Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[David Viran]

I'm surprised I have yet to see anybody tech cloud's dsmash yet. I know there was a gif of it being done back at his release.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

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can I also point out, that people are making excuses for sheik players losing to bayonetta, but still won't even admit that bayonetta is top 5 at worst. corrin just came out and you don't see corrins bopping sheik players.

corrin's not as cheesy as bayo. Bayo's amazing (totally not the best in the game), but that's literally huge MU inexperience

 

[TTTTTsd]

can I also point out, that people are making excuses for sheik players losing to bayonetta, but still won't even admit that bayonetta is top 5 at worst. corrin just came out and you don't see corrins bopping sheik players. same as ryu when he first came out. you didn't see ryu players taking out top level sheiks in the first month of him being out.

So then, in relatives, Cloud is even worse considering he was doing stuff like this except within TWO weeks (barely even).

I'm not gonna make excuses for any Sheik players or whatever, but is Cloud Top 5 at worst too? I'd call him Top 10 but Top 5 would be a damn big stretch but I'm following the formula here.

 

[Nu~]

So many assertions that "Bayo's broken" or "Bayo is DEFINITELY not the best"

But so little explanations from either side.

 

[juddy96]

AFAIK SoCal doesn't have any noteworthy Bayos. It's not johning: Matchup inexperience can tank you. It's kind of ridiculous to be this hostile over it lol.

Aphro

 

[momochuu]

So then, in relatives, Cloud is even worse considering he was doing stuff like this except within TWO weeks (barely even).

I'm not gonna make excuses for any Sheik players or whatever, but is Cloud Top 5 at worst too? I'd call him Top 10 but Top 5 would be a damn big stretch but I'm following the formula here.

yes, actually. i do think cloud is that good. bayonetta and cloud make the other top and high tier characters just look like normal characters.

 

[PK Gaming]

So many assertions that "Bayo's broken" or "Bayo is DEFINITELY not the best"

But so little explanations from either side.

The burden of proof lies with the accuser. The former group needs to prove that Bayonetta is broken. The latter group doesn't need to anything.

 

[Ffamran]

I'm surprised I have yet to see anybody tech cloud's dsmash yet. I know there was a gif of it being done back at his release.

It's a frame 8 move and you have to tech before the second hit which comes out at frame 21. The frame gap between the first hit, 8-9, and the second hit, 21-23, is 12 frames. Have fun reacting to that. Whether or not it's "common" knowledge for all players is another question... People keep saying you can DI ZSS's Boost Kick so and so and nobody seems to do it. Then they complain about it and people tell them how to DI it... and then they complain about it.

 

[FallofBrawl]

I think the anger towards Bayo and Cloud comes from their gimmicks

Sheik has to win neutral multiple times, ZSS has a little weaker neutral but is compensated for with a good advantageous state.

Cloud's disadvantage and Bayo's neutral are just compensated with crazy good gimmicks.

 

[TTTTTsd]

yes, actually. i do think cloud is that good. bayonetta and cloud make the other top and high tier characters just look like normal characters.

If this tournament keeps going the way it is I might be inclined to agree, I think there's more going for Cloud as a Top 5 char than Bayo (ohhh controversy!)

There's a few things:
- He's been out for longer and is still doing this
- His gameplan is inherently more simple and you have to learn less to fight him.
- I feel like reiterating the above post. Bayonetta requires you to lab all this DI and stuff, Cloud doesn't really require this kind of labbing to the extent that Bayo does when it comes to counterplay and stuff.

Moving on, I won't deny the potential of Bayonetta, it is entirely possible that she will be absurd and ******** and whatever, but I don't feel inclined nor in the position to make such a large snap judgement, I prefer to stay moderate about stuff like this because I hate eating crow but I also hate ignoring the possibility of it. Part of my reasoning is that I saw Mr. R do something amazing against Bayo that I saw no one else do. He flew out of Witch Twist for some reason and I'm chalking it down to damn good SDI, the same SDI that saved Nairo in his set vs. M2K after literally teleporting after Cloud's FSmash hit him, miraculously surviving.

