Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Asdioh]

We've come a long way since release and people still do not know how to properly DI Meta Knight's follow ups so they do not die at fraudulent percents. It perplexes me that people somehow definitely know Bayonetta is too good when they have no idea how she works, particularly without character specific labbing.

...but I thought the combo is always a combo, as long as he reads your DI correctly? And you'll still die to it...?
I mean, if Kirby doesn't get autokilled from getting DA'd at low percent, feel free to tell me how, but every MK I've talked to said it's true, at least if you follow the DI.

the counter play is to trick the bayo with good DI. my point was just that there's no end all be all way to get out of her stuff like that video suggested. just don't be predictable in your DI.

^ basically this, same as MK's combo? Your options are to do certain DI and trip them up, or do certain DI and die because they read it right.

 

[Megamang]

With MK, sometimes you see people DI in a way that lets the MK do the shuttle loop and live, where DIing offstage would let you at least trade stocks or make him end the combo early.

What can the Bayo do if I SDI Witch Twist upwards so her ABK misses? Adding a jump will shut the combo down early...

ZSS is super light so perhaps that is making the difference, but it feels to me that I get out of Bayonetta combos pretty consistently. True I haven't played a top level Bayonetta, but I see people at a top level not even try to DI so i'm not too worried.

 

[FallofBrawl]

Anti MK ladder strats like DI-ing it correctly and standing by the ledge sometimes works in the long run and sometimes not.

If the MK is reliant on the ladder like Abadango, you'd think it would have more of an effect against him than say Leo or Ito, who built their MK's around his neutral.

 

[DblCrest]

Esam posted a video saying you can avoid the second hit of Shuttle loop if you DI above Metaknight and air dodge :o Though if he reads what your trying he can catch you with it.
But anyway here's the video. Would have linked it sooner but It's been a while since we've had a discussion about the Upair strings. Plus barely anyway really says 'how' you DI since you're liking going to get carried up to the blast zones regardless no matter what you do at times. =/

Though is video is mostly about dealing with Metaknight in general anyway.

 

[Megamang]

Yea, you'll notice Zero gets hit with both hits of Shuttle Loop less than half the time, from the footage ive seen.


Speaking of footage, what channel was Do or DI on? I'm having trouble finding the VODs.

 

[Ffamran]

To be fair, Sonic got nerfed and Mewtwo got buffed, Falco got buffed, Marth got buffed, Metaknight got slightly buffed, Diddy got nerfed.

Sonic's Up Smash went from being one the strongest to weaker than Falco's current Up Smash, but he remains pretty intact, Meta Knight's changes to me were not buffs, but fixes to poor game development. If Melee had patches and they fixed Roy's hitboxes, he'd be better, but not that much better. It's a similar case to Meta Knight except his hitboxes were that bad at times. To me, those were all trivial changes as either they didn't really do much (Sonic) or they should have been like that from the beginning (Meta Knight's hitbox fixes).

The most major changes would go to Diddy, Marth, and Mewtwo: Diddy through a nerf to his do everything Uair and while D-throw was nerfed, he had U-throw since launch to do the same setup. Diddy pretty much dropped from top to high-tier which could be said for Luigi as well, but Luigi was kind of a volatile high-tier. Lucina and Marth solidified their identities as spacing characters who are actually getting rewarded for their hits. While you could say this is similar to Meta Knight's situation, it's kind of different since their hitboxes weren't borked, but they were under-tuned. Mewtwo's buffs moved him up from low-mid to solid mid and potentially high-tier. He went from being one of the faster characters on the ground to one of the fastest characters.

Falco's changes were both what should have been: Up Smash's consistency, hitbox fix, and I-frames and Fair's landing lag reduction - Seriously, why was it 32 frames of landing lag in the first place i.e. Brawl?; balancing: air acceleration and air speed buffs making him strictly not just slower than Fox in every way; pure buffs: Up Smash's knockback increase, Nair gaining auto-link angles, Fair's lower startup and faster hit rate, and Dair's spike staying out for 1 more frame; questionable changes: Uair being faster, but weaker as a result when Bayonetta and ZSS's all do less damage, but have higher knockback and their vertical setups are more reliable and even before the change, Uair didn't really kill that early unless Falco was right next to the blast zone; and trivial buffs: jab 2 to rapid jab having 1 less frame to transition, but it still doesn't connect properly while Fox's gains a phantom hit and Down Smash gaining 2 more growth which still doesn't change that it's the strongest splits Down Smash for no reason at all as Fox's is 1 frame faster, but weaker and has higher recovery and Sonic's is 5 frames slower, but also weaker and has higher recovery like Fox's. You can thank the developers for messing with Sonic's Down Smash when his Brawl one was fine and the same goes with Wario's Side Smash. Basically, Falco's a mixed bag of what should have been and pure buffs that frankly, were trivial since they buffed things Falco already did well at: close-range game when his biggest weakness: long-range and mid-range stays poor and gets worse as other characters are buffed in those areas: Fox, Greninja, and Robin or are introduced into the game: Bayonetta, Cloud, Lucas, and Ryu.

I still stand by the idea that the patches only significantly buffed Greninja, Ike, Lucina, Marth, Mewtwo, and Robin with Bowser, Dark Pit - holy hell, Electroshock Arm - and DK gaining niche things that really reward them, but don't really much to fix other stuff for them like hitbox problems for some of DK's moves or their issues with neutral and disadvantage - Bowser 8 frame jump why? - and everyone else gaining trivial changes or what should have been changes, fixes, like Meta Knight and Zelda. On the flipside, the only characters to be significantly nerfed would be Diddy, Fox, Greninja, Luigi, and Rosalina & Luma. In most cases, those were removals or changes to over-tuned options. Everyone else got trivial changes.

