Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Deleted member]

Speaking of Dedede, a while back I was wondering about Dedede vs. Corrin being potentially a decent matchup for the penguin. With the recent nerfs to Corrin I think this matchup might even get pushed into even territory.

Lower run, walk, and air speed means it's harder to outspace and juggle Dedede. Dedede's still slow as heck, but it means Dedede can get away in more situations. Conversely, worse air speed means being more easily juggled by Dedede, and it's not that crazy to get a kill at like 90%.

Counter is no longer as scary, so Dedede can afford to throw things out and not worry about getting killed at 50%. Also, this was the case in the last patch too, but Dedede has enough range on certain attacks that he can trigger Counter without getting hit by it. Key move in this case is jab, but even an F-Smash at max range can avoid Counter (though if Corrin just gets closer before doing it that doesn't really matter then).

Tipper f-smash from Corrin is still scary though.

EDIT: "Taking away options" doesn't make a game inherently better or worse. That's the sort of argument used when people want to say Melee is better, because "wavedashing is another option!"

If Jigglypuff had the option to combo into Rest from across the stage, the dev team would most certainly patch that out. I know it's not THAT extreme for Sheik, but again I see it not so much as removing her options as it is forcing her to actually have to take risks.

I can sorta-sorta see this, but Corrin even after his nerfs would still have the advantage. Corrin can abuse Dedede's lack of good landing options, even if he does have multiple jumps to to make it somewhat safer. Gordos aren't very optimal in the MU either since Corrin can easily just play safe and nair them back. The mobility decreases for Corrin didn't make a very large difference either (also, was his air speed decreased? I only saw in the patch notes that only his run/walk speed were.), and he still has aerials and tilts that are mostly safe on shield and are fast combo starters like dtilt, nair or utilt.

Along with that Dedede still has to watch out for B-reversed Dragon Fang Shot mixups, along with the confirms into tippered Dragon Lunge which aren't very hard to pull off on him due to having trouble opposing projectiles and being large in size. Dedede does have some nice things in the MU, like being able to get some nice reward off dthrow and edgeguard him well and make it back to stage safely most of the time, but it's a major hassle to get him there in the first place. Dedede's throws send at mostly near vertical angles, making them unsuitable for putting opponents in uncomfortable positions offstage.

 

[C0rvus]

Doom and gloom? It's a damn fiesta in here rn, amigo~

I was about to give up on my main search and play Sheik, then she got nerfed. I choose to see this as a sign. Now I can muck about ad infinitum, hooray!

Here's to an even more diverse meta!

 

[Ninety]

So, about the Roy talk a couple pages back -- put me down for those who don't see how he's anything but low tier. I'm hardly the most experienced player, so forgive me if I'm talking out of my ass here, but he's so... conflicted in his character design. He wants to be rushdown, but he doesn't have the raw frame data for it. He wants to be a powerhouse, but his strongest moves have no way of being reliably set up. He wants to have good combos, but they stop working past mid percent. He can't even use his sword disjoint properly since he's actually weaker at the tip.

Like, how do you get kills with him? I'm honestly asking here, not just being disparaging. Get into touching-hurtboxes range and fsmash like you're trying to Rest? Bait? Hard reads? I've heard of a couple setups with ff uair, but honestly that's the kind of hyper-situational stuff when you're scratching the bottom of the barrel. People compare him to Little Mac and Captain Falcon, but those two have actual range to go with their speed and power. What's the point of powerful hitboxes if you have no way of getting them safely?

I dunno. I don't wanna sound like I think Roy is absolute irredeemable bottom tier garbage, but I'm just frustrated by him. His design is so at odds with itself, it's like they wanted him to be a Falcon-esque fast character who used quick combos to set up powerful kill moves offset by their short range, but chickened out halfway through. Like, he has no niche. Everything he tries to do seems to be done better by someone else. I hope he gets a Mewtwo-style overhaul, because right now I can't think of a reason to play this character, and tournament results seem to agree with me.

 

[Y2Kay]

Doom and gloom? It's a damn fiesta in here rn, amigo~

I was about to give up on my main search and play Sheik, then she got nerfed. I choose to see this as a sign.

Here's to an even more diverse meta!

Stop lying you don't have a main.

 

[FullMoon]

Peach, villager, dedede, Bowser Jr., Marcina, Pits, and DK... Yeah, those are the ones I question most probably in that order.

Also what makes doc and Mario different enough that Doc is -1 vs frog and Mario isn't.

Spoiler: thoughts

Peach = shield pressure. Enough said.
Bad grab vs villager isn't a good thing to have. General good character, so curious.

Poor gordo reflect options vs dedede, along with the hardest to kill off the top, which greninja usually does. I don't see it that bad in my head.

Bowser Jr. Controls the ground very well with mecha koopas, given he can get one out. I imagine greninja gets juggled hard with Jr.'s great up air, and fall speed and lightish weight lends itself to Jr.'s confirms. - rather obscure character though, so not surprised if there wasn't much thought put behind it.

Marcina and pits play the "don't jump" game well vs characters who like to fall with aerials. Along with a strong ledge game, which Greninja lacks options to get off the ledge with (FAir, NAir are not great for this).

Okay let's go:

Spoiler

: Peach's shield pressure is really good, yeah, but Greninja does a very good job at keeping her out and shurikens can really mess with her float. Peach's poor mobility also means that she can't chase Greninja very well which allows him to play a zoning game pretty well as long as he's careful. I think Greninja has a stronger neutral and also a stronger advantaged state than Peach. I don't think Peach is too bad as long as you're careful to not shield her floating D-Airs and stuff. Greninja shouldn't be shielding too much in any case.

: Personal experience bias here but I always felt Greninja did really well against him. Low height makes slingshots harder to hit with especially if Greninja crouches and shurikens can actually pester Villager very effectively. Villager can also struggle to get the kill outside of edgeguarding and while he can threaten us offstage very well, we can deal with his edgeguarding pretty well. Greninja's good kill setups and damage racking as well as being a very slippery target for Villager makes this a fairly good MU from my experience

: Gordos won't help much when he gets combo'd forever, has a worse frame data than us and is very slow. With Greninja's added safety I find it really hard for Dedede to get in, all the while Greninja can rack up huge amounts of damage from one punish and Dedede also can't land very well so he really struggles. We can't really reflect Gordos very well but at the same time Dedede doesn't really have much over us, shuriken camping is still pretty hard for him to get around.