We'll have to see but I think SDI is gonna be something I will always HOPE people explore.

Regardless, don't take this too too seriously, this is just crazy thoughts flying out of my mind haha. Pardon my rambling.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Cloud is a lot like Sheik in that his weaknesses have becoming increasingly irrelevant as time has gone on while it's been the opposite for a lot of the cast. You can definitely see this for the likes of and we're starting to see this for . People agree that Cloud hasn't reached his peak yet so him finding his way to Top 5 isn't too far fetched.

 

[Das Koopa]

So many assertions that "Bayo's broken" or "Bayo is DEFINITELY not the best"

But so little explanations from either side.

I feel like today's results speak for themselves

She's a good character. Top 10 at worst, possibly Top 5, but it seems as though characters with serious MU experience of any sort tend to do well. Like, referring back to K9, I'm not arguing that Bayonetta is bad because he didn't have MU experience, I'm arguing that if he had the same experience Nairo or Dabuz did, it might've been a closer set. Adaptation also has to do with it, so a player like Dabuz, maining a slow character, has more time to work with the matchup.

See, people are saying "Stop johning for Sheik mains", but it's not as if Salem or 9B are weak, low-tier players being carried by a broken character - they're both really good players, they played a lot of Bayonetta's tricks, and they still lost. My POV is that Bayonetta isn't Sheik-tier, so if my position seems extreme, it's because I was responding to somebody who literally thinks Bayonetta is SS+ Meta Knight tier. I'm adamantly arguing against that, based on results.

Yes, Bayonetta competing with high-level Sheiks indicates she's a great character. But these aren't scrubs maining Bayonetta either, so the "3 weeks!" argument comes off as slightly dishonest or even disrespectful to the players, as if to say they're being carried by Bayonetta.

 

[momochuu]

Bayo's neutral are just compensated with crazy good gimmicks.

bayo's neutral and the fact that she can combo you so hard are the reasons why she is so good. she is the only character in this game with a crazy good combo game that leads to deaths that also has an outstanding neutral on top of that.

 

[Y2Kay]

I honestly pray that bayo dethrones sheik

that's how desperate I've come to have her out of the picture

as a greninja main, at least.

 

[Greward]

In my experience with Megaman vs Cloud and Bayo:

-Very similar to the Bayo vs Villager match up. Hit and run tactics work best and Megaman's plethora of projectiles help keep Witch Time at bay. Leaf shield is good at the ledge and his other projectiles are good at applying pressure there. Megaman's yaoi hands help shield grab dash attack, jab, and afterburner kick with relative ease. Thanks to Bayo's weight, attacks like bair and uair can sneak in kills at fairly low percents. I imagine that glide tossing would be very useful in this match ups because utilt and dsmash can probably kill Bayo at 80% with rage. Nair and lemons are good for interrupting things. All in all, certainly not a hopeless matchup on paper, might even be even, but I have yet to see this match up at higher levels.

- In my experience, it all boils to who can be more annoying to the other. Leaf shield is surprisingly good at interrupting him and can even knock him out of limit if you bump into him right when he activates an attack. Like Bayo, yaoi hands come into play and help him shield grab nair, dtilt, jab, and even ftilt at point blank. Like Mario and Captain Falcon, leaf shield puts on a lot of pressure on the edge and an impatient Cloud on the ledge will find themselves ball tapped into the abyss without limit. Like against a lot of characters, actually getting the kill in is kind of an issue and Cloud definitely benefits more if the match drags on too long. Probably 40-60 at worst.