What matters is if the char is viable enough to do damage at a major. After that its up to your own synergy.

The only questionable character is Falco.

But thats just Richard being a weirdo and letting years of Falco play influence his decisions.

I'd argue that in a results-based reasoning, all of them would be questionable, but in a "human-based" reasoning, none of them aren't... except Keitaro dropping everyone for Falco. At least Eshura kept his Pit...

Did Keitaro even play Falco in Melee (and PM)? If he didn't and he only played Falco in Brawl and Smash 4, that's not really that long. Then again, it's Keitaro, so...

On the subject of Falco, how does he keeps his current ranking in the tier list? are obviously much better than him, have accomplished more in their lives, and even have done more than Falco. Whats besides theory? Who even plays Falco?

He's not. The only way Falco will keep his place on the tier list is if people's skills degrade and that's not going to happen. He doesn't have theory; he doesn't have any stellar strategies (Wii Fit Trainer), insane kill confirms, setups, or combos (Dr. Mario, Little Mac, Lucina, Marth, Mewtwo, Samus), wacky stuff he has (Palutena) or can pull off like whatever setups Duck Hunt and PAC-MAN pull off, or being a (fraud of a) special snowflake (Shulk). His stats themselves go against him unlike Triple D being super-heavy, so even if he gets bodied, he's going to live and at low- to mid-level play, not being able to kill becomes that much harder. Falco is as mundane as you can get out of a character and all of his niches: fast, high-damaging combos and footsie gameplay and aerial combat and edgeguarding, were all taken by Ryu and Bayonetta, respectively. That just leaves him with a "niche" that all characters inherently have: fundamental play. He's just a Street Fighter character without the Street Fighter staples of special cancels and links in a Smash game; he's a proto-Ryu. Falco has less of a niche than Zelda who is argued to be the worst of the worst forever and ever more. Zelda at least has the stupidest Fair and Bair in the game, she's argued as useful in doubles, and she even has somewhat reliable kill confirms which Falco lacks. He also fails as a counter-pick character, so... Yeah, he ain't got ****. Oh, he's good against Villager! Yeah, who else are?

Spoiler: The Past Never Leaves You; A Falco Rant

Falco is mired by poor, questionable game development choices that happened in Melee with one of them being from 64. 64 Fox Blaster and his (stolen) Blaster is questionable as it's a projectile that can be continually fired and inflicts noticeable hit stun which in 64, Melee, and Brawl, could have almost no recovery which itself is questionable. Then they manage to buff it from Melee to Brawl... Unless you're playing a shooter, hack 'n' slash, or whatever, a projectile that can continually fire in a fighting game should not exist unless there's a catch like Bayonetta's Bullet Climax does hit stun, but minor hit stun and is angled up, so you could just duck under and Fox's (Melee onward) Blaster doesn't do hit stun. If you consider Bowser's Fire Breath and Charizard's Flamethrower as projectiles, then their short range is that catch along with the hitbox shrinking. Bayonetta's Bullet Climax usurps everything Falco's Blaster does while being pretty fair towards the cast and that's in one try unlike Falco's which went from overpowered in 64 through Fox and in Melee to broken as all hell in Brawl to pretty useless in Smash 4. It's really, really easy to fix - Hello! "one-shot", "traditional" fighting game projectiles - and give Falco some semblance of a projectile game that isn't oppressive, but nope, copy and paste Brawl's Blaster, but remove the ability to auto-cancel and then buff everyone's projectile, but his. Why does it need to continually fire? Nostalgia? Oh, wait, everyone, but Falco players hated Falco's Blaster in Melee and Brawl. Now it extends to everyone including Falco players who hate his Blaster. Star Fox reference? Oh, wait, lasers don't cause "hit stun" in Star Fox unless they're charged. Lasers behave more like Fox's Blaster and only cause hit stun when charged which might as well give Falco an Assault-style Blaster where he can move while charging - Mega Man charged shots, anyone? There's almost no reason other than reusing ideas for convenience's sake which actually continues the cycle of hatred against Falco. Nobody likes dealing with projectiles, especially ones that can constantly stun you and stall your actions. It's also pretty useless in FFA since he's stalling them from their deaths unlike Bayonetta who can outright kill them with Charge Bullet or tag them with Bullet Arts or Fox who also just tags them with his Blaster for kill steals. Falco's Blaster is an annoyance ever since 64, but it was threatening in 64, Melee, and Brawl while becoming just annoying in Smash 4. It's not harassment, zoning, or whatever like a traditional projectile such as Ryu's Hadouken or projectiles like the Pits's Arrows, the Links's Boomerang, Mewtwo's Shadow Ball, Samus's Charge Shot, or Zelda's Din's Fire. It's just annoying and pretty much useless outside of followup attempts and gimp attempts which once again, Bayonetta usurps that because of her higher rate of fire.