: He really struggles against Greninja up-close and Greninja's mobility makes it very easy for him to close in. Jr's best option OoS is Up-Smash which has fairly poor range, so we can hit his shield without much consequence. Both characters combo each other a lot, but I think Greninja does better in neutral because of his mobility and pressure on Jr. Our own OoS options are pretty bad too, I know, but I don't really think Bowser Jr can pin us down as well as we can. He also can't edgeguard us very well although vice-versa also applies, although Hydro Pump can mess with his Up-B.

vs : To be honest I think Mario could well be a +1 as well, but I find Doc's recovery and mobility to be a lot more exploitable than Mario's, so I think Mario is a significantly harder opponent than Doc to fight against. Doc's combos also aren't as good as Mario's for punish us.

/ and /: I'm not quite sure what you mean with the first part, but as far as the rest, I've never felt really all that threatened by these four at the ledge. Usually I just go with one of the ledge options or sometimes I drop down and Up-Air/F-Air then and it tends to work. Marcina is also very vulnerable to Hydro Pump shenanigans and getting hit by it can easily kill them offstage, less so for the Pits although Hydro Pump is still a threat.

: I don't really know what to say here, it could well be even. Both character can hurt the other a lot, but Greninja can also juggle DK pretty badly and make him have a hard time landing properly. DK's famous kill setup is an issue but if I remember right the percent window is a bit tight? I think Greninja has an easier time in neutral than DK and the gorilla's disadvantaged state is a lot more exploitable which means Greninja can stay in advantage longer against him. We actually can't edgeguard DK that well but neither can he I believe.

I'm pretty bad at explaining myself and I fully admit that I'm not too sure about a lot of this so sorry if I get anything wrong lol

Oh yeah, could you elaborate on the Villager and Olimar matchup too?

FullMoon Why is Olimar borderline? We should win that MU rather convincingly. Lucario has more right to a borderline +1 than Olimar does.

I think he considers Olimar borderline because Dabuz bopped him in an online tournament lol

This is what I was wondering, but I couldn't find a way to word it properly.

I wanted to ask if he had ever played Dabuz, without making it sound like I was letting that change the MU ratio (since players don't change MU ratios; ratios measure how raw characters' tools interact). Rather, I wanted to suggest that it might influence his opinion of the ratio.

Although I don't think FullMoon is the type to let something like that sway him so I'd be interested in his opinion.

Those matches with Dabuz happened ages ago and even though he's clearly a much better player than me I still managed to do fairly well against him, though we have to consider the lag factor as well. I don't mind the matches being linked but I doubt they'd amount to anything other than showing Dabuz beating up a mid-level player lol

But anyway, Olimar is more of a personal thing. I just find him reaaaaaaaaaaally annoying to deal with, that's basically what it boils down to. I don't actually have much info on the MU itself but every other time I played it, winning or losing, it just felt uphill and very frustrating. This might just be me not approaching the MU correctly tho.

All right I think that's all. Pretty sure this was one of my longest post in these forums lol

 

[Djent]

Shulla-bra VI is live on SHI_Gaming (pools starting soon). It's kind of small, but there are a few strong players in attendance.

Spoiler: Shulla-bra VI

Yamanyon
Kurousa
Shuton
Wax
Karoegu
Doi
HIDE
Ri-ma
JUN
Ken
Shimitake
FILIP

Tomorrow night will be Hirosuma 3, which has slightly better attendance (incl. Ron, Kie, ikep, and Atelier).

 

[Megamang]

It seems like they want to be delicate with Cloud and Bayonetta nerfs, and are just tapping at them until they are in the right place. You know, like they did with everyone so far? Has there been a bad patch, excluding people being salty about not having some crazily centralizing tool anymore? I like this game more and more with each patch. Shiek's nerfs has made me feel I can truly do well with any character I want to repreasent, with enough skill and practice, since needles don't beat me without any effort. Give the developers some time, Cloud won't be our overlord forever.

And making his crazy tools do less damage, his meter require more time to charge, or his specials not kill insanely early, will not make him less fun to play. It will just make him more fun to play against. Unless you enjoy an unfair advantage over your friends, then it will be less fun when your fair doesn't reach further, do more damage, and have less lag than theirs on a more mobile body =]

Seriously, no one has been gutted or made boring. They have made characters better to play by giving them options, and have taken out a few stupid options that were dominant. I'm really happy about this patch, and I can't believe people are saying its less balanced now? You could argue things were more balanced before Cloud and Bayonetta, but Shiek was oppressive. She was, an is, hard to play, but her 30-70 MUs were not, and were stupid to watch. IF you lost that bad, you lost to needles.

 

[AxelVDP]

Last Sol result I saw was him getting 9th at Tampa Never Sleeps 6.

Also... did he give good pre-patch Sheik players who're familiar with the matchup a run for their money?

While Wizzy is probably not a tier 1 Sheik, he is still a pretty good Sheik. (this set is quite old but whatever) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z88-33jHGw
He also played against ZeRo's Sheik in the past and, while still losing, he did fare quite decently.
So yes, Sol does have experience against decently skilled Sheiks.
This whole "Mac is a bottom tier character because muh terrible recovery & bad matchups" meme is quite honestly irritating, I don't want to sound like an asshole but to me it looks like you don't know the character at all if this is your reasoning.
Mac's worst matchups are Pikachu and Peach, both characters are rarely seen in tourneys tho, every other matchup is winnable with some effort (he has quite a lot of -1 MUs, that much is true)
Also, he is NOT completely free offstage, yes, he has the worst chances of getting back to the stage on average (there are certain MUs with certain character where I believe that Mac's recovery is comparatively better but that's besides the point) but that does not mean he won't ever make it back, just look at some of Sol's matches and count how many time he dies gimped in a set, I can assure you that the number is not that high... also, just like with Cloud, you first have to send him offstage if you wanna attempt an edgeguard, and this is not exactly easy for most characters thanks to Mac's amazing neutral game

I wanted to make an in-depth post but I got tired already, so I'll just stop here for now

 

[Amadeus9]

The way they have chosen to balance Smash 4 isn't necessarily wrong or right, it just is what it is.