MM is very limited against bayo because leaf shield is free witch time, crash bomb is free witch time, and pellets are easy witch time (half of pellet range is witch time-able). Besides that bayo's divekick is a very good approach against horizontal projectiles. Mega's too slow to catch up with bayo when she resets neutral with divekick. Being heavy doesn't help either against her combos. She's also very hard to gimp which really hinders MM killing options. Mega recovery has no hitbox but since it's linear it's easy to gimp. Basically she nullifies Mega's strong neutral game and he's left with little to work around.

Cloud is similar, forces mega man to approach but outzones him with superior range and frame data.

 

[momochuu]

He flew out of Witch Twist for some reason and I'm chalking it down to damn good SDI, the same SDI that saved Nairo in his set vs. M2K after literally teleporting after Cloud's FSmash hit him, miraculously surviving.

We'll have to see but I think SDI is gonna be something I will always HOPE people explore.

you can actually die earlier for doing that if you do it at the top of the screen. if you see someone get launched to the moon while being hit with witch twist either bayo had stupidly high rage, or they tried to SDI, or DI'd up on accident while trying to SDI.

 

[C0rvus]

I think the anger towards Bayo and Cloud comes from their gimmicks

Sheik has to win neutral multiple times, ZSS has a little weaker neutral but is compensated for with a good advantageous state.

Cloud's disadvantage and Bayo's neutral are just compensated with crazy good gimmicks.

I may have said this before, but gimmicks are mostly perceived. What makes something a gimmick other than it being arbitrarily given the term? It's PM all over again.

 

[Mario766]

Can confirm.


Noji tried it against 9b during Ranai's smashfests.


It didn't end well.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

My 2 cents on Bayonetta:

She's clearly a good character, there's no avoiding that. What remains to be seen is if she's consistently good against everyone. That is, does she have exploitable weaknesses that let you fight Bayonetta the character, or is she well-rounded enough (in terms of dealing with various situations, not overall balance) to put in work regardless of the matchup and force you to fight the player behind Bayonetta and catch them making a mistake?

I'm not comfortable making any strong assertions about where she'll end up because her meta is still quite undeveloped on both sides. I saw several Heel Slide approaches on stream earlier today, FFS. That's For Glory level stuff.

Regardless of her eventual tier position, she reminds me of Ganondorf in a very strange way. She can kill you at the drop of a hat if you mess up, so it's never a good idea to count her out of a match.

On a related note, I'm actually more okay with Bayonetta dominating the scene than I am with Sheik. Maybe it's just the novelty of Bayonetta, maybe it's because I've been using her casually and find her tons of fun (I've never been good with Sheik), or maybe it's just because she oozes sass and camp.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

bayo's neutral and the fact that she can combo you so hard are the reasons why she is so good. she is the only character in this game with a crazy good combo game that leads to deaths that also has an outstanding neutral on top of that.

Outstanding? It's decent tbh.

Guns in neutral are MU specific

Aerials are really good, but not dumb (Bair and Dair is dumb; Dair is situational though).

Dtilt and Utilt are really good (especially Dtilt). Ftilt is really slow.

Smashes are garbage

Jab isn't exactly fast.

Divekick isn't abuseable.

She's just decent in neutral. The other stats is what she excels In

 

[G. Stache]

Oh my, it's like the Luigi nerf debate all over again...except some of us are asking for bans all of a sudden. Have you guys ever noticed that we scream for a hotfix instead of see how the meta goes with said characters and/or work on actual counter play? Seriously: it's only been a few weeks. Let the characters sink in a bit more before screaming for bans. Cloud's and Bayonetta's performances were simply on par with what's to be expected from a top tier character. I had no idea that meant that they were broken and had to be nerfed.

Cloud and Bayonetta are just good characters at the moment, guys. Do they have the potential to become broken? Possibly, it's not out of the question. Are they broken now? No, they haven't even really shown to outshine the best character in this game. Wait until these two characters actually turn into the next before you run around begging for bans. I've seen a lot more theory for these characters being broken than actual results. Don't just demand that we ban these two characters. Show me actual evidence that Cloud and Bayonetta are actually broken.