Falco Phantasm being a "reverse" Fox Illusion in the air is extremely questionable despite it being a weak spike. Let me remind you that it debuted in a game where most recoveries were bad and where fall speeds were generally higher. Combine this with a spike that is like most spikes, fairly slow at frame 18, but covers about half of a stage, well, Yoshi's Story. That's insane. Spikes or moves in general with high active frames are fine considering that it was normal for them in previous games, but that much range? This continues on to even this day; Brawl gave it I-frames on startup, sped it up by 2 frames, matched its distance to Fox Illusion, and lowered the recovery and while Smash 4 halved its hitbox, it still remains as the largest spike in the series. Holy hell, what the hell were you thinking developers? Of all the moves to copy and paste from Brawl (and Melee), you decide to leave Falco Phantasm as the "same move". Hey, anyone remember this scene in Brawl's Subspace Emissary: https://youtu.be/r_Bz6kPgb1k?t=44?

Knowing the developers, they knew what DACUS was; they knew about wave-dashing in Melee after all and they were responsible for all the games and decisions. Here's the difference: cutscene magic made Falco's Falco Phantasm into a DACUS. In the cutscene, it functions like Vergil's Rising Star, a variant or "follow-up" to Rapid Slash. What's Rising Star's input? Lock-on, Forward + Attack (Hold) with Yamato. In DMC games, it's the equivalent to a Special, a Side Special specifically; a move that moves you forward. What would you have to reuse to make it? (Pre-Smash 4 Falco and) Fox's Up Smash and Fox Illusion pose for the startup, travel, and end pose. You wouldn't have to make a pose for a move that's a "reversed" Fox Illusion, but figure it's way too powerful on paper, so you cut down the hitbox and still figure it's still powerful because of the spike hitbox size. Now, it's just Falco's DACUS as a Side Special, but when held and on the ground, it causes Falco to jump up with his target. There you go, no more giant spikes you really can't balance unless you pull a Wolf Flash with it which also works... SO, WHY NOT!? Nah, brah, we gotta keep the Falco feel of having one of the most broken moves both in practice - hello, Brawl - and on paper. Oh, and the whole Fox Illusion having to be weaker in each installment... Just kill off Falco Phantasm so Fox Illusion wouldn't have to be "different" because Falco has a different Side Special.

Last thing would be shared physics and model frames meaning Falco's kind of screwed in every way. Wolf at least has much higher weight like how Ike has higher weight to Corrin's slimmer body and lower weight, but Falco's is a taller, slightly heavier, but still Fox, so anything that works on Fox, works on Falco with Falco dying ~5% later than Fox. This becomes a problem when there are setups geared towards fast fallers and them sharing similar physics and model frames doesn't help Falco at all. It gets worse when Fox can "get away" from these setups because of his higher ground speed and decent projectile allowing him to play in neutral more freely while Falco's going to get caught like an overweight criminal fleeing a former Olympian sprinter.

Keitaro.

Otherwise no one. It's mainly theory to keep him him above many of the listed characters

Please do some freaking research: http://smashboards.com/threads/great-fox-hangar-ace-pilot-list.429118/. I'm in the belief that all character boards / communities need a notable players list since it's really stupid when people say X character has no players, but the PR compilation that is readily available and almost updated daily shows like 10 Lucina players PR'd. How is Lucina bad and has no players when she's PR'd? Oh, but then people say those regions are free... MD/VA's "free", but is home to one of the best PM Lucas and Wolf players and Bayonetta "unlocking" Oco Le Troof and Pink Fresh's potential while before all of that, it was home to one of the stronger Luigi and Sonic players. Free my ***.

The only reason why Falco's managing to survive is that people really are that bad at the game. If you're good at basic fighting game skills, movement, intelligent play, understanding of neutral, advantage, and disadvantage plus basic DI skills and knowledge of what your character can and can't do whether it's setups or how their moves work, Falco can't and shouldn't be able to touch you. Oh, but that sounds like Ganondorf. That's because "he is" Ganondorf if Ganondorf was a bit more versatile and a bit more weaker in terms of raw punish tools.

 

[Yonder]

The whole character change is interesting as there were players who moved down the tier list instead of up. Players that come to mind are Blue, Eshura, Hitaku, Ito, Keitaro, Mr. E, and Tyrant. Blue, Eshura, Hitaku, Ito, Mr. E, and Tyrant all did fine with their original mains; Blue was a Sonic player, Eshura was a Pit player, Hitaku and Mr. E played Sheik, and Ito and Tyrant were Diddy mains. Keitaro was the only one noticeably struggling with a top tier - at the time -, Diddy, and perhaps a top or high-tier - at the time -, customs Mii Brawler. What they all have in common is that they all downgraded instead of upgrading or side-grading. What's surprising is they either do just as well or even better. Blue dropped from high-tier Sonic to debatably high or mid-tier Mewtwo, Eshura still has Pit, a mid-tier, but plays low-tier Falco often, Hitaku dropped from top tier Sheik to debatably high or mid-tier Mewtwo, Ito and Tyrant dropped from top tier at the time Diddy to high-tier Meta Knight, Mr. E dropped from top tier Sheik - he still pockets her at times? - to debatably mid-tier or low-tier Marth, and the lowest drop would be Keitaro going from top tier at the time Diddy to low-tier Falco.

People can't click with any or every characters and it certainly doesn't help if you also don't like the character. If people really, really only cared about results and were capable of playing any and every character, then the only characters that would be used in Smash 4 both competitively and even "casually" would be Bayonetta, Cloud, Rosalina & Luma, Sheik, and ZSS. No Mario, no Luigi, no Pit, no Ike, no Captain Falcon, no Villager, no Samus, no Pikachu, no Greninja, no Lucina, no Zelda, and no Fox. Even that list is a stretch and it really should be Sheik-only. Fortunately, we're not heartless, calculating monsters because that would be really freaking boring. What's pools? Sheik vs. Sheik. What's grand finals? Sheik vs. Sheik. What are we going to play after school? Sheik vs. Sheik. Hey, random corporate employee, want to play Smash 4? Yeah, Sheik vs. Sheik, right? Hell yeah.