Basically, prepatch, the top 10 fighters were extremely oppressive to everyone else, to varying degrees.

Within the context of what was present in the metagame (i.e., top tier), smash 4 was very balanced. Gamewide? Not so much. The fighters that got nerfed all share one thing in common, they were all more oppressive towards the average smash 4 fighter, than your average top tier fighter. Playing a fatty was hell in 1.1.4, because if you ever fought a mk/zss/sheik it was an almost guaranteed loss. I think it was for this reason, they chose to nerf who they chose to nerf.

Do I agree with their choices? Not really. I think smash 4 has a less interesting and less balanced metagame at top level now. The overall game balance is better, though, so sure. Whatever floats your boat, sakurai/namco.

 

[williamsga555]

FullMoon is dead on in talking about Greninja over Dedede. I think it's one of the King's most obnoxious matchups and is one of the few that gets me to switch off.

Dedede has zero answer for Shuriken camping. If Greninja plays lame enough he should win. His mobility, coupled with the range of shurikens, is really hard to contain as that big ol' penguin.

Also he doesn't have to really worry about gordos because uncharged shurikens reflect them. We shouldn't have much of an opportunity to throw them out in the first place. That frog is too fast, man. Too slippery.

==========

Actually been quite pleased with the balance team, for the most part. I definitely didn't give them enough credit at the beginning of the game, as there have been some very smart/clever changes. Not perfect, but generally smart.

 

[Y2Kay]

FullMoon is dead on in talking about Greninja over Dedede. I think it's one of the King's most obnoxious matchups and is one of the few that gets me to switch off.

Dedede has zero answer for Shuriken camping. If Greninja plays lame enough he should win. His mobility, coupled with the range of shurikens, is really hard to contain as that big ol' penguin.

Also he doesn't have to really worry about gordos because uncharged shurikens reflect them. We shouldn't have much of an opportunity to throw them out in the first place. That frog is too fast, man. Too slippery.

==========

Actually been quite pleased with the balance team, for the most part. I definitely didn't give them enough credit at the beginning of the game, as there have been some very smart/clever changes. Not perfect, but generally smart.

I played @Feelicks plenty and yeah I agree with you.

But for some reason greninjas just don't like playing campy lol.

 

[TDK]

Re: Roy. In my opinion, is with a sword. Great advantage, extremely strong, but horrible disadvantage and recovery.

No it can't. Also it's weight independent. Tested with 2 controllers and got it on Bowser just now.

Huh. Guess it was the CPU being the CPU. (I refuse to play online, for the record.)

 

[Time/SpaceMage]

Samus sure got a lot of buffs this time. I wonder where she stands now?

 

[Deleted member]

Samus sure got a lot of buffs this time. I wonder where she stands now?

If anything I'm definitely convinced the buffs will allow Samus mains to push her further more than they already have been throughout the meta, pretty intrigued as to where she'll go in the future. I didn't believe she was bottom tier before this patch, but I can see her public perception improving because of this. Maybe she'll continue to get the / treatment in a future patch(es), who knows?

 

[Luco]

I've gotta disagree with your disagreement! If (pre-nerf) Sheik only got maybe 10% damage and inconsequential stage position as a reward for landing an attack/grab, would she still have an amazing neutral? Yes, because it's about how consistently she can win neutral, not the reward.

Kirby has great reward off of attacks/grabs, why is his neutral considered bottom tier?

If you had no qualms getting hit by old Bowser, that simply means you were OK with playing suboptimally before. As much as I like 3 stock, that's also one of the arguments used in favor of 3 stock: "You can make riskier plays" basically translates to "you can play suboptimally and are more likely to get away with it."

I agree that reward plays some part of neutral, but it's more of a mental aspect, rather than the on-paper/theoretical aspect. If Character A only got a 1% damage reward for winning neutral, and Character B gets a 999% damage reward for winning neutral, but Character A has such an overwhelming neutral that they're expected to win it 99 times out of 100, then no amount of reward changes the fact that Char A has a better neutral. You would definitely be terrified of Character B, but you can't realistically say they have a "good neutral."

tl;dr fully charged Flare Bade vs Sheik Fair

I guess it depends on context. If you're looking at a character as a whole, yes you should take everything into account, but when you're saying "how is his neutral?" as a standalone, it makes sense to just look specifically at that, yknow what I mean?


Also, MK got guaranteed 0-deaths at ludicrously low percents from relatively safe sub-10 frame moves, there's no way people are still complaining about losing this, are they? :[
MK's neutral is still good, when you consider he has top tier run speed, good walk speed, and good spacing with very fast sword attacks, plus 5 jumps if you ever needed to threaten somebody from the air for some reason.

This is also directed to Baby_Sneak btw.

Neutral and advantage = / = each other obviously (but they do have massive effects on each other). Lucas has a really solid neutral that often just leads to more neutral, because yes, being able to have more options in neutral is certainly a good thing. Kirby has very few ways to force situations where he can get into his advantage state. BUT, for most characters "playing sub-optimally" in neutral is guessing incorrectly, which is a hard thing to rectify. Realistically threat plays a large part in our neutral games because we don't know where or when we might get hit by that random Ganon [*insert one of Ganon's 5000 killing options here*].

In other words, every option has a counter and reactive play. If you knew for 100% certain that needles were going to be thrown at you while you approached then you'd be able to punish them a lot easier than if you weren't sure whether she'd needle you or Fair or grab you (thinking mostly pre-patch, now Sheik doesn't have meaningful ways to threaten shield at killing percents so lol). Characters have better options than others, ones they're more likely to or better off to use. It's not 'playing sub-optimally' against Ness to use shield less in neutral and instead take the Nair for guessing incorrectly, and realistically you WILL guess incorrectly vs people.

