Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Man Li Gi]

Protip:

Complain, but play the ****ing game instead of letting it seep into every aspect.

Smooth Criminal

Lord I feel ya dude. You and I play heavies, so these complaints mean nothing to us (at least to me) as we've been facing stuff like this from the inception. Only difference is the character trend with mine going up while KD3 going down. Unfortunate.

 

[Das Koopa]

In the interest of getting this topic back on track, a few noteworthy tournies are happening shortly. Sumabato 8 is happening today and features a few Japanese titans (9B, Komorikiri, Earth, Sigma, etc.) while Glitch is happening tomorrow (regional featuring VoiD, Mr. R, MVD, and NickRiddle)

Shuffle VIII and Do or DI are also up in the next 2-3 days. Do or DI features Pugwest, Mr. E, Nairo, and Dabuz.

I'll also be refining the scoring system to score each placement (13th, 9th, 7th, 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd, 1st) individually and give secondaries half scores. (e.g. Sheik in 2nd gets 7 points, Meta Knight as secondary gets 3.5) This is just to make things more accurate and reduce inflation. Dunno when I'll be doing this, as I'm working out how to scale this between regional/national/supermajors.

 

[TTTTTsd]

They may be killing it for themselves at first, but once some see people quit, many join the bandwagon until only the top players play it or the truly dedicated. Brawl had that. Some even completely denounced Brawl when they left.

Geez for being a Smash 4 thread, we love talking about and hating Brawl for no justified reason outside of lol IC and MK.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I have to be real though, even if theoretically everyone in this thread quit I think the game wouldn't really like, falter. Most of the complaining about DLC I see here honestly (everything else is either a silly meme/joke like 5.99 or just random twitter salt) but the game seems to be doing fine.

You only really see problematic 'tudes in here and I'm not sure why....?

I won't disagree that Cloud's pretty nutty good though.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Lord I feel ya dude. You and I play heavies, so these complaints mean nothing to us (at least to me) as we've been facing stuff like this from the inception. Only difference is the character trend with mine going up while KD3 going down. Unfortunate.

Honestly, I don't give a ****. I have a pocket (co-main) Cloud and a few other chars under my belt to help me out with my bad MUs. I'm not gonna sit here and complain about my character when I have the rest of the roster at my disposal, too. My cursor ain't broke. My pride is intact.

Smooth Criminal

 

[BunbUn129]

I have a pocket (co-main) Cloud

Smooth Criminal

Everyone has a pocket Cloud. My grandma has a Cloud. Your mother has a Cloud as well.

Please note: Cloud is the new landmaster meme.

 

[deepseadiva]

This is seriously competing for one of the......worst tier lists I've ever seen.

Say what you want but in three months when every list starts looking like that hit me up with that @ on the citations page. AP style, double spaced!!

 

[Mister Namakniht]

Hey guys, I wanted to share a list my friends and I made based on our experience with the game. (Characters are in order within each group, best to worst)

TOP LEVEL VIABLE:
SS:
S:
A+:
A-:
B+:
B-:
C+:

NOT TOP LEVEL VIABLE:
C-:
D+:
E+:
E-:

Note: I didn't include the Miis, because we don't play with them much.

Please discuss anything you think is out of place!

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Everyone has a pocket Cloud. My grandma has a Cloud. Your mother has a Cloud as well.

Please note: Cloud is the new landmaster meme.

I have a pocket sheik :^)

 

[BunbUn129]

Please discuss anything you think is out of place!

Everything.

 

[G. Stache]

I swear, this thread will be the death of itself. This is almost as bad as the FFA discussions we're prone to having. Could we please switch topics from Cloud and Bayonetta? How about Bowser? I remember when he was newly buffed, people found him to be better than DK. But then U throw got nerfed...and he's fallen off the face of the Earth again. I know that he's nothing too amazing, but what's our opinion of him as of now? Any MU in the upper tiers that he performs well in (For instance, I've heard that the Mario MU is ironically decent)?

 

[Man Li Gi]

Everyone has a pocket Cloud. My grandma has a Cloud. Your mother has a Cloud as well.

Please note: Cloud is the new landmaster meme.

I don't. I have an Ike and Marth tho.

I have to be real though, even if theoretically everyone in this thread quit I think the game wouldn't really like, falter. Most of the complaining about DLC I see here honestly (everything else is either a silly meme/joke like 5.99 or just random twitter salt) but the game seems to be doing fine.

You only really see problematic 'tudes in here and I'm not sure why....?

I won't disagree that Cloud's pretty nutty good though.