 

[David Viran]

It's a frame 8 move and you have to tech before the second hit which comes out at frame 21. The frame gap between the first hit, 8-9, and the second hit, 21-23, is 12 frames. Have fun reacting to that. Whether or not it's "common" knowledge for all players is another question... People keep saying you can SDI ZSS's Boost Kick so and so and nobody seems to do it. Then they complain about it and people tell them how to SDI it... and then they complain about it.

But you can't SDI boost kick. Zero hitlag FTW.

 

[Shaya]

Nairo had a shaky first match, but that was a strong showing from Nairo.
Had amazing awareness for dealing with limit side-b, I can't help but stand [a little] corrected.

double nair into down-b, it's been toooooo long

 

[momochuu]

I feel like today's results speak for themselves

She's a good character. Top 10 at worst, possibly Top 5, but it seems as though characters with serious MU experience of any sort tend to do well. Like, referring back to K9, I'm not arguing that Bayonetta is bad because he didn't have MU experience, I'm arguing that if he had the same experience Nairo or Dabuz did, it might've been a closer set. Adaptation also has to do with it, so a player like Dabuz, maining a slow character, has more time to work with the matchup.

characters don't have matchup experience, players do. you are worried about matchups way too much without thinking about the players behind the characters. dabuz is a much better player than 9B and still barely won that set. i believe rosa actually loses to bayonetta, but dabuz is just way better than 9B so it doesn't matter. nairo beating salem is the same thing.

 

[Charoite]

Yes players doesn't use SDI or they dont know when to use it, so is bit early saying that their moves doesn't have counterplay, and her neutral is average, if not she would be .

 

[TTTTTsd]

Nairo had a shaky first match, but that was a strong showing from Nairo.
Had amazing awareness for dealing with limit side-b, I can't help but stand corrected.

double nair into down-b, it's been toooooo long

I don't think you were so much wrong about Limit side-B but I do think you're right about Nairo's amazing awareness and respect. That being said, Nairo's ZSS is so damn crispy mmmm.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Outstanding? It's decent tbh.

Guns in neutral are MU specific

Aerials are really good, but not dumb (Bair and Dair is dumb; Dair is situational though).

Dtilt and Utilt are really good (especially Dtilt). Ftilt is really slow.

Smashes are garbage

Jab isn't exactly fast.

Divekick isn't abuseable.

She's just decent in neutral. The other stats is what she excels In

I get the feeling that Bayonetta's neutral is "decent" only by top tier standards and that if you compared it to the average of the entire cast it would be well above average.

 

[Kofu]

Bayonetta's Smashes do a good job at punishing opponents who are waffling their approach against her just out of her CQC range (Pugwest was on the receiving end of this in some matches I watched recently). They're not bad smash attacks mainly because of their size.

 

[Shaya]

Oh, being inhuman and doing inhuman things (at least for us petty mortals to perceive at this time) doesn't change how it affects us... mortals~
I think it's a matter of being better than your opponent enough and channeling the brawl spirit that can make it seem alright. I'm sure there was a lot of fear and it's more than justified still.

Like, it's still a mini-final smash.

 

[Locke 06]

It's a frame 8 move and you have to tech before the second hit which comes out at frame 21. The frame gap between the first hit, 8-9, and the second hit, 21-23, is 12 frames. Have fun reacting to that. Whether or not it's "common" knowledge for all players is another question... People keep saying you can SDI ZSS's Boost Kick so and so and nobody seems to do it. Then they complain about it and people tell them how to SDI it... and then they complain about it.

Including the hitlag, you have a bigger window. The reason it's difficult is that you also need to DI down on the 1st hit. There are very few people, I'd imagine, that understands Cloud players enough to DI down when they expect a dsmash punish.

Give it time.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

characters don't have matchup experience, players do. you are worried about matchups way too much without thinking about the players behind the characters. dabuz is a much better player than 9B and still barely won that set. i believe rosa actually loses to bayonetta, but dabuz is just way better than 9B so it doesn't matter. nairo beating salem is the same thing.