So the reason I talk about MK's reward pre-patch is because you had people who would sit around the ledge to try and avoid the death combo at mid-low percents because they were afraid of guessing incorrectly and dying for it, where whilst being at the ledge meant less options for them it at least meant they were more likely to live should MK win neutral against them there (more applicable to characters who weren't edge-guarded easily). I'm just saying that threat means a lot to people in neutral, it's why people stop shielding vs Ness in footsies at high percents.

Again I feel like I've fudged my explanation but I feel like you're under-estimating the effect of threat Asdioh and calling things sup-optimal play because of it, when really it's just... decision making and consequences in neutral.

As for what Baby Sneak was saying, my argument above should explain Kirby and DHD, meanwhile Marth's neutral is terrifying because he has TONS of reward for landing a successful tipper. No-one wants to be in that tipper range, and if they can play neutral in a way that means they might take a few non-tipper hits but will be safer from tippers then they'll probably do it.

 

[sedrf]

mewtwo feels way too volatile for my taste to be high tier

 

[Time/SpaceMage]

I didn't believe she was bottom tier before this patch, but I can see her public perception improving because of this.

I just want to see more of her because she's a really cool character, haha. So, I'm excited for this.
Now to wait and see if they find anything for Megaman > .>

 

[Fatmanonice]

Re: Roy. In my opinion, is with a sword. Great advantage, extremely strong, but horrible disadvantage and recovery.

This. The character plays too much like a Melee character to really have any real foothold in this game. Everything Roy can do, Ike and Cloud can do better. He falls too fast and has one of the worst offstage games in the game. His placing was way too high in the last tier list and, even with his buffs, nothing substantial has come up with him yet.

 

[Browny]

It's OK. Between Mewtwo buffs last patch, iStudying taking names, and Gren & Mewtwo buffs this patch, I imagine you're having the best month ever.

On topic: do you think Mewtwo beats Cloud? Mewtwo's edgeguarding is top notch, and his neutral ain't shabby. M2K fell to Mew^2 hard so the theory isn't totally wack.

Also: who are Greninja's bad MUs? I'm thinking this will become relevant to my interests in the near future. If his f-air is safe on block, he looks like he's becoming the new Sheik.

I know you weren't addressing me here, but I'll say anyway that Mewtwo has a very good matchup vs cloud and that many people arent quite sure how to approach it.

I think people need to discover the correct balance between letting cloud get limit, and getting a full shadow ball and I feel like getting the full shadow ball is often the better choice.

Before I go into it though, let me get this out there. Mewtwo ****s on clouds recovery better than anyone in the game and by some margin after that. Every option cloud has is completely neutered vs fair, nair, dair and shadowball. If hes recovering from a decently large horizontal distance, baby shadowball - airdodge or die - fair/nair is as free as you can get, its basically an auto gimp if hes sent far out. If he is recovering low youve got time to charge full shadowball and with the trajectory it flies at, it can hit cloud during his ledgesnap. Even a mid-charged one is a kill and will only miss if you mess up your timing. If he is recovering high and is going for the climhazzard fall into ledgesnap, again shadowball is fairly easy to snipe him with. The reason this is so much more dramatic with mewtwo is because he can charge shadowball so much more regularly than Samus, and you dont need to be at high % to get enough knockback on it to kill like lucario.

If for whatever reason you dont have time to charge shadowball, float offstage to threaten him with a fair which he needs to respect. If he challenges it it will probably lose as its too fast and if he airdodges hes as good as dead to the dair. Mewtwo has multiple options to all of clouds recovery options that get a KO and are flowchart and easy to do.

Back to what I was originally saying though, clouds neutral pressure and safe landing with THAT DAIR is again really stuffed out by Mewtwo. You've all seen it before when M2K spams dair like crazy into utilt or ftilt and you wonder what anyone can do about it. The best option is to not challenge it at all and instead try to punish the landing. To punish the landing of dair you need to be fast and have long range which Mewtwo is made of with dtilt and again shadowball. Clouds most oppressive tool in neutral is stuffed out so hard by mewtwo better than anyone else in the game because dtilt oos can lead into so much punishment, if not a straight KO chaining him offstage.

Cloud has a weakness in his inability to land safely without dair and shadowball takes care of that nicely and for the same reasons I mentioned before, it is more effective with him than Samus or Lucairo.

So the question is, should mewtwo mains be spending more time going for shadowball and letting cloud get limit? I think honestly they should. Cloud only really has 2 weaknesses and if you cant exploit those weaknesses, youre going to get murdered. Mewtwo far and away has the most devastating reliable methods to exploit clouds weaknesses but you only gain these options with shadowball, its not reliable enough to punish his recovery/landing without it.

If I could have a matchup vs cloud where I lose shadowball and he loses limit break I would NEVER take that trade. I believe that optimal play vs cloud involves heavier use of shadowball, shield camping when he has limit and stop letting him recover for free all the time. The progression of punished dair on shield - dtilt - fair chains offstage into edgeguard situation is so absurdly powerful vs cloud, no other character in the game has anything like it and the fact that it leads into possibly the most one-sided edgeguarding scenario in the entire game means Mewtwo can turn clouds normally 100% safe dair in neutral, into him losing a stock.

Mewtwo does great vs cloud. As cloud gets more popular, I expect Mewtwo will pop up as a secondary more to deal with him.

10,000th post woot.

 

[thehard]

If Sheik can't find a way to make up for what she lost Lucario and Kirby might actually be able to claim advantage in the matchup now: Lucario has setups where she doesn't and Kirby has a kill throw.

On another note I wonder if her new downsmash is good enough to stuff SH approaches.

 

[HeavyLobster]

As far as buffed characters go, Samus and Zard are the big winners, both of which I already thought leaned more towards the higher end of low tier before and could wind up being straight mid tier, especially Samus. Zard probably is still a bit below average but more middling than bottom. Ganon and Zelda are definitely more threatening but likely still lowish.