It's because that's how Brawl started out. It was slow and all that was needed was an avalanche of complaints to change the game. The avalanche for brawl started after the Japanese took Brawl in Apex 2012. That's when the ban MK biz came from. Even with Apex 2013 being probably the most underdog tale for Smash, it couldn't revive the game due to what happened the previous year. I'm waiting for a major to have exclusively Bayo, Cloud, Corrin and se other DLC to be the tipping point.

Some say I'm being frightful, but all I'm doing is looking at history.

 

[BunbUn129]

I don't. I have an Ike and Marth tho.


It's because that's how Brawl started out. It was slow and all that was needed was an avalanche of complaints to change the game. The avalanche for brawl started after the Japanese took Brawl in Apex 2012. That's when the ban MK biz came from. Even with Apex 2013 being probably the most underdog tale for Smash, it couldn't revive the game due to what happened the previous year. I'm waiting for a major to have exclusively Bayo, Cloud, Corrin and se other DLC to be the tipping point.

Some say I'm being frightful, but all I'm doing is looking at history.

I find it amusing how everyone is jumping on board in fear that the 5.99 warriors will kill the game. Yet grand finals in Shots Fired 2 was Sheik and ZSS. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Thinkaman]

Haven't you guys heard? Cloud is the best character in the game.

 

[Y2Kay]

We where doing so well with that nothingness discussion.......

What happened to us man! ;-;

 

[Man Li Gi]

See this is why Wolf should be in this game so ppls salt could disappear.

 

[Y2Kay]

Hey guys, I wanted to share a list my friends and I made based on our experience with the game. (Characters are in order within each group, best to worst)

TOP LEVEL VIABLE:
SS:
S:
A+:
A-:
B+:
B-:
C+:

NOT TOP LEVEL VIABLE:
C-:
D+:
E+:
E-:

Note: I didn't include the Miis, because we don't play with them much.

Please discuss anything you think is out of place!

I'm so sorry deepseadiva

THIS is the worst tier list that has graced my eyes

 

[Sinister Slush]

See this is why Wolf should be in this game so ppls salt could disappear.

I don't think even Wolf's bair can match the ridiculousness this game has to offer.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Hey guys, I wanted to share a list my friends and I made based on our experience with the game. (Characters are in order within each group, best to worst)

TOP LEVEL VIABLE:
SS:
S:
A+:
A-:
B+:
B-:
C+:

NOT TOP LEVEL VIABLE:
C-:
D+:
E+:
E-:

Note: I didn't include the Miis, because we don't play with them much.

Please discuss anything you think is out of place!

Explain (if you can).

 

[BunbUn129]

We where doing so well with that nothingness discussion.......

What happened to us man! ;-;

The discussions here have ranged from sudden realizations of things that have long existed, to cancerous circlejerking about how the DLC Gods need to be nerfed, to theoretical nerfs to Sheik. I love this community.

 

[Y2Kay]

Explain (if you can).

TBH it just seems like they play too much for glory

 

[BunbUn129]

I'm so sorry deepseadiva

THIS is the worst tier list that has graced my eyes

Tbf, he managed to get Zelda in last place. The moment I saw Cloud in SS, I knew this was a casual list.

 

[Das Koopa]

Say what you want but in three months when every list starts looking like that hit me up with that @ on the citations page. AP style, double spaced!!

There's no real rhyme or reason to numerous decisions on your tier list, using the excuse of "this'll be what it looks like soon!" or not.

Little Mac is too high for an optimized metagame. I've said since Day 1 that Mac is doomed to be bottom tier because he's one of the most gimp-prone characters in the entire series, and as the meta optimizes, he's only going to get worse due to a lack on an aerial game, lack of projectiles, lack of disjoints, dismantlable comeback mechanic, and appallingly bad recovery. He's living proof that frame data isn't enough to make a character good.

I said that Cloud will get worse based on potential gimpability, but he's not an awful character in 6/7 areas, so Cloud can scoot by with a mediocre recovery since he has a good comeback mechanic, fast attacks, good coverage, etc. I think people might be overating him a little bit, but sure, he has a lot of good potential to be upper-Top 5.

People can argue about how Mac might be "better" than that, but you have him above several reliable projectile-heavy characters who are likely to be at least semi-decent as the meta crawls along. I'd expect a more optimized metagame to have Robin and Toon Link in the upper 50% of the list, to be honest, with WFT hovering nearby. This may be why characters like Duck Hunt Dog see modest success overseas - extremely patient players pushing camping as far as they can.

Roy being above Marth post-patch is just silly. While I initially thought Abadango placing Roy so low was ridiculous, there is a fair assessment that Roy as a character is doomed from the start because he's a character who's intended to be aggressive yet carries 80%+ of Marth's moveset. Marth is a defensive, spacing-heavy character. It would be very difficult to translate that kind of moveset aggressively, especially if all you do is change sweetspot hitboxes.

