Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Big-Cat]

Fun fact, Ryu's name is not written with the kanji for dragon but for prosperity.

On Bowser vs. ZSS, it's a bad MU but so long as you stay just outside of grab range, all her burst attack options and projectile are easily blocked/dealt with. The recent nerfs do help prevent super early kills though. That's honestly all I could've asked for in that matchup.

 

[PK Gaming]

Aside from Ryuga and Zinoto / MVD and Ryo trading sets, what evidence is there for this?

None, but those sets should be sufficient proof that Corrin doesn't give Diddy a hard time, which was my main point.

 

[BananaBake]

So in case you guys missed it, M2K put his opinion out there on who he THINKS (don't want to anger anybody ) is top-tier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22WnDCRluCg

(WARNING REALLY LONG)

 

[teddystalin]

None, but those sets should be sufficient proof that Corrin doesn't give Diddy a hard time, which was my main point.

I disagree - Ryuga and Ryo aren't on quite the same level as Zinoto and MVD and Ryuga at least typically lost hard to Zinoto when he used Ike. Using Corrin, they've each taken sets and lost in close game 5s. I'm not denying that the MU might be bad, I just don't think we can take the limited results we have to make that point. Nor would I say Corrin has an overall losing record when the sets we're citing have gone back and forth.

 

[PK Gaming]

I disagree - Ryuga and Ryo aren't on quite the same level as Zinoto and MVD and Ryuga at least typically lost hard to Zinoto when he used Ike. Using Corrin, they've each taken sets and lost in close game 5s. I'm not denying that the MU might be bad, I just don't think we can take the limited results we have to make that point. Nor would I say Corrin has an overall losing record when the sets we're citing have gone back and forth.

Fair point. My reasoning was definitely flawed.

 

[Nobie]

So I've been thinking recently about Mewtwo's roll, which I've described in the past as "really bad" and "awful." However, I'm starting to understand why it's the way it is.

Mewtwo's roll is 30 frames, just like Mario's, and Mario has a pretty decent roll. But while Mario's roll invincibility ends on frame 18, Mewtwo stops being invincible on frame 14. That's a whopping 4 frames where Mewtwo can be hit, and frequently is. If the opponent has any kind of hitbox that extends behind them or a meaty one in front, you can actually just beat Mewtwo's forward roll without even trying.

When you look at Mewtwo's roll, though, it travels a significant distance more than Mario's, about as much as Little Mac's (whose roll is also faster but that's because Mac is designed to be a ground beast). If Mewtwo had Mario's frame data, he could punish so much out of a good roll, possibly far more than what the designers want from Mewtwo. Unlike, say, Samus, who is notorious for having a bad roll, Mewtwo does not suffer from being too slow. Rather, the challenge is knowing the opponent's attacks so well that you know which ones are not going to protect them from a roll in. Also, back roll has obvious utility as being a better "get the hell away" move than most other rolls, but suffers again from long-lasting hitboxes and the like, e.g. Raptor Boost.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Mewtwo's roll synergizes extremely well with his dtilt I feel. That alone makes it at least decent in my book.

 

[DungeonMaster]

Petty soon Ryu will be the only one with REAL kill confirms left.

Just to interject... Samus has been able to kill confirm CS off of super-missile at 70% since the start of the game, just jump forward into the CS.
Yes SM is a terrible move otherwise and we all know its problems, yadda yadda, but it's there and I do it all the time.

Keep up the Ryu rep. You guys are great but I feel you need to optimize his combo game, months ago I mentioned this in the Ryu combo thread.
He's built to kill in 2-3 hit confirms with narrow range combos that chain into each other and I don't see anyone really trying to figure out the whole structure like we did for Samus.
The Samus mains now understand *why* you would go for something like a D-air -> Up-tilt. Made no sense without careful, methodical listing, and then the big picture emerged.

 

[Meru.]

So I'm going to consider awful results in the last two tiers.

Looking at this, there are 3 big stinkers here, Peach, Pit, and Dark Pit. These are pretty much the characters virtually acclaimed to be "good" characters. So what gives? People cite these 3 as high tiers. Yet their tournament results are abysmal. Peach might have an excuse because her skill cap is amongst the highest, but I can't vouch for the other Pits. They are easier to play, which should warrent a higher position.

Peach and Pit both get decent results. Peach was one of the few characters to break top 25 at Genesis (thanks to SlayerZ), with Umeki only not making it slightly (33rd). At the same tourney, Earth's Pit got 13th. These are both pretty decent placings considering how stacked Genesis was and how many characters were not able to break top 25. Other than that, Umeki and Kie occasionally pop up in top 8 (Umeki got 5th recently) in Japanese tournaments and Earth and Paseriman have solid results getting top 5 quite often in Japanese tournaments.

They're not winning tournaments but their results are very far from abysmal. Their results still outclass a good margin of the cast. EDIT: but you can't see that in a list that's based on tourneys in only the past few days. lol

Also that system isn't entirely flawless, for characters that are more popular will naturally gain points.Character X getting 13th five times will get an equal number of points as character Y getting 4th once.

 

[conTAgi0n]

Fun fact, Ryu's name is not written with the kanji for dragon but for prosperity.

On Bowser vs. ZSS, it's a bad MU but so long as you stay just outside of grab range, all her burst attack options and projectile are easily blocked/dealt with. The recent nerfs do help prevent super early kills though. That's honestly all I could've asked for in that matchup.

In that case, who would you say is 's worst matchup now? perhaps? Despite my thinking might be the worst objectively, I personally struggle more with Cloud.

 

[Big-Cat]

In that case, who would you say is 's worst matchup now? perhaps? Despite my thinking might be the worst objectively, I personally struggle more with Cloud.

Zato and Eddie. Zamus is still bad but it's not as big of an uphill climb as before.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Just to interject... Samus has been able to kill confirm CS off of super-missile at 70% since the start of the game, just jump forward into the CS.
Yes SM is a terrible move otherwise and we all know its problems, yadda yadda, but it's there and I do it all the time.

Keep up the Ryu rep. You guys are great but I feel you need to optimize his combo game, months ago I mentioned this in the Ryu combo thread.
He's built to kill in 2-3 hit confirms with narrow range combos that chain into each other and I don't see anyone really trying to figure out the whole structure like we did for Samus.
The Samus mains now understand *why* you would go for something like a D-air -> Up-tilt. Made no sense without careful, methodical listing, and then the big picture emerged.

Most of Ryus best death sequences come from FA lvl3.

Yeah thats not happening vs anyone with half a brain. I'm currently working on optimized stuff from cross up fair but his most common neutral pokes dont lead to death. Ryu truly commits when he wants to kill you.

He essentially has to make a choice to "leave" neutral and enter this kind of limbo where his intent is to end a stock. That is, if he wishes to clench the stock around 80%.

Ryus dair is a solid neutral tool, but again as with Ryu in general. It can be fairly obvious when he is trying to go for it due to his commitment.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Petty soon Ryu will be the only one with REAL kill confirms left.

That would require them bastardizing Arcthunder completely and finagling with Arcfire a bit. Nah.


As for Ryu himself though, I think people need to learn to not use FA like its a GOOJ Free card. Once they do that and start spacing and punishing naturally, Ryu will get more deadly than before.

 

[bc1910]

Just to interject... Samus has been able to kill confirm CS off of super-missile at 70% since the start of the game, just jump forward into the CS.
Yes SM is a terrible move otherwise and we all know its problems, yadda yadda, but it's there and I do it all the time.

Keep up the Ryu rep. You guys are