 

[Thinkaman]

Nerfing the top tiers and buffing the low tiers continually until everyone is mid tier...
I don't actually want that. The homogeny required to achieve real "balance" often comes at the cost of fun and depth.

Only if your balancing efforts suck.

Fortunately, much to the protests of many online voices, making everyone Mario seems to be the last thing the development team wants.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

This is also directed to Baby_Sneak btw.

Neutral and advantage = / = each other obviously (but they do have massive effects on each other). Lucas has a really solid neutral that often just leads to more neutral, because yes, being able to have more options in neutral is certainly a good thing. Kirby has very few ways to force situations where he can get into his advantage state. BUT, for most characters "playing sub-optimally" in neutral is guessing incorrectly, which is a hard thing to rectify. Realistically threat plays a large part in our neutral games because we don't know where or when we might get hit by that random Ganon [*insert one of Ganon's 5000 killing options here*].

In other words, every option has a counter and reactive play. If you knew for 100% certain that needles were going to be thrown at you while you approached then you'd be able to punish them a lot easier than if you weren't sure whether she'd needle you or Fair or grab you (thinking mostly pre-patch, now Sheik doesn't have meaningful ways to threaten shield at killing percents so lol). Characters have better options than others, ones they're more likely to or better off to use. It's not 'playing sub-optimally' against Ness to use shield less in neutral and instead take the Nair for guessing incorrectly, and realistically you WILL guess incorrectly vs people.

So the reason I talk about MK's reward pre-patch is because you had people who would sit around the ledge to try and avoid the death combo at mid-low percents because they were afraid of guessing incorrectly and dying for it, where whilst being at the ledge meant less options for them it at least meant they were more likely to live should MK win neutral against them there (more applicable to characters who weren't edge-guarded easily). I'm just saying that threat means a lot to people in neutral, it's why people stop shielding vs Ness in footsies at high percents.

Again I feel like I've fudged my explanation but I feel like you're under-estimating the effect of threat Asdioh and calling things sup-optimal play because of it, when really it's just... decision making and consequences in neutral.

As for what Baby Sneak was saying, my argument above should explain Kirby and DHD, meanwhile Marth's neutral is terrifying because he has TONS of reward for landing a successful tipper. No-one wants to be in that tipper range, and if they can play neutral in a way that means they might take a few non-tipper hits but will be safer from tippers then they'll probably do it.

What if the opponent is fearless? Then the threat doesn't matter. The threat is a psychological tool that can affect your gameplay if you let it. I know dang well I'm playing my neutral in the same intensity if I played DHD rather than Bayo.

 

[thehard]

Only if your balancing efforts suck.

Fortunately, much to the protests of many online voices, making everyone Mario seems to be the last thing the development team wants.

"There’s no point in making the game more balanced if it decreases the fun factor. To give an extreme example, I could make all the characters perform similarly to Mario and achieve perfect balance. However, that probably wouldn’t be very fun at all. We work together by making adjustments while trying to preserve the characters’ individuality, then testing out the characters again."

 

[Locke 06]

Back to what I was originally saying though, clouds neutral pressure and safe landing with THAT DAIR is again really stuffed out by Mewtwo. You've all seen it before when M2K spams dair like crazy into utilt or ftilt and you wonder what anyone can do about it. The best option is to not challenge it at all and instead try to punish the landing. To punish the landing of dair you need to be fast and have long range which Mewtwo is made of with dtilt and again shadowball. Clouds most oppressive tool in neutral is stuffed out so hard by mewtwo better than anyone else in the game because dtilt oos can lead into so much punishment, if not a straight KO chaining him offstage.

Did you just call his DAir his most oppressive tool in neutral?

 

[Fatmanonice]

As far as buffed characters go, Samus and Zard are the big winners, both of which I already thought leaned more towards the higher end of low tier before and could wind up being straight mid tier, especially Samus. Zard probably is still a bit below average but more middling than bottom. Ganon and Zelda are definitely more threatening but likely still lowish.

On the point of Ganon and Zelda, I doubt they'll rise that much but this patch did help them become significantly less pathetic. Both how have better close range options, Zelda now has some decent throw set ups, and Ganon actually kind of has approach options now.

 

[L9999]

This. The character plays too much like a Melee character to really have any real foothold in this game. Everything Roy can do, Ike and Cloud can do better. He falls too fast and has one of the worst offstage games in the game. His placing was way too high in the last tier list and, even with his buffs, nothing substantial has come up with him yet.

Another thing is that there is STILL a lot of Roy fanboys, and they lie to the sheep that don't know Roy. Mostly casuals, but some that know competitive stuff. They always plague anyone who says he is low tier, who he clearly is, since a lot of characters are just better. The only way I'd believe them is if they were talking about online, because there he is freaking obnoxious, but in offline? No.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

If Sheik can't find a way to make up for what she lost Lucario and Kirby might actually be able to claim advantage in the matchup now: Lucario has setups where she doesn't and Kirby has a kill throw.

On another note I wonder if her new downsmash is good enough to stuff SH approaches.

I legit think Lucario beats her now given what she lost.

She can't kill at all and that screams "you got large problems" when facing Lucario.

 

[Megamang]

Using shiek's dsmash as an option to stop aerial approaches is decidedly meh. Using a long lasting move like to that to try and stop something is already really likely to cause you to get baited and f-smashed, and unlike other smashes it doesn't really beat out hitboxes flat. They'd have to miss because shiek got low, but in that case a crouch is not only lower, but less committal AND can lead to more painful strings, since d-smash still isn't high damage and is actually still shiek's weakest smash, if I recall correctly. Not counting sour spots, or only hitting part of fsmash, though only hitting part of d-smash is much more likely.