I also think matchup experience is a deadly weapon. I think someone could go far if they secretly train a lower tier character then bust them out at a big tourney, no one would be the wiser. And I mean lock and key secret, so that hardly anyone "leaks" the secret character they are training. Imagine if Zero was actually working on a Shulk this whole time, waiting for the next big tourney? Or Esam with, idk, a Ganondorf And the matchup experience would probably fare well - for one tourney until people become aware I suppose.


Another different topic, I would love, love to see a good player get any sort of results at all with Ganondorf, Jigglypuff, of Zelda. Anyone? I think Ganondorf at least has had one tourney placement, or I could be recollecting wrong.

 

[juddy96]

I also think matchup experience is a deadly weapon. I think someone could go far if they secretly train a lower tier character then bust them out at a big tourney, no one would be the wiser. And I mean lock and key secret, so that hardly anyone "leaks" the secret character they are training. Imagine if Zero was actually working on a Shulk this whole time, waiting for the next big tourney? Or Esam with, idk, a Ganondorf And the matchup experience would probably fare well - for one tourney until people become aware I suppose.


Another different topic, I would love, love to see a good player get any sort of results at all with Ganondorf, Jigglypuff, of Zelda. Anyone? I think Ganondorf at least has had one tourney placement, or I could be recollecting wrong.

Ganon's top representative atm is GanonTheBeast (Minnesota #2), as for Zelda it's ven (Vegas #7)

 

[Fatmanonice]

Falco is kind of upkept by nostalgia and people not wanting to admit that the character has significantly fallen from grace. It's a lot like how people regularly exaggerated Fox and Sheik's potential in Brawl and I think this is even stronger for Falco and Marth because they were high- high tiers for 13 years.

 

[Lavani]

Ganon's top representative atm is GanonTheBeast (Minnesota #2), as for Zelda it's ven (Vegas #7)

Ven mains Corrin now with Zelda as a secondary.

 

[Jaguar360]

Yea, you'll notice Zero gets hit with both hits of Shuttle Loop less than half the time, from the footage ive seen.


Speaking of footage, what channel was Do or DI on? I'm having trouble finding the VODs.

Do or DI is on http://www.hitbox.tv/hitboxarena

Nairo vs Mr. E is on right now.

 

[CHIEf]

Falco doesn't have a really notable player to really show what the character can do at his peak. A good portion of this roster is very underdeveloped.

He's in the middle of the roster I feel. A lesser of the high tiers but has slowly looked more solid as time and patches have came.

 

[Vipermoon]

Leo also won a regional using MK,Cloud and Marth. I think he went Marth through most of the tournament again, he definitely used Marth to take GFs.

Serge beat Leos MK with his Marth before losing the Marth ditto and switching to Roy only to lose again. Marth vs Roy is such a good MU for Marth. Serge is definitely on the same level as Leo.

This is the 2nd time Leo used alot of Marth at a regional. Hope he shows off his Marth more instead of Cloud.

Was is the twitch account?

 

[Megamang]

Interesting you say he has looked more solid, as a few posts above you Fframran affirms that he has been surpassed as those around him got more meaningful buffs. He also states that he will only fall as people improve their fundamentals, which I agree with and feel the same about any character with subpar burst mobility. If the range you threaten is smaller than the range your opponent can threaten, its pretty obvious how brutal zoning will be on you.

 

[Charoite]

At Do or DI Hyuga beats Anti 3-0 Anti used both and , thoughts?

 

[Big-Cat]

People can't click with any or every characters and it certainly doesn't help if you also don't like the character.

This. Oh so very much. I could not play an effective Sheik to save my life. I have a powerhouse playstyle which would not click with most of the top tiers.

She essentially has the follow-ups to cover every DI option.

I swear to God, people here are super fatalistic when it comes to Bayonetta. She is the Smash equivalent to a vortex character like C. Viper or El Fuerte in SF4. One knockdown can lead to another knockdown depending on who does what. DI'ing out is rock, paper, scissors, so play it that way against her.

 

[LancerStaff]

I still stand by the idea that the patches only significantly buffed Greninja, Ike, Lucina, Marth, Mewtwo, and Robin with Bowser, Dark Pit - holy hell, Electroshock Arm - and DK gaining niche things that really reward them, but don't really much to fix other stuff for them...

Reminds me of something I've been meaning to say, or I've said it already, though a bit tangentially... When you're not talking about Falco you're often talking about how characters feel and how complete they are.

Electroshock buff made Dark Pit's moveset more "complete." Obviously Electroshock has it's uses raw, but then it also made the almost comically bad Ftilt useful to boot. Once you get past the awkward stage where Ftilt isn't safe on hit it forces tech-chase situations for quite some time, though it wasn't valued previously because nothing good enough would come out of it. Now Electroshock can cover a tech roll forwards or back (probably not and) at percents where it can kill even with proper DI.

So now it's better arrows and a Ftilt that'll kill late vs. a better side B and a Ftilt that'll set up into said side B. Though Dark Pit's rapid jab finisher is still worse, not that it makes a difference.