You're looking at it as if it was purely PvP. Definitely not the right way to look at it.

There's a BUNCH of things not yet discovered against bayonetta because she's so new, so when that's a factor, it no longer becomes purely PvP.

 

[FallofBrawl]

By Bayonettas neutral not being good, I meant like MK level good.

Bayo Side B = MK Dash Attack

 

[C0rvus]

I've been trying to learn Bayonetta, and I have noticed this in particular. She either kills at 40% or 180%. Everyone is hitting these ceiling combos, and I'm here hitting up airs at 150% and people are living. Perhaps this will be her ultimate balancing factor? That and her poor boxing game and the fact that her neutral is pretty poor for a perceived top tier. Like, without WT she might be a reasonable character.

Oh my, it's like the Luigi nerf debate all over again. Have you guys ever noticed that we scream for a hotfix instead of see how the meta goes with said characters and/or work on actual counter play? Seriously: it's only been a few weeks. Let the characters sink in a bit more before screaming for bans. Cloud's and Bayonetta's performances were simply on par with what's to be expected from a top tier character. I had no idea that meant that they were broken and had to be nerfed.

Cloud and Bayonetta are just good characters at the moment, guys. Do they have the potential to become broken? Possibly, it's not out of the question. Are they broken now? No, they haven't even really shown to outshine the best character in this game. Wait until these two characters actually turn into the next before you run around begging for bans. I've seen a lot more theory for these characters being broken than actual results. Don't just demand that we ban these two characters. Show me actual evidence that Cloud and Bayonetta are actually broken.

Idk who is asking for nerfs, but I think most of us are gonna deal with it. Not just because we have to (that is a big factor though, haha) but in a way, every new silly character that gets thrown our way is like a new puzzle to solve. Pretty good for the game's depth if you ask me.

Also FallofBrawl MK dash attack is much better than Heel Slide. Much better. HS is unsafe as hell. Give it time.

 

[[BROF]]

It's a frame 8 move and you have to tech before the second hit which comes out at frame 21. The frame gap between the first hit, 8-9, and the second hit, 21-23, is 12 frames. Have fun reacting to that. Whether or not it's "common" knowledge for all players is another question... People keep saying you can DI ZSS's Boost Kick so and so and nobody seems to do it. Then they complain about it and people tell them how to DI it... and then they complain about it.

12 frames is a gentle enough window. Anything below 5 is when things are considered difficult.
I could show more demanding examples from the other games (down to 1 frame inputs) but theyre not on 4 so I better not.

Do you have to SDI down to be able to tech it though?

 

[momochuu]

Outstanding? It's decent tbh.

Guns in neutral are MU specific

Aerials are really good, but not dumb (Bair and Dair is dumb; Dair is situational though).

Dtilt and Utilt are really good (especially Dtilt). Ftilt is really slow.

Smashes are garbage

Jab isn't exactly fast.

Divekick isn't abuseable.

She's just decent in neutral. The other stats is what she excels In

the fact that you only named attacks basically proves you don't actually know what neutral is.

almost no character can touch bayonetta while she's doing nair guns or uair guns. you are taking free damage from this and now you have to approach her. her bair is like +4 (?) on block so she has no issue touching shields, if you eat like 3 of these on shield you will probably get shield broken from anything else. all 4 of her aerials are stupid.

her movement and nair/uair guns is what makes her neutral good. she can move around quickly and be wherever she wants with side b and witch twist, and nobody can contest this except maybe corrin's fsmash if you do it too close.

why would you ever be throwing smash attacks in neutral with ANY character? her jab speed doesn't matter. her dtilt and witch twist are her jabs.

 

[TTTTTsd]

12 frames is a gentle enough window. Anything below 5 is when things are considered difficult.
I could being more demanding examples from the other games (down to 1 frame inputs) but theyre not on 4 so I better not.