Hmm, that makes me wonder. Moves like Lucas' d-smash, peach's dsmash, etc, that have a bunch of hard hitting... uh, hits, can really do a number to a shield, especially on characters with high traction (or against a wall, but this doesn't happen in a competitive setting). Of course, knockback doesn't mean anything to a shield really, if anything it moves you to safety, so the d-smash would have to be buffed in damage to make a difference. So, these moves are nice when you call someone out for shielding, know the shield is weak, so you just do it to say "This is either going to break your shield, or you aren't going to shield it"... Though I checked Shiek's kuroganehammer page to back this post up with data, and 9 damage total?! Ok, this isn't going to pressure shields... dtilt is probably better. Still, its nice for a lasting decent knockback smash, which is nice in high damage scenarios where you are predicting a spotdodge or shield grab!

Which is something shiek actually has to think about now! Before, there was no reason to not just grab you, since you were almost certainly in the 50/50 range, and even if you weren't technically, a d-throw was still essentially a 50/50 since you can either get u-aired, or theyll call your response, wait a second, then uair you. Now shiek has to use her other tools to set up a kill. Which is nice, since she is an RPG ninja, and not a deadly grappler. Its good design. Its annoying for Shieks when they have to work hard for a kill, but I say 'welcome to the rest of the cast.'. I hope they enjoy their stay!

And this brings me to my next point. All these posts like "Soon, we'll have 60 Marios to choose from! And everyone will have one mediocre kill throw, a comboing utilt, and a usmash that kills"... What makes you think that, besides paranoia? The balancing in no way has gone towards that. The only unique things that were removed were blatantly stupid. Sure, shiek is now less unique because she can't control 90% of the stage by charging needles, but good. MK can't ladder off the top, but he is still essentially MK and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Posts that say the meta is worse off now than before, I don't understand. I guess it refers to Cloud and Bayo being dominant, but I believe when 1.1.6 comes we will have learned enough that a few minor tweaks will give us a balanced top tier. For the first time in this games life. That is GOOD.

 

[NairWizard]

Anyone who seriously thinks that pre-patch under the reign of Sheik was "more balanced" is suffering from a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome.

 

[Y2Kay]

It's funny how people say mewtwo can never be high tier because he's a "glass cannon", because there are a lot of lightweights in top tier right now

has trouble sealing the stock and is rather light now; still perceived as a top 10 candidate
light and tall; perceived as possibly #1 in the game
does a lot of damage onstage, very vulnerable off stage, kind of a glass cannon if you think about it; contender for #1 spot
is light and a fast faller during his reign of terror; was perceived top 5 and possibly still Top 15
is light, a fast faller, and has a very exploitable recovery; still perceived as Top 10
is light and a fast faller as well; still considered a top 10 candidate
light; contender for Top 10

this game has a lot of "glass cannons". That doesn't stop these characters from being good. These characters have redeeming qualities that let them make up for it, usually in proportion to their weaknesses. Why does Mewtwo get so much backlash for being a contender for Top 20? Because people are still holding on to their outdated stigmas about him back when he was bottom 10. When was the last time you ever heard referred to as glass cannon?
He hardly ever get's called a glass cannon, even though that's exactly what Fox is.

It always felt like that ever since became the poster boy for the "Glass Cannon" phrase, his meta was doomed to be stagnant. I cringe whenever here the phrase when talked about by commentators. You can literally hear my eyeballs roll in my skull (not really) whenever commentators say that Mewtwo's death percents start at 70%.

Being a "glass cannon" doesn't stop characters from being good, just look at . Puff had an Extremely low weight, but had enough destructive force to still keep him top tier. (Not that is necessarily as good as him or any of the other examples I've included)

Sure, if Mewtwo takes a few wrong hits, he may be severely set back or killed. However, in the words of @MewSquared : "Why are you getting hit so much?"

Unlike other weaknesses, I think light weight can be worked around much more. can really change much about his awful mobility, really. He's just got to deal with it. can't really circumvent his high startup that much either.

Mewtwo has plenty of safe moves and thrives off of footsies as the potential damage off of whiff punishes are absurdly good.

However, Mewtwo can't get too greedy. If he tries to get too much out of the opening, he can open himself up to a counter attack that will undo his hard work or reverse the momentum. If mewtwo gets too predictable with his defensive options, he can eat a potentially fatal mix up.

But I believe a lot of these factors are reasonably within the Mewtwo player's control. Mewtwo's can't really john stuff anymore about their weight. As Mewtwo mains continue to optimize his punish game, it will become harder for people to ignore Mewtwo.

And that is in essence why I believe Mewtwo is the secret high tier wishes she was. His main weaknesses are mostly connected to player skill.

Mewtwo's problem wasn't necessarily that he was too light, his problem was that he was not getting enough reward and his players weren't nearly getting compensated enough for picking such a risky character. But now, all of that has changed. I just think people aren't willing to change their mindset about him, even though he barely feels like the same character as before.

 

[Halifax?]

it's only been [time] since [patch]

pinches bridge of nose

 

[thehard]

it's only been [time] since [patch]

pinches bridge of nose

This is actually valid when there haven't been any notable tournaments with the new patch yet. Tomorrow/Sunday will provide a lot of good content for this thread.

 

[L9999]

I can't believe I want to see how Sheik will do in the weekend...

 

[**Gilgamesh**]

is the most nerfed character by far in smash 4 (that truly affected the character). if we just look at what was nerfed since launch.
1.0.4

• 
  Forward aerial damage reduced (sweetspot: 6.8% → 5.5%, sourspot: 6% → 4.8%).
• 
  Up aerial hits one less time, resulting in 1% less total damage (8% → 7%).
• 
  Up aerial's last hit has reduced knockback scaling: 155 → 138
• 
  Bouncing Fish has reduced knockback: 30 base/100 scaling → 26/90
• 
  Needle Storm has slightly more ending lag.

1.0.6

• 
  Back aerial's damage and knockback significantly decreased: 11/10% → 8/7%
• 
  Down tilt damage: 7.5% → 5%

1.1.0

• 
  Forward aerial deals less damage (5.5%/4.8% → 5.0%/4.3%), but with knockback compensated on the sweetspot (125 → 132).
• 
  Forward aerial sourspot hitbox now takes priority over the sweetspot, effectively making the sweetspot smaller

1.1.4

Vanish's disappearing hitbox has slightly less knockback scaling (104 → 102) and is smaller (14u → 13u).