 

[Shaya]

Whichever bayonetta discovered first hit of forward air to side-b should be crowned the reason this character is busted.
It's the link that's allowed essentially every off the top KO I've seen from the character in the past week or so.
Stalls her vertically and allows you the time to react to DI for the next few hits. Really really really good.

Salem vs Tweek going on right now with firm control coming from Salem's bayo.

 

[Megamang]

Gunblade just became one of my favorite casters.

'Against bayonetta, people really need to learn to be threatening with their presence and movement first, and not a hitbox first'.

Thank you, and excuse my paraphrasing.

 

[Big-Cat]

Whichever bayonetta discovered first hit of forward air to side-b should be crowned the reason this character is busted.
It's the link that's allowed essentially every off the top KO I've seen from the character in the past week or so.

Salem vs Tweek going on right now with firm control coming from Salem's bayo.

I'm pretty sure FAir 1 is a reset.

 

[Sonicninja115]

Sonic's Up Smash went from being one the strongest to weaker than Falco's current Up Smash, but he remains pretty intact, Meta Knight's changes to me were not buffs, but fixes to poor game development. If Melee had patches and they fixed Roy's hitboxes, he'd be better, but not that much better. It's a similar case to Meta Knight except his hitboxes were that bad at times. To me, those were all trivial changes as either they didn't really do much (Sonic) or they should have been like that from the beginning (Meta Knight's hitbox fixes).

The most major changes would go to Diddy, Marth, and Mewtwo: Diddy through a nerf to his do everything Uair and while D-throw was nerfed, he had U-throw since launch to do the same setup. Diddy pretty much dropped from top to high-tier which could be said for Luigi as well, but Luigi was kind of a volatile high-tier. Lucina and Marth solidified their identities as spacing characters who are actually getting rewarded for their hits. While you could say this is similar to Meta Knight's situation, it's kind of different since their hitboxes weren't borked, but they were under-tuned. Mewtwo's buffs moved him up from low-mid to solid mid and potentially high-tier. He went from being one of the faster characters on the ground to one of the fastest characters.

Falco's changes were both what should have been: Up Smash's consistency, hitbox fix, and I-frames and Fair's landing lag reduction - Seriously, why was it 32 frames of landing lag in the first place i.e. Brawl?; balancing: air acceleration and air speed buffs making him strictly not just slower than Fox in every way; pure buffs: Up Smash's knockback increase, Nair gaining auto-link angles, Fair's lower startup and faster hit rate, and Dair's spike staying out for 1 more frame; questionable changes: Uair being faster, but weaker as a result when Bayonetta and ZSS's all do less damage, but have higher knockback and their vertical setups are more reliable and even before the change, Uair didn't really kill that early unless Falco was right next to the blast zone; and trivial buffs: jab 2 to rapid jab having 1 less frame to transition, but it still doesn't connect properly while Fox's gains a phantom hit and Down Smash gaining 2 more growth which still doesn't change that it's the strongest splits Down Smash for no reason at all as Fox's is 1 frame faster, but weaker and has higher recovery and Sonic's is 5 frames slower, but also weaker and has higher recovery like Fox's. You can thank the developers for messing with Sonic's Down Smash when his Brawl one was fine and the same goes with Wario's Side Smash. Basically, Falco's a mixed bag of what should have been and pure buffs that frankly, were trivial since they buffed things Falco already did well at: close-range game when his biggest weakness: long-range and mid-range stays poor and gets worse as other characters are buffed in those areas: Fox, Greninja, and Robin or are introduced into the game: Bayonetta, Cloud, Lucas, and Ryu.

I still stand by the idea that the patches only significantly buffed Greninja, Ike, Lucina, Marth, Mewtwo, and Robin with Bowser, Dark Pit - holy hell, Electroshock Arm - and DK gaining niche things that really reward them, but don't really much to fix other stuff for them like hitbox problems for some of DK's moves or their issues with neutral and disadvantage - Bowser 8 frame jump why? - and everyone else gaining trivial changes or what should have been changes, fixes, like Meta Knight and Zelda. On the flipside, the only characters to be significantly nerfed would be Diddy, Fox, Greninja, Luigi, and Rosalina & Luma. In most cases, those were removals or changes to over-tuned options. Everyone else got trivial changes.


I'd argue that in a results-based reasoning, all of them would be questionable, but in a "human-based" reasoning, none of them aren't... except Keitaro dropping everyone for Falco. At least Eshura kept his Pit...

Did Keitaro even play Falco in Melee (and PM)? If he didn't and he only played Falco in Brawl and Smash 4, that's not really that long. Then again, it's Keitaro, so...


He's not. The only way Falco will keep his place on the tier list is if people's skills degrade and that's not going to happen. He doesn't have theory; he doesn't have any stellar strategies (Wii Fit Trainer), insane kill confirms, setups, or combos (Dr. Mario, Little Mac, Lucina, Marth, Mewtwo, Samus), wacky stuff he has (Palutena) or can pull off like whatever setups Duck Hunt and PAC-MAN pull off, or being a (fraud of a) special snowflake (Shulk). His stats themselves go against him unlike Triple D being super-heavy, so even if he gets bodied, he's going to live and at low- to mid-level play, not being able to kill becomes that much harder. Falco is as mundane as you can get out of a character and all of his niches: fast, high-damaging combos and footsie gameplay and aerial combat and edgeguarding, were all taken by Ryu and Bayonetta, respectively. That just leaves him with a "niche" that all characters inherently have: fundamental play. He's just a Street Fighter character without the Street Fighter staples of special cancels and links in a Smash game; he's a proto-Ryu. Falco has less of a niche than Zelda who is argued to be the worst of the worst forever and ever more. Zelda at least has the stupidest Fair and Bair in the game, she's argued as useful in doubles, and she even has somewhat reliable kill confirms which Falco lacks. He also fails as a counter-pick character, so... Yeah, he ain't got ****. Oh, he's good against Villager! Yeah, who else are?