I mean, there might be a couple of details here that are right, but I gotta say, this is a special snowflake-heavy list with a lot of unreasonable decisions without a lot of logic behind them. It's why you explain your tier lists and the more controversial placements when you post them. I mean, hey - Dedede could really be the worst in the game. I sure think he sucks. But your logic is "He's really bad, ya'll." What does that say? Not much. Zelda's really bad, ya'll. Such insight!

 

[Luco]

Guys it's going to be fine ROFL. Calm down, no communities are going to get destroyed over a few people pondering the state of our meta-game (it may seem alarmist, but they're not particularly bad points and they're rooted in a deep love for this game and its community and meta). Things will calm down and we'll go on our merry way. I'd MUCH rather this discussion occurred than if it didn't, because what I actually dislike the most here is people larking the safe, popular opinion again and again when everyone else has kind of moved on. "THE GAME IS SO BALANCED GUYS DON'T WORRY."

Well what if it's not? What if you're just perpetuating that myth?

That's a bad example because it's topical and it looks like I'm making a statement, but I'm not; the game is probably going to be fine IMO. I'm merely trying to say people should feel comfortable being bold, being brave. It takes courage to say you think the game isn't actually that unabalanced if you truly believe it and have evidence to back it up. Telling people off for what appears to you to be 'going off the rails' is probably just the result of someone being brave, and it's probably not going to end the world whether it's right or wrong. We should support that diversity of thought because it leads us to new ideas.

So I'm going to stand by my last post in that it's a thought I've been having. It might be right, it might be wrong, but speculation is the name of the game in this thread, and someone's gotta take the first step and point the evidence out, right? And thankfully the more I've come to read this thread the more I've realised people here are some of the least likely to off and quit the game; most of us are pretty invested into what we do, so that's not too likely to be a major problem.

 

[bc1910]

Not quite sure on the specifics, but if bayonetta witch times ness right before he hits himself with PK thunder, he basically goes in weird directions like straight down or away from the stage. It's pretty dumb and while not as forgiving to land as gravity pull, it's still pretty dumb and ness off-stage should always die if that's actually a consistent thing to pull off.

And in general if he has to up-b any further away than half of the distance (probably slightly less than that) he always dies to witch time shenanigans.

Not entirely sure how consistent/theory based that is.

I can't remember specific results unfortunately but I know that Ness has a pretty good record against Bayo in tourney. And it makes sense that he'd beat her in neutral pretty cleanly (not to mention being a nightmare for her to kill) due to his excellent grab game. He also has a f5 combo starter and of course that airdodge. If the edgeguarding thing works as well as you're suggesting then I can see it swinging to even in future but it doesn't sound half as braindead as Rosa's GP stuff.

 

[PK Gaming]

@TSM ZeRo posted the first part of his Tier List

 

[HoSmash4]

it's been an interesting month where complaining about Sheik has been...minimal

 

[Nobie]

I'd argue that Bayo's Witch Time is a less effective counter to PK Thunder 2 than an actual Fire Emblem-style Counter because you have to actually take into account a variety of factors, like an active hitbox, deciding how you're actually going to approach Ness, etc.

 

[L9999]

Hey guys, I wanted to share a list my friends and I made based on our experience with the game. (Characters are in order within each group, best to worst)

TOP LEVEL VIABLE:
SS:
S:
A+:
A-:
B+:
B-:
C+:

NOT TOP LEVEL VIABLE:
C-:
D+:
E+:
E-:

Note: I didn't include the Miis, because we don't play with them much.

Please discuss anything you think is out of place!

Where to even begin? I need a whole thread to explain what is wrong with this tier list.

 

[Man Li Gi]

I couldn't have asked for Pokken to come out at a more fortunate time as I will be playing that game to hell and back just to avoid these defeatist attitudes.

I don't necessarily know when it became the norm to confuse analysis with complaining (while simultaneously not playing), but its really killing the vibe of the game for me.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Thinkaman]

I'm so sorry deepseadiva

THIS is the worst tier list that has graced my eyes

People tend to make lists based on personal anecdotes, gut instincts, and circular echo chamber reasoning rather than hard data.

I think this is problematic for our discussion and would like to do something to address it.

 

[BunbUn129]

People tend to make lists based on personal anecdotes, gut instincts, and circular echo chamber reasoning rather than hard data.

I think this is problematic for our discussion and would like to do something to address it.

Here's what to do:

Anyone not directly associated with the Smash 4 Back Room and/or is not a top-level player will be flogged on the spot for posting a tier list.

 

[Nobie]

@TSM ZeRo posted the first part of his Tier List

I'd like to point out that ZeRo called that ENTIRE 15-character list the TOP TIER, so I hope no one's going to complain that oh no Pikachu is 13th instead of 9th or whatever. He clearly believes they're all capable of doing very well in a tournament.