1.1.5

• 
  Weight decreased: 85 → 81.
• 
  Forward throw has more knockback growth: 65 → 79.
• 
  Sheik's forward throw now sends opponents tumbling at 0%, reducing its combo ability.
• 
  Forward throw's angle has been altered: 70° → 72°.
• 
  Down throw's angle has been altered: 80° → 77°.
• 
  Down throw has more knockback growth: 75 → 90.
• 
  Forward aerial has less range: def hitboxZ pos 3.5 → 2.5, hitboxZ pos 3.5 → 2.5.
• 
  Needle Storm has reduced range.
• 
  Down smash's knockback growth increased: 155 → 165.
  
  A lot of these nerfs were unnecessary for her and when you just compound it to 1.1.5 kinda killed what made Sheik a viable tourney pick in Smash 4 at top level play. The only patches that I truly agree with was 1.0.4 and parts of 1.1.5. Sheik should have gotten every Nerf in 1.0.4, as she was would be extremely overturned (lol at people saying sheik design was lack suppose to be trouble killing when clearly the character had much much more KO power at the start with uair, bair, bouncing fish, and damage per hit) heading over to the WII U version. What was overturned on sheik was not her kill-setups or grab 50/50's as you have characters that can clearly kill ( even etc...) but it was the fact that her neutral was extremely potent on the entire cast, especially for non top-tier characters. Before this patch a lot of characters were having -2's or -3's against her and certainly much more when taken account at top level. Nerfing sheik fair (although they nerfed the damage twice already lol) and needles were exactly what she needed and the dev team got it right this patch and I would have been completely fine with it as these were the main things people complained about and vanish. What was overbearing was the fact she had the an oppressive neutral; shutting down many characters in neutral alone while also having above-average killing options then most of the cast only being over topped by other top tiers. The dev team then decided to nuke her with another nerf to uair again (wtf), decrease her weight (okay O_O) and then mess up her throw game ( -__-), while slightly buffing her worst smash attack in killing power . We are now left with a worse neutral (that's fine, she was over-tuned in neutral so that Nerf was justified), less surviability (again I'm fine with this), but completely removing her grab kill-set ups were completely unjustified since she they made her have no reliable ways of netting the stock while also being easier to kill as well. I'm sorry but this is a total recipe for disaster and I wouldn't at all surprised if died out at top level play, wouldn't be surprised either if Zero, Void, Mr.R drops games and or lose playing her either, or you know Void having to put in significantly more effort and work to get the kill as opposed to a etc...and still lose anyway. Getting killed at around 80 (due to rage) while not being able to kill back is not fun at all and just puts unnecessary stress on the player while we have characters like and other powerhouses running around is just plain out bad no matter how you put it. Gutting characters like and initially

- (this character is just now legit looking good in my eyes now, Guess the dev team realized that just placing nerfs on a character for the sake of nering is a bad idea... oh wait then we have Sheik situation so IDK) without properly compensating them is not good IMO as it gives little incentive to lab further when there are clearly better characters with better options if your view point is like me, playing characters that I like not just because of the character but also because they're good. Also if you notice nearly all top players play only good characters, ZeRo only plays the best characters while Nairo initially played the Pits, Zelda, Robin before playing Zero Suit. Anti only plays top tiers, Dabuz dropped Olimar entirely as secondary stating that "Olimar is useless in this Meta". Abadango switched from Wario, and Pac-man to playing Meta knight and having a secondary Rosa. Even other top players only dabble with other top tiers (9B switching from Ryu -> Bayo) and Komorikiri switching from (Sonic -> Cloud), so having more good characters is a good thing.

Just to be clear I am not calling this patch a bad patch, I absolutely love this patch and I'm main Sheik . I love the idea of characters like becoming more better through patching, however I do not agree with just blatant nerfing of characters without compensation if you are going to nerf them knowing they'll become much worse in doing so. Also it's hard trying to explain that previous sentence since there is a ton of depth in nerfing characters. Nerfing characters in the right areas shouldn't require compensation, but nerfing characters in the wrong areas or even taking away the option that made them competitive should be avoided unless compensation is given, or in the case of a degenerative core design (a.k.a MK) compensation should be given.. In sheik case, all she needed was nerfs to fair, needles, vanish (maybe) and no compensation would be needed but they also made her easier to kill while struggling to kill (in a game with rage) at the same time. This is a kill-confirm meta, characters live and die based on how easy it is for them to net stocks. I am not trying to blame the dev's either, but people seems to have this idea that nerfing tourney viable characters regardless of the extent the nerf had on them is a good thing just because your character was buffed, it's not even certain if the buffed characters are able to compete with the other top tiers which most of them i'm sure cannot in fact the only 2 characters that I can see being consistent in tourney is Mew-two and Greninja and even then it took a multiple patches to get them to where they're at while it only takes 1 patch to make a character inconsistent or objectively bad and hence underwhelming. Then there's the argument of nerfing all top tiers and buffing lower tiers which I am not even going to bother with.
Tl;dr -> Nerf over-tuned characters appropriately while giving compensation if needed while avoiding nerfing the good characters just for the sake of nerfing them and finally buff the characters that need tuning. It's much easier to gutt a character then to make a character a consistent tourney threat.

 

[MachoCheeze]

We just have to accept that some people will never see Mewtwo as being high tier simply for having the stigma of being Mewtwo.

They're wrong and sleeping on him, of course, but we just have to accept it lmao.

 

[sedrf]

what's wrong with new info.
The results of final round,midwest mayhem, and come to papa could lead to more cool stuff

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

It's funny how people say mewtwo can never be high tier because he's a "glass cannon", because there are a lot of lightweights in top tier right now

has trouble sealing the stock and is rather light now; still perceived as a top 10 candidate
light and tall; perceived as possibly #1 in the game
does a lot of damage onstage, very vulnerable off stage, kind of a glass cannon if you think about it; contender for #1 spot
is light and a fast faller during his reign of terror; was perceived top 5 and possibly still Top 15
is light, a fast faller, and has a very exploitable recovery; still perceived as Top 10
is light and a fast faller as well; still considered a top 10 candidate
light; contender for Top 10

this game has a lot of "glass cannons". That doesn't stop these characters from being good. These characters have redeeming qualities that let them make up for it, usually in proportion to their weaknesses. Why does Mewtwo get so much backlash for being a contender for Top 20? Because people are still holding on to their outdated stigmas about him back when he was bottom 10. When was the last time you ever heard referred to as glass cannon?
He hardly ever get's called a glass cannon, even though that's exactly what Fox is.

It always felt like that ever since became the poster boy for the "Glass Cannon" phrase, his meta was doomed to be stagnant. I cringe whenever here the phrase when talked about by commentators. You can literally hear my eyeballs roll in my skull (not really) whenever commentators say that Mewtwo's death percents start at 70%.

Being a "glass cannon" doesn't stop characters from being good, just look at . Puff had an Extremely low weight, but had enough destructive force to still keep him top tier. (Not that is necessarily as good as him or any of the other examples I've included)

Sure, if Mewtwo takes a few wrong hits, he may be severely set back or killed. However, in the words of @MewSquared : "Why are you getting hit so much?"

Unlike other weaknesses, I think light weight can be worked around much more. can really change much about his awful mobility, really. He's just got to deal with it. can't really circumvent his high startup that much either.

Mewtwo has plenty of safe moves and thrives off of footsies as the potential damage off of whiff punishes are absurdly good.

However, Mewtwo can't get too greedy. If he tries to get too much out of the opening, he can open himself up to a counter attack that will undo his hard work or reverse the momentum. If mewtwo gets too predictable with his defensive options, he can eat a potentially fatal mix up.

But I believe a lot of these factors are reasonably within the Mewtwo player's control. Mewtwo's can't really john stuff anymore about their weight. As Mewtwo mains continue to optimize his punish game, it will become harder for people to ignore Mewtwo.

And that is in essence why I believe Mewtwo is the secret high tier wishes she was. His main weaknesses are mostly connected to player skill.

Mewtwo's problem wasn't necessarily that he was too light, his problem was that he was not getting enough reward and his players weren't nearly getting compensated enough for picking such a risky character. But now, all of that has changed. I just think people aren't willing to change their mindset about him, even though he barely feels like the same character as before.

Last time I heard glass cannon for Fox was melee but more so as combo fodder.

 

[sedrf]

don't you ever compare what happened to sheik to greninja.
Relax void and mr rare developing new sheik tech as we speak.

 

[Djmarcus44]

It's funny how people say mewtwo can never be high tier because he's a "glass cannon", because there are a lot of lightweights in top tier right now

has trouble sealing the stock and is rather light now; still perceived as a top 10 candidate
light and tall; perceived as possibly #1 in the game
does a lot of damage onstage, very vulnerable off stage, kind of a glass cannon if you think about it; contender for #1 spot
is light and a fast faller during his reign of terror; was perceived top 5 and possibly still Top 15
is light, a fast faller, and has a very exploitable recovery; still perceived as Top 10
is light and a fast faller as well; still considered a top 10 candidate
light; contender for Top 10

this game has a lot of "glass cannons". That doesn't stop these characters from being good. These characters have redeeming qualities that let them make up for it, usually in proportion to their weaknesses. Why does Mewtwo get so much backlash for being a contender for Top 20? Because people are still holding on to their outdated stigmas about him back when he was bottom 10. When was the last time you ever heard referred to as glass cannon?
He hardly ever get's called a glass cannon, even though that's exactly what Fox is.

It always felt like that ever since became the poster boy for the "Glass Cannon" phrase, his meta was doomed to be stagnant. I cringe whenever here the phrase when talked about by commentators. You can literally hear my eyeballs roll in my skull (not really) whenever commentators say that Mewtwo's death percents start at 70%.

Being a "glass cannon" doesn't stop characters from being good, just look at . Puff had an Extremely low weight, but had enough destructive force to still keep him top tier. (Not that is necessarily as good as him or any of the other examples I've included)

Sure, if Mewtwo takes a few wrong hits, he may be severely set back or killed. However, in the words of @MewSquared : "Why are you getting hit so much?"

Unlike other weaknesses, I think light weight can be worked around much more. can really change much about his awful mobility, really. He's just got to deal with it. can't really circumvent his high startup that much either.

Mewtwo has plenty of safe moves and thrives off of footsies as the potential damage off of whiff punishes are absurdly good.

However, Mewtwo can't get too greedy. If he tries to get too much out of the opening, he can open himself up to a counter attack that will undo his hard work or reverse the momentum. If mewtwo gets too predictable with his defensive options, he can eat a potentially fatal mix up.

But I believe a lot of these factors are reasonably within the Mewtwo player's control. Mewtwo's can't really john stuff anymore about their weight. As Mewtwo mains continue to optimize his punish game, it will become harder for people to ignore Mewtwo.

And that is in essence why I believe Mewtwo is the secret high tier wishes she was. His main weaknesses are mostly connected to player skill.

Mewtwo's problem wasn't necessarily that he was too light, his problem was that he was not getting enough reward and his players weren't nearly getting compensated enough for picking such a risky character. But now, all of that has changed. I just think people aren't willing to change their mindset about him, even though he barely feels like the same character as before.

While I agree that Mewtwo has the potential to be a high tier character, the characters that you have mentioned have more tools to combat their weaknesses. All of the light characters on your list have better landing options than Mewtwo, and most of the light characters on your list have better combo breakers than Mewtwo. Although Mewtwo's weight isn't as bad of a problem as some people make it out to be, it is still a pretty big issue for Mewtwo since he has a somewhat big hurtbox that lacks a combo breaker (his above average fall speed makes it harder for him to get out of combos than truly floaty characters like Jigglypuff and Rosalina). While some people focus too much on Mewtwo's weight, I feel that some Mewtwo players overlook the other issues with Mewtwo that makes his disadvantage state substandard.