Do you have to SDI down to be able to tech it though?

You have to DI it downwards and tech, yes. Unless you're on Lylat which changes everything and is the one time it DID get teched. It's only techable on anticipation, really.

 

[NairWizard]

Characters with "potential" almost always come up short in the long term. We've seen this repeatedly, both from characters who don't have the fundamental toolkit to back up said potential (Shulk, Peach) and with characters who do (Ryu, Pikachu); characters that are toted as being "future top 5" almost never are.

Simple gameplans on the other hand, are never quite as simple as you think. Very rarely does a simple but effective character "eventually lose favor." Mario is still doing just fine this far into the game's lifespan. Luigi and Diddy when they had strong grab games were never "figured out and beaten." MK despite his very simple neutral play is doing great.

This is usually because those characters with simple (but strong) gameplans usually have other tools in their kit that people overlook, and as soon as their simple, strong options "get figured out," their players start using those other tools and mixing it up, which in turn opens up the other player to get hit by the simple stuff once again. ZeRo once commented that his style with prepatch Diddy was, "pretend the grab doesn't exist, and try to go for anything but the grab, until I see an opportunity to grab." It doesn't matter how good the other tools in the kit are (though in prepatch Diddy's case, all of his tools were good), as long as you have other tools, you can condition your opponent into falling for your simple and effective tactics. Mario up-smash is probably the best example of this in the game's history.

Cloud's going to be strong as long as his side-b doesn't get nerfed. He's going to be placing top 8 and top 16 at nationals. Yes, counterplay will develop. People will avoid the side-b, know to look for it in all situations where Cloud is in Limit, and some Clouds will bow out early. But other Clouds will use their other tools in response and then start using Limit Cross Slash when no one expects it, and still take the stock/the match/the tournament.

Bayonetta on the other hand, I'm pretty sure she's going to get weaker as time goes on. Don't get me wrong. She'll have a moment. She'll have a miraculous moment where someone takes a national or gets second with her, and everyone will jump on the hype train as usual. But, then people will figure out her crazy setups and how to SDI them and adapt to them, and that performance won't repeat itself.

Calling it now. If I'm wrong, well, I'll eat my shoe.

this prediction brought to you by SolidSense 2016

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Bayonetta's Smashes do a good job at punishing opponents who are waffling their approach against her just out of her CQC range (Pugwest was on the receiving end of this in some matches I watched recently). They're not bad smash attacks mainly because of their size.

Throwing out these moves in neutral is like throwing out Ike's smashes hoping they connect. Its a super risky idea

 

[momochuu]

I've been trying to learn Bayonetta, and I have noticed this in particular. She either kills at 40% or 180%. Everyone is hitting these ceiling combos, and I'm here hitting up airs at 150% and people are living. Perhaps this will be her ultimate balancing factor? That and her poor boxing game and the fact that her neutral is pretty poor for a perceived top tier. Like, without WT she might be a reasonable character.


Idk who is asking for nerfs, but I think most of us are gonna deal with it. Not just because we have to (that is a big factor though, haha) but in a way, every new silly character that gets thrown our way is like a new puzzle to solve. Pretty good for the game's depth if you ask me.

Also FallofBrawl MK dash attack is much better than Heel Slide. Much better. HS is unsafe as hell. Give it time.

she has confirms into kills at just about every % threshold. learn to confirm into witch twist > side b > jump b reverse witch twist > side b > uair. that's her main kill combo unless someone dies to the early stuff and it starts working at around 50~60%. at higher percents you want to do dtilt > uair guns or just kill them off stage with nair/bair.

 

[[BROF]]

Bayonetta's smash attacks clank with even soft hitting nairs, and their endlag is pretty big. In the 9B vs Ranai match, 9B fsmash clanked with Ranai's nair, and he got punished for it.
Those moves are absolutely not safe.