Spoiler: The Past Never Leaves You; A Falco Rant

Falco is mired by poor, questionable game development choices that happened in Melee with one of them being from 64. 64 Fox Blaster and his (stolen) Blaster is questionable as it's a projectile that can be continually fired and inflicts noticeable hit stun which in 64, Melee, and Brawl, could have almost no recovery which itself is questionable. Then they manage to buff it from Melee to Brawl... Unless you're playing a shooter, hack 'n' slash, or whatever, a projectile that can continually fire in a fighting game should not exist unless there's a catch like Bayonetta's Bullet Climax does hit stun, but minor hit stun and is angled up, so you could just duck under and Fox's (Melee onward) Blaster doesn't do hit stun. If you consider Bowser's Fire Breath and Charizard's Flamethrower as projectiles, then their short range is that catch along with the hitbox shrinking. Bayonetta's Bullet Climax usurps everything Falco's Blaster does while being pretty fair towards the cast and that's in one try unlike Falco's which went from overpowered in 64 through Fox and in Melee to broken as all hell in Brawl to pretty useless in Smash 4. It's really, really easy to fix - Hello! "one-shot", "traditional" fighting game projectiles - and give Falco some semblance of a projectile game that isn't oppressive, but nope, copy and paste Brawl's Blaster, but remove the ability to auto-cancel and then buff everyone's projectile, but his. Why does it need to continually fire? Nostalgia? Oh, wait, everyone, but Falco players hated Falco's Blaster in Melee and Brawl. Now it extends to everyone including Falco players who hate his Blaster. Star Fox reference? Oh, wait, lasers don't cause "hit stun" in Star Fox unless they're charged. Lasers behave more like Fox's Blaster and only cause hit stun when charged which might as well give Falco an Assault-style Blaster where he can move while charging - Mega Man charged shots, anyone? There's almost no reason other than reusing ideas for convenience's sake which actually continues the cycle of hatred against Falco. Nobody likes dealing with projectiles, especially ones that can constantly stun you and stall your actions. It's also pretty useless in FFA since he's stalling them from their deaths unlike Bayonetta who can outright kill them with Charge Bullet or tag them with Bullet Arts or Fox who also just tags them with his Blaster for kill steals. Falco's Blaster is an annoyance ever since 64, but it was threatening in 64, Melee, and Brawl while becoming just annoying in Smash 4. It's not harassment, zoning, or whatever like a traditional projectile such as Ryu's Hadouken or projectiles like the Pits's Arrows, the Links's Boomerang, Mewtwo's Shadow Ball, Samus's Charge Shot, or Zelda's Din's Fire. It's just annoying and pretty much useless outside of followup attempts and gimp attempts which once again, Bayonetta usurps that because of her higher rate of fire.

Falco Phantasm being a "reverse" Fox Illusion in the air is extremely questionable despite it being a weak spike. Let me remind you that it debuted in a game where most recoveries were bad and where fall speeds were generally higher. Combine this with a spike that is like most spikes, fairly slow at frame 18, but covers about half of a stage, well, Yoshi's Story. That's insane. Spikes or moves in general with high active frames are fine considering that it was normal for them in previous games, but that much range? This continues on to even this day; Brawl gave it I-frames on startup, sped it up by 2 frames, matched its distance to Fox Illusion, and lowered the recovery and while Smash 4 halved its hitbox, it still remains as the largest spike in the series. Holy hell, what the hell were you thinking developers? Of all the moves to copy and paste from Brawl (and Melee), you decide to leave Falco Phantasm as the "same move". Hey, anyone remember this scene in Brawl's Subspace Emissary: https://youtu.be/r_Bz6kPgb1k?t=44?

Knowing the developers, they knew what DACUS was; they knew about wave-dashing in Melee after all and they were responsible for all the games and decisions. Here's the difference: cutscene magic made Falco's Falco Phantasm into a DACUS. In the cutscene, it functions like Vergil's Rising Star, a variant or "follow-up" to Rapid Slash. What's Rising Star's input? Lock-on, Forward + Attack (Hold) with Yamato. In DMC games, it's the equivalent to a Special, a Side Special specifically; a move that moves you forward. What would you have to reuse to make it? (Pre-Smash 4 Falco and) Fox's Up Smash and Fox Illusion pose for the startup, travel, and end pose. You wouldn't have to make a pose for a move that's a "reversed" Fox Illusion, but figure it's way too powerful on paper, so you cut down the hitbox and still figure it's still powerful because of the spike hitbox size. Now, it's just Falco's DACUS as a Side Special, but when held and on the ground, it causes Falco to jump up with his target. There you go, no more giant spikes you really can't balance unless you pull a Wolf Flash with it which also works... SO, WHY NOT!? Nah, brah, we gotta keep the Falco feel of having one of the most broken moves both in practice - hello, Brawl - and on paper. Oh, and the whole Fox Illusion having to be weaker in each installment... Just kill off Falco Phantasm so Fox Illusion wouldn't have to be "different" because Falco has a different Side Special.

