Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[ligersandtigons]

I get that, and i agree with it, but its not really cancelling out of lag because youre landing with a counter, which has a ton of lag and can be grabed. Plus as i said this shouldnt matter because you should be shielding where she is gonna land anyway because if not youre gonna get hit and miss the punish.

Here's a table taken from KuroganeHammer showing all the different landing lag values for the different combinations of Twists and ABKs used.

Let's pretend for this hypothetical that Witch Time or any attack or tech that reduces the landing lag exists. Anyways, say I'm Bayonetta and I Witch Twist OoS and combo into an ABK. According to the table, I should have 26 frames of landing lag. However, after my initial ABK, I do another ABK and Witch Twist. In other words, I have now done 2 ABKs and 2 Twists on my opponent, meaning I should now have 43 frames of landing lag. In other words, I took on more risk at the expense of more reward.

Bayonetta's aerial combos rely on reading your opponents DI, and this is where the risk and reward factor especially needs to be emphasized. Let's look at another scenario where I'm in the middle of an aerial combo where I've already used 1 Twist and 1 ABK, and looking for another ABK followup. If I read my opponents DI right, I get rewarded by continuing my combo and potentially ending their stock. I took a risk and was rewarded. However, if I read my opponents DI wrong, I now suffer from increased landing lag. I took a risk and unfortunately it didn't work out in my favour this time (who knows, maybe the extra landing lag leads to the end of my stock). So the question I need to ask myself is, should I go for the follow up?

The way it is right now, there is no reason not to force the followup, because even if you miss, you're still gonna end up with the same landing lag if you hit due to landing with Witch Time. In other words, the risk and reward is skewed.

 

[Charoite]

But you dont want to use witch time, because you will stale the move, is not as easy as you are making to be, because you still have landing lag, and now the thing that make your opponents afraid to attack is weakened.

 

[Pancracio17]

Plus witch time has a FAF of 45 (stops countering at frame 21) according to kuroganehammer (not sure if updated) so that is longer than the longest ending lag possible with bayo wich is abk x 2 and wt x 2 = 43. Badically if bayonetta doesnt eat a hard punish after a failed combo regardless of witch time, the opponent doesnt know the matchup.

 

[S_B]

So folks can take this with a bucket of salt (not the kind usually associated with angst, though, the kind associated with skepticism), but here's my theory of what's in store for SSB4...

I feel like the balance patches are going to continue from now until the NX launches. Why? Because the NX is heavily rumored to launch with a SSB game.

As many folks have pointed out, it's far, FAR too soon for a completely new SSB game so the most likely thing we'll see is the NX launching with "SSB4 Deluxe Edition", which will include all of the current DLC, some more characters, stages, and all of the balance patches from now until then rolled into it.

We've also seen Nintendo being bigger and bigger on updating old games, and let's face it: the Wii U did NOT perform anywhere near as well as they had hoped. With the handheld market being eaten away at by smartphones (and even Nintendo releasing games on them), they need, need, NEEEEEEED for their next home console to be a success on all fronts. It absolutely needs to hit the ground RUNNING. It'll be launching with a Zelda game to help that along for starters, but giving the hardcore gamer fanbase a SSB game to buy as well would be hitting a key demographic that even Zelda games can miss.

But as to the patches: anyone who has known Nintendo long enough knows that they don't spend money on ANYTHING unless they expect to get a return of some kind. The fact that they're still balancing the game suggests that they expect to get SOMETHING out of it the development costs to pay the dev team (they don't work for free, after all), and I think the reason for this is going to be such...

They plan to push SSBNX as an e-sport (I also expect the NX will feature Twitch streaming). They just recently began sponsoring tournaments with Genesis3, and I expect we'll see more of it in the future.

So for now, I expect that we'll see more balance patches for SSB4 in the coming months. Everything points to launching the NX with as strong of a lineup as possible and that would include a SSB game (then there's what the analyst said).

Note that Namco had already signed on to develop SSB5 and 6 as well, meaning that it's very likely that they'll continue working on this iteration of the game from now into the NX's launch and thereafter.

 

[ligersandtigons]

But you dont want to use witch time, because you will stale the move, is not as easy as you are making to be, because you still have landing lag, and now the thing that make your opponents afraid to attack is weakened.

How does the risk for only doing 1 Twist and 1 ABK compared to the risk of doing 2 Twists and 2 ABKs differ though?

Sakurai explicitly stated that extending aerial combos results in more landing lag, meaning you face greater risk at the chance for greater reward. Right now, that property is being completely nullified. The risk is the same regardless of how many Twists and ABKs do.

 

[juddy96]

Come to Papa Top 8 (Orlando, FL)

165 entrants

1) PG | MVD
2) MVG | Ryo
3) ARC | Myran
4) VS | Master Raven
5) MVG | dyr
5) ONI | Heero
7) Riot
7) Dath

https://smash.gg/tournament/the-fbc-presents-come-to-papa-1/brackets/10857/19346/64654

 

[Y2Kay]

I heard that Ryo was sent to losers by a Zelda main

 

[juddy96]

I heard that Ryo was sent to losers by a Zelda main

It says he lost to Purple Guy, who mained Sheik/Zelda in Brawl and Sheik in Smash 4 with a Zelda secondary

 

[Luco]

Purple Guy is Scary / Ed? Or am I mistaken?

 

[Halifax?]

Could someone compare and contrast Bayonetta and melee Falco?

 

[BTVolta]

Purple Guy is Scary / Ed? Or am I mistaken?

Yes. The very loud Ed. I don't know if he played Zelda in singles though. He played some in dubs, but that's all I remember.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Commentators did say he played Zelda for the most part of the tournament, though I'd be unsure if he used her against Ryo.

 

[Ninety]

Come to Papa Top 8 (Orlando, FL)

165 entrants

1) PG | MVD
2) MVG | Ryo
3) ARC | Myran
4) VS | Master Raven
5) MVG | dyr
5) ONI | Heero
7) Riot
7) Dath

https://smash.gg/tournament/the-fbc-presents-come-to-papa-1/brackets/10857/19346/64654

Any replays/VODs? I'm interested in the Dath vs Sol and Ryo matches -- seems like useful matchup info considering all three are at the forefront of their characters' meta.

 

[ぱみゅ]

They'll probably upload them later on their YT channel, but Dath got destroyed by Ryo, who was not hesitant to abuse the huge weakness on Robin's recovery.

 

[Cereal Bawks]

Either Ryo didn't know the Zelda MU, or he wasn't using either Ike or Corrin.

Also, anyone know what Youtube channel the VODs might be uploaded to?

 

[webbedspace]

So imo top 4 are , and i think all of them lose to at least one of themselves, bayo probably loses to diddy and rosa, diddy loses to rosa, cloud probably loses to bayo and rosa loses to cloud. Pretty balanced if i may say so myself.

On the other hand, 9B's Bayonetta has been getting double-two-stocked by Komorikiri's Cloud (though admittedly 9B's Bayonetta isn't very good), and it's not clear that Diddy has what it takes to stop the guy. I *suppose* ZSS can go even with him?? Who knows.

 

[juddy96]

On the other hand, 9B's Bayonetta has been getting double-two-stocked by Komorikiri's Cloud (though admittedly 9B's Bayonetta isn't very good), and it's not clear that Diddy has what it takes to stop the guy. I *suppose* ZSS can go even with him?? Who knows.

Even though 9B has placed high at every tourney he's been to with Bayonetta? Far better than he ever placed with Ryu?

 

[[BROF]]

This last patch cemented my thoughts about how whoever is currently is charge of balancing (be it Namco or Nintendo) is really keeping an eye in the competitive scene and just the smash community overall. Denying such links is quite futile at this point. Common top tiers nerfed across the block and less usable characters receiving buffs (sadly DDD and Jiggs still being outliers for now).
Whether they only keep an eye on the Japanese scene to scout for possible nerf/buff targets is yet to be confirmed (Ike's case might lent itself to this theory), but it is safe to say that more patches that go alongside current results are going to keep coming.

I also believe there's no reason for Nintendo to stop making patches until the end of the Game's natural life. This is a first one for Smash Bros, but other similar games have received updates until their successor came around to take their place.
What S_B is saying could be the reality that await us, but let's not forget that those are rumors for now. It would, however, make a lot of sense given once more how other similar games tend to get ULTRA or definitive editions like that.

The game is not even 2 years old, so now that we know that "end of development" only means no more DLC, we should be prepared to receive many more patches to come. Too bad we are never going to get foreword of when they're gonna drop.

Either Ryo didn't know the Zelda MU, or he wasn't using either Ike or Corrin.

Also, anyone know what Youtube channel the VODs might be uploaded to?

