where his sourspots won't kill, one can continually airdodge into Marth and he couldn't do jack except for swing for a sourspot hit.

I'm not saying their differences are trivial, they aren't, but they have the same gameplan and the same weaknesses

 

[Swamp Sensei]

I'm legit confused.

How does Cross Slash work exactly?

Charizard just meteored THROUGH it. It even shows the little tick like he got hit.

Does Charizard's hitbox shrink that much or something?

 

[Fatmanonice]

I don't think Charizard's tail has a hurtbox for some of his animations. If you pause at 1:59, you can see where Charizard is positioned before the stomp.