Mewtwo thoughts:

I think Mewtwo is currently the character most capable of punching above his weight class, so to speak, as well as the character most likely to get dunked on by characters "worse" than him. The whole glass cannon thing speaks towards this.

If you heard that the best Ganondorf got top 4 at a national, your first response would probably be, "HOW?" You might think that the player was psychic or something, or that he's just clearly better than every other player there.

If the best Mewtwo were to get Top 4 at a national, people would be happy and surprised, but in retrospect it would be clear that he has all the tools in the world to fight those better than him.

However, if the world's best Mewtwo were to drown in pools, I think no one would be shocked. All it takes is one overextension by Mewtwo into, I don't know, a Zelda teleport punish or something, to shift the momentum of a match around.

 

[Ghostbone]

Not entirely sure how consistent/theory based that is.

I can't remember specific results unfortunately but I know that Ness has a pretty good record against Bayo in tourney. And it makes sense that he'd beat her in neutral pretty cleanly (not to mention being a nightmare for her to kill) due to his excellent grab game. He also has a f5 combo starter and of course that airdodge. If the edgeguarding thing works as well as you're suggesting then I can see it swinging to even in future but it doesn't sound half as braindead as Rosa's GP stuff.

Bayonetta doesn't give a **** about ness's air-dodge because extended nair and uair covers it no matter what the timing lol.

People saying it's in Ness's favour are just basing this off Shaky vs Trevonte right?

Witch time is just a really dumb edgeguard tool in general which we'll see more of as bayonettas lab more.

 

[L9999]

@TSM ZeRo posted the first part of his Tier List

Kamui overrated? I see them reaching tier but not surpassing or .

 

[FullMoon]

I couldn't have asked for Pokken to come out at a more fortunate time as I will be playing that game to hell and back just to avoid these defeatist attitudes.

I don't necessarily know when it became the norm to confuse analysis with complaining (while simultaneously not playing), but its really killing the vibe of the game for me.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

7 days left for Pokkén hype

Shame there's no Greninja, but Lucario is in my top 5 too so I can live with it.

Taking a break from Smash is probably going to be good for me too since I have played very little other than it recently, maybe taking some time off and see if the community's attitude managed to change for the better a little bit lol

 

[Megamang]

Well, when we started discussion an -admittedly simple - approach to neutral, 35%+ of the posts were 'Lol play a real fighting game' 'Ive been doing nothing since 64 launch' 'you seriously haven't been doing that?'..

It started to a response to how to beat Bayonetta in neutral. If you don't want complaints about the character, how about you don't **** on people for figuring out how to beat it?


Anyways, though I just started playing more ZSS, I feel like she is ok with the DLC characters. For a character that wins and loses based on hitting grabs, its nice that the new characters open themselves up to it rather frequently. Its also nice having a better (Frame data wise) bair than Bayonetta.

If you are facing a tall or airbourne character, ZSS has her choice of rising aerials. Uair starts combos, and bair hits hard. Nair even covers behind, we saw Nairo using nairs not an inch off the ground at SF2 and having some success. I picked up a top tier, and my enjoyment of the game is only growing. It gives me new insight on my mid tier, and I find their MUs synergize well. My Megaman makes quick work of most Clouds that beat my (pretty mediocre) ZSS. He is really good at stopping Cloud from using aerials, pellets stop them and then nair sends him offstage. He isn't great at item play either, metal blade shenanigans really work out on him since his aerials aren't really solid from zdropping, except maybe uair, and that misses a crouched Megaman frequently. Which means utilt city.

The only troubling thing about the MU is how mobile cloud is, but thats everyones problem isn't it?

 

[Das Koopa]

@TSM ZeRo posted the first part of his Tier List

His Top 15 in the video, for those interested: (He said he's gonna do the whole tier list now that DLC/patches are done)

 

[LancerStaff]

Corrin at 11th? At least ZeRo acknowledged how far off he was with Roy...

 

[Man Li Gi]

7 days left for Pokkén hype

Shame there's no Greninja, but Lucario is in my top 5 too so I can live with it.

Taking a break from Smash is probably going to be good for me too since I have played very little other than it recently, maybe taking some time off and see if the community's attitude managed to change for the better a little bit lol

Playing to my Heavies roots, Machamp my boi. I also want Weavile and Sceptile to be good. Pika seems like the best from the very small sample size of youtubers playing the game. By golly I can't control myself thinking about that game dude.

 

[PK Gaming]

Corrin at 11th? At least ZeRo acknowledged how far off he was with Roy...

Except unlike Roy, Corrin actually has good tournament results right out of the gate.