Last thing would be shared physics and model frames meaning Falco's kind of screwed in every way. Wolf at least has much higher weight like how Ike has higher weight to Corrin's slimmer body and lower weight, but Falco's is a taller, slightly heavier, but still Fox, so anything that works on Fox, works on Falco with Falco dying ~5% later than Fox. This becomes a problem when there are setups geared towards fast fallers and them sharing similar physics and model frames doesn't help Falco at all. It gets worse when Fox can "get away" from these setups because of his higher ground speed and decent projectile allowing him to play in neutral more freely while Falco's going to get caught like an overweight criminal fleeing a former Olympian sprinter.

Please do some freaking research: http://smashboards.com/threads/great-fox-hangar-ace-pilot-list.429118/. I'm in the belief that all character boards / communities need a notable players list since it's really stupid when people say X character has no players, but the PR compilation that is readily available and almost updated daily shows like 10 Lucina players PR'd. How is Lucina bad and has no players when she's PR'd? Oh, but then people say those regions are free... MD/VA's "free", but is home to one of the best PM Lucas and Wolf players and Bayonetta "unlocking" Oco Le Troof and Pink Fresh's potential while before all of that, it was home to one of the stronger Luigi and Sonic players. Free my ***.

The only reason why Falco's managing to survive is that people really are that bad at the game. If you're good at basic fighting game skills, movement, intelligent play, understanding of neutral, advantage, and disadvantage plus basic DI skills and knowledge of what your character can and can't do whether it's setups or how their moves work, Falco can't and shouldn't be able to touch you. Oh, but that sounds like Ganondorf. That's because "he is" Ganondorf if Ganondorf was a bit more versatile and a bit more weaker in terms of raw punish tools.

I am making one for M2! There are a surprising amount of PR'ed Mewtwos.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

Falco's changes were both what should have been: Up Smash's consistency, hitbox fix, and I-frames and Fair's landing lag reduction - Seriously, why was it 32 frames of landing lag in the first place i.e. Brawl?; balancing: air acceleration and air speed buffs making him strictly not just slower than Fox in every way; pure buffs: Up Smash's knockback increase, Nair gaining auto-link angles, Fair's lower startup and faster hit rate, and Dair's spike staying out for 1 more frame; questionable changes: Uair being faster, but weaker as a result when Bayonetta and ZSS's all do less damage, but have higher knockback and their vertical setups are more reliable and even before the change, Uair didn't really kill that early unless Falco was right next to the blast zone; and trivial buffs: jab 2 to rapid jab having 1 less frame to transition, but it still doesn't connect properly while Fox's gains a phantom hit and Down Smash gaining 2 more growth which still doesn't change that it's the strongest splits Down Smash for no reason at all as Fox's is 1 frame faster, but weaker and has higher recovery and Sonic's is 5 frames slower, but also weaker and has higher recovery like Fox's. You can thank the developers for messing with Sonic's Down Smash when his Brawl one was fine and the same goes with Wario's Side Smash. Basically, Falco's a mixed bag of what should have been and pure buffs that frankly, were trivial since they buffed things Falco already did well at: close-range game when his biggest weakness: long-range and mid-range stays poor and gets worse as other characters are buffed in those areas: Fox, Greninja, and Robin or are introduced into the game: Bayonetta, Cloud, Lucas, and Ryu.

I still stand by the idea that the patches only significantly buffed Greninja, Ike, Lucina, Marth, Mewtwo, and Robin with Bowser, Dark Pit - holy hell, Electroshock Arm - and DK gaining niche things that really reward them, but don't really much to fix other stuff for them like hitbox problems for some of DK's moves or their issues with neutral and disadvantage - Bowser 8 frame jump why? - and everyone else gaining trivial changes or what should have been changes, fixes, like Meta Knight and Zelda. On the flipside, the only characters to be significantly nerfed would be Diddy, Fox, Greninja, Luigi, and Rosalina & Luma. In most cases, those were removals or changes to over-tuned options. Everyone else got trivial changes.

Falco's changes were significant. Before 1.0.8, his combo and edge guard game were a fair bit worse than they are now since his options to extend combos / cover the opponents recovery options were very limited. Because of the buffs to his combo extenders, he is able to rack up a lot more damage / cover more of the opponents escape options from Up throw, D-Tilt, and U-tilt combos, while the buffs to his Nair make his off stage game more powerful since he can immediately challenge the opponents recovery options with a fast frame 3 aerial that lingers and sends the opponent at a difficult to recover angle. In short, his combo and edge guarding ability went from fairly average to very good. I would argue the changes to U-Smash are fairly significant as well, as it is now a pretty solid KO move whereas at launch it was completely useless at high percents. He isn't an amazing character right now, but the buffs were far more than just trivial.

 

[Luig]

That was a nice showing by Hyuga.

 

[juddy96]

Tweek defeated Pugwest and Angel Cortes defeated 6WX in offstream 5 game losers sets to make top 8. I feel like it's been a while since we've seen Angel do this well.

 

[Smog Frog]

once again has a top 16(barely outside of top 8) appearance at a stacked event...

top 8 is:
tweek
nairo
dabuz
anti
angel cortez
dugan
hyuga
salem

e: this is actually very diverse. 9 individual characters.

 

[Megamang]

Finally, a lab heavy player vs Bayonetta on stream. I'm excited to see how his DI works in this set.

But, we did see something which I have been saying since we learned that Bayo's counter would be strong... charging smashes counters people trying to abuse counters. Dabuz finishing game 1 with a charging u smash to bait Witch Time, just released perfectly to kill Salem.


Also, it seems like Luma getting caught in Witch Twist slows down Bayonetta a lot, enough for an easy punish even if Rosalina was pushed pretty far away. Additionally, starting to combo Rosalina to death is a little more complicated with a star pillow ready to come kill you off the roof for a single misstep.

Is it possible that a Witch Time'd smash, featuring Luma, could have luma hit Bayo before she could follow up? Usually this kind of thing fails to a skilled bayonetta, but luma is almost instantaneous..

 

[DblCrest]

Jesus...Dabuz bringing it back after Salem carried him off at the beginning >.O

 

[Luig]

I think in real life a guy with a 3 feet long sword would pretty brutally murder a little chimpanzee....
The mad world of smash

 

[Megamang]

Angel Cortez proving to be in really solid form. Combination of confirm and safety based play, with some extensions in advantage really paying off. Tweek is good, but still has some way to go. More banana work would do him well, as well as breaking grabs (Cortez got a few 0% pummels, that shouldn't happen). Otherwise, really solid set. I think Cloud might have Diddy problems, he is linear but Diddy can beat him out on the ground... and what can he do? He can't get safer with aerials. My guess would be strong banana play, as well as converting more when Diddy is offstage.

 

[juddy96]

As I said it's been at least a couple months since Angel has really done anything of note, but he's picked a good time here. Same day that Zinoto beat M2K as well. Diddy seems to have a good MU vs Cloud.

 

[deepseadiva]

once again has a top 16(barely outside of top 8) appearance at a stacked event...

top 8 is:
tweek
nairo
dabuz
anti
angel cortez
dugan
hyuga
salem

e: this is actually very diverse. 9 individual characters.

This is gorgeous.

 

[Thinkaman]

Someone sketch out characters of top 16 for a fun surprise.

 

[Solfiner]

People are saying that Bayo and Cloud kill diversity but every major lately has had really good diversity.

 

[Megamang]

Anti saying 'Wait, Mario doesn't have needles'


Does fox's uthrow not kill? I was confused when Dugan had shiek grabbed, he had full rage and shiek was around 130%? Idk, the game was super exciting so it was hard to watch percents and players.

Anti is a player you need to watch if you've been interested in this fundamentals discussion over the last week. His positioning on the stage is amazing. When combined with needles, it seems terrifying. I hope he stays with Mario, but he has been trusting his shiek in clutch moments and I can't say that he's been wrong with that.

I've heard others say the issue with Anti is he is really hard to kill, and his positioning is a huge part of that. He also knows when to drop a Mario combo, in order to land and take good positioning. He is a player who deserves all his success.

 

[C0rvus]

Looks like the good players still win in the end. That's a good sign. A couple new faces have emerged thanks to the new characters, but that's not unexpected. I'm not worried about this game's longevity, and while the current character diversity is good, having fewer viable characters doesn't affect the game's quality. Look at Melee's enduring popularity despite having around ten usable characters in top level.
[,,]
Off the top of my head, I think these characters will remain usable (read: top 8 at majors) even in the game's future.
[,,]
Like, that's more or less my projected top and high tier. Just through high tier, that's a lot of characters. Plenty of diversity to come, as long as players are willing to provide it.

 

[Tri Knight]

At Do or DI Hyuga beats Anti 3-0 Anti used both and , thoughts?

Tink is showing a lot of potential lately. Hyuga is now even sponsored. He's putting in a lot of work with Tink and it's clearly paying off. Tink's one of those characters that are very diverse in the way that he can be just as scary away from you as he is close to you. He can go in and out while putting up like 2-3 hits thanks to projectiles and speed and not take a hit. Up-tilt strings on characters like Sheik means an automatic 40% basically. Up-air and its lasting hit boxes, f-smash means death now, bomb shenanigans for days upon days upon days, boomerang stuff, even his Z-air is pretty useful now. And on top of that he's fast enough to actually be anywhere on the stage. Weighs enough to survive attacks. And hugely important in my opinion, has enough floatiness to escape some pretty devastating combos.

He's the type of character that just has a very very well balanced MU chart. Very versatile.

 

[Trifroze]

I would just like to take a short moment to mention how incredibly helpless Bayonetta looks in the air when she's just falling down not doing anything. Literally Little Mac level.

 

[Jams.]

Someone sketch out characters of top 16 for a fun surprise.

9. 6WX
9. Pugwest
9. Mr. E
9. Ribs
13. LingLing
13. Frozen
13. Raptor
13. Gunblade

Is this surprise double Marth at 9th? While impressive, it's worth noting that this tournament is incredibly top heavy and didn't actually have too many entrants. For reference, Pugwest's journey to 9th was: Darude Sandwich (W) -> Noobwarrior (W) -> Mr. E (L) -> Atomsk (W) -> Frozen (W) -> Tweek (L) while Mr. E's was: Weff (W) -> Bloob (W) -> Pugwest (W) -> Nairo (L) -> Dugan (L). When you consider who each player beat and lost to, I don't find these results too surprising.

My apologies if I misunderstood your statement.

 

[momochuu]

I would just like to take a short moment to mention how incredibly helpless Bayonetta looks in the air when she's just falling down not doing anything. Literally Little Mac level.

That's how she falls in her game.

 

[Asdioh]

Pug said it got to game five last stock vs tweek, and I read in here he was close with mr e as well? It's a darn shame!

I'm not sure what the fun surprise is, maybe the results have a vague resemblance to the tier list?