I've played Purple Guy before. He's 100% legit. I have not played against his Zelda however, but considering Ryo's vast character knowledge it's quite perplexing that he'd lose to a Zelda. I'd like to see that match.

 

[2fast]

Even though 9B has placed high at every tourney he's been to with Bayonetta? Far better than he ever placed with Ryu?

Just because he places better with Bayo over his Ryu doesn't mean his Bayo top notch material. Ryu is infinitely harder to use and I do think Salems and Pink Freshs Bayos beat 9Bs. It doesn't surprise me 9B had been getting the works from Komorikiri.

 

[Ghostbone]

It doesn't matter if Witch Time is easily punishable or not, the point is that Witch Timing to reduce landing lag shouldn't be an option in the first place.

Why not? That's the way she's designed.

Should people not being able to grab the ledge out of u-specials to cancel their lag afterwards? What kind of logic is this lol. That's the way she's designed.

And she's just replacing landing lag with EVEN MORE WITCH TIME LAG lol (someone said it ends frame 45 in the thread, it's actually an IASA of 49 post patch), it just punishes you for trying to catch her landing with an attack, if you catch it with a grab it doesn't matter, she's in lag either way. Plus she's staling her witch time duration.

Like you can't honestly think that there's no punishment for her using all her specials, it clearly limits her options. If she uses neutral b in the air, she's in a tonne of lag in the air, just because she's not in lag on the ground doesn't mean you can't punish her lol. If she lands with witch time, then she stales her witch time and you can just grab her anyway, if she goes to the ledge, you have stage control.

Ghostbone i remember you talking about bayo previously. As she has been around for a while nerfs have set in, do you still believe she is going to continue getting better and more dominant? (I believe im thinking of you that said it).

Bayonetta might be overpowered but it seems like people would rather complain than develop counterplay (this is especially the mentality I'm seeing on twitter from people like Ally and Zinoto)
Sadly complaining works and we're likely to see significant bayo nerfs next patch anyway.

 

[bc1910]

Just how bad is the Cloud/Rosa MU?

If we're talking -2 that's a real problem for the character's competitive future.

 

[2fast]

Just how bad is the Cloud/Rosa MU?

If we're talking -2 that's a real problem for the character's competitive future.

It's pretty bad. One dash attack from Cloud sends Luma flying away in the tumbling state which usually results in a dead Luma. Literally nothing can be done by Rosalina to prevent that.

 

[Deleted member]

Purple Guy says he went solo throughout Come to Papa.

He placed 9th out of 165 entrants, so is this the best high-level placement for Zelda besides Ven passing first round of pools at Genesis 3?

 

[Dee-SmashinBoss]

Watch now people are gonna act like Zelda's "new" hoo-hah is so amazing.....or that they "discovered" Zelda has some "new" comboes with falling Nair to Elevator or Dtilt to jab to grab.

Guys she has had essentially all these combos before, she really only got an improved Ftilt and more damage added on to her main moves(Uair mostly after a dthrow if Nair can't connect) more grab range and slightly more intangibility on NL.
They aren't game changing, but very appreciated buffs that I am very glad to take.

Keep in mind they don't fix her other issues.

 

[Nobie]

Other characters have ways of canceling their landing lag, such as Shulk's MALLC or Mega Man's "shoot anything while landing from Rush Coil" that works especially well with "shoot pellet while landing and immediately jump because jab has no landing lag sort of."

It's just that people care about Bayonetta's because she's seen as top tier.

That said, I think more hit stun on ground Witch Twist at the expense of giving it more endlag would be a nice compromise.

 

[New_Dumal]

Zelda is a bit better now.I mean... she still have no way to approach safely, but at least Naryu's Love is more reliable as a defensive tool, and UAir is something to be feared, so she has a good air dodge pressure tool.
It's quite possible she isn't the worst character in the game anymore.
Maybe I got this idea because I play Zelda x Ganon MU too much, and I'm sure Zelda have advantage at that.

I'm anxious to see her more. I play with her only for fun and for trolling, but a friend of mine is trying to competitively play her since Brawl, and I'm kind of sad for him.

 

[Luco]

Tbh Zelda probably isn't the worst character anymore, but Ed has been pushing that character for eternity so him getting decent results with her isn't too surprising (he was definitely able to do it in brawl). That being said, if he can consistently get decent - goodish results with her then yeah I could see an argument for Ftilt and Nayru's buffs being significant for her viability.

 

[Diddy Kong]

I've come to the conclusion that Cloud is probably the best character. And I hate fighting him as Diddy, it's definitely in Cloud's favor, and the ************ is way too easy to pick up and play. Literally there's no character you can use as a pocket like Cloud, and be effective with it. Him and Bayonetta need some more nerfs honestly.

 

[Deleted member]

Tbh Zelda probably isn't the worst character anymore, but Ed has been pushing that character for eternity so him getting decent results with her isn't too surprising (he was definitely able to do it in brawl). That being said, if he can consistently get decent - goodish results with her then yeah I could see an argument for Ftilt and Nayru's buffs being significant for her viability.

Zelda will still struggle with the same issues as mentioned before, but the buffs were appreciated. She definitely needs more for her to be viable though... which requires an almost entire rework of her moveset. Though despite how I feel about Zelda, I still do maintain and default, guest size are worse characters than her. Jiggs is going to be stuck in hell for the game's life because the game's engine doesn't treat her well and none of her major issues have been addressed while almost everyone else around her has gradually improved. Maybe somebody will pick her up and start to get results with her, who knows?

 

[Diddy Kong]

Know what would be a cool concept for Zelda? Be more like Rosalina. Why not make Zelda and Phantom Knight as a character, Phantom Knight acting like a slower, sturdier Luma of sorts.

Smash development team, take notice. And pay me while you're at it.

 

[C0rvus]

I like what PM did to Din's Fire at least. And maybe if you could shield cancel the Phantom and they cut a couple frames of startup it would be a more threatening move. Zelda just needs some tools to improve her neutral, and then her pretty good reward will become a much more relevant threat.

 

[TurboLink]

I've come to the conclusion that Cloud is probably the best character. And I hate fighting him as Diddy, it's definitely in Cloud's favor, and the ************ is way too easy to pick up and play. Literally there's no character you can use as a pocket like Cloud, and be effective with it. Him and Bayonetta need some more nerfs honestly.

So what puts the matchup in Cloud's favor exactly?

Know what would be a cool concept for Zelda? Be more like Rosalina. Why not make Zelda and Phantom Knight as a character, Phantom Knight acting like a slower, sturdier Luma of sorts.

Smash development team, take notice. And pay me while you're at it.

Please no, no more bodyguards. :"(

 

[Deleted member]

I like what PM did to Din's Fire at least. And maybe if you could shield cancel the Phantom and they cut a couple frames of startup it would be a more threatening move. Zelda just needs some tools to improve her neutral, and then her pretty good reward will become a much more relevant threat.

I agree with you. The main problem is that she wants to be a glass cannon/defensive type character, but it just doesn't play out in the actual game. She's too much glass and not enough cannon and said defensive tools are underwhelming.

PM Din's Fire and a shield-cancelable Phantom would be two significant improvements on her own, along with less endlag on Nayru's so she has a legit get-off me opion. Forward tilt even after its buff still is unsafe on shield, so the move needs to be better so she has a more legit spacing/pivot move. Her risk-reward option is still skewed in her Lightning Kicks, so giving them the damage output of near the damage the sourspots did in Melee (they did 10% there) wouldn't make them so punishable on hit. Sorry if this post came across as a patch wishlist thing but Zelda really does need a revamp for her to be viable in any Smash metagame. Her tools just have poor synergy with each other at the moment.

 

[Trunks159]

I've come to the conclusion that Cloud is probably the best character. And I hate fighting him as Diddy, it's definitely in Cloud's favor, and the ************ is way too easy to pick up and play. Literally there's no character you can use as a pocket like Cloud, and be effective with it. Him and Bayonetta need some more nerfs honestly.

Saltiest thing I've ever read.
Bayonetta is the only character I have a problem with, but lets not go back to that cross your fingers and hope someone gets nerfed/buffed mentality.

 

[ligersandtigons]

Why not? That's the way she's designed.

Should people not being able to grab the ledge out of u-specials to cancel their lag afterwards? What kind of logic is this lol. That's the way she's designed.

And she's just replacing landing lag with EVEN MORE WITCH TIME LAG lol (someone said it ends frame 45 in the thread, it's actually an IASA of 49 post patch), it just punishes you for trying to catch her landing with an attack, if you catch it with a grab it doesn't matter, she's in lag either way. Plus she's staling her witch time duration.

Like you can't honestly think that there's no punishment for her using all her specials, it clearly limits her options. If she uses neutral b in the air, she's in a tonne of lag in the air, just because she's not in lag on the ground doesn't mean you can't punish her lol. If she lands with witch time, then she stales her witch time and you can just grab her anyway, if she goes to the ledge, you have stage control.

I like how you say "What kind of logic is this" literally right after you used a strawman

And I never said that there's no punishment for her using her specials, what I said was that the risk doesnt change depending on how many specials she uses. Regardless, I get what you're trying to say, that Witch Time Landing is pretty much "transferring" landing lag aka wasted frames when landing to even more wasted frames in the air while reducing wasted frames when landing. It's a different kind of trade off, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

As a Bayonetta main yourself, mind shedding some light on when you would use witch time landing and on how useful it is?

Other characters have ways of canceling their landing lag, such as Shulk's MALLC or Mega Man's "shoot anything while landing from Rush Coil" that works especially well with "shoot pellet while landing and immediately jump because jab has no landing lag sort of."

It's just that people care about Bayonetta's because she's seen as top tier.

That said, I think more hit stun on ground Witch Twist at the expense of giving it more endlag would be a nice compromise.

The opposite is true too though. If Shulk was top tier because he was using MALLC to nullify his key intended weakness of having bad landing lag, people would definitely want MALLC patched. This comes back to how pre-patch Sheik was considered badly designed because she was able to nullify her key weakness. If pre-patch Sheik was in the same place ad Shulk is currently in the meta while still having the 50/50, would Sheik having such a powerful kill setup still not be considered badly designed? I guess the point is "Yes X is badly designed because of Y reasons, but who cares? It's not like X is top tier anyways"

Regardless, as I said to Ghostbone, I'm gonna have to think about how I feel about witch time landing so more lol

And for Witch Twist, what about giving the grounded version more start up? Would that nerf not fit Bayo's design more?

 

[L9999]

I agree with you. The main problem is that she wants to be a glass cannon/defensive type character, but it just doesn't play out in the actual game. She's too much glass and not enough cannon and said defensive tools are underwhelming.

PM Din's Fire and a shield-cancelable Phantom would be two significant improvements on her own, along with less endlag on Nayru's so she has a legit get-off me opion. Forward tilt even after its buff still is unsafe on shield, so the move needs to be better so she has a more legit spacing/pivot move. Her risk-reward option is still skewed in her Lightning Kicks, so giving them the damage output of near the damage the sourspots did in Melee (they did 10% there) wouldn't make them so punishable on hit. Sorry if this post came across as a patch wishlist thing but Zelda really does need a revamp for her to be viable in any Smash metagame. Her tools just have poor synergy with each other at the moment.

I stand by my statement that Sakurai and the dev team don't have a single idea on how to fix Zelda, just on how to make her less bad.

 

[Big-Cat]

Please no, no more bodyguards. :"(

Yare yare daze.

 

[Y2Kay]

I kind of agree that Cloud is a problem.

I don't want to ask for nerfs yet, I'm trying to figure it out on my own

I've been watching Mew^2 vs Mew2King over and over again trying to understand how he got him offstage and how he kept him there.

Labbing is hard for me for some reason....

 

[Radical Larry]

I'm still believing that Cloud's not the best character. He's got glaring flaws that you are all overlooking. He still has endlag on attacks that leads him into being punished heavily on block, a projectile that's actually relatively slow and unsafe to use despite its range, literally one of the worst recoveries if you don't have Limit and various attacks are slow in frame data. He has a horrible throw combo game, his only combo throw (being a 50/50 chance to combo no less) is D-Throw, and he even has low combo potential outside of U-Air's combo capabilities. His disadvantage is horrible when he gets off stage, and he's very susceptible to getting semi-spiked by a multitude of characters.

I play the character as one of my mains and I just don't consider him that good. He's no uber top tier character and I've yet to see some stunning evidence on the contrary. Having less power on your attacks and more charge time on your Limit makes you worse. Finishing Touch being nerfed when used in the air really hurt him more than ever, too.

 

[Jams.]

It's pretty bad. One dash attack from Cloud sends Luma flying away in the tumbling state which usually results in a dead Luma. Literally nothing can be done by Rosalina to prevent that.

Maintain centre stage control or play with desynced Luma (not that great versus Cloud, but amazing in some MUs). This is how Rosalina deals with early Luma killing moves in basically every MU, and how she should be playing in general. Most moves (including Cloud's DA) can't instantly kill Luma from across the stage, so Rosa can punish with uthrow->uair (or some equivalent), after which Luma will be back out of tumble and the opponent will be in a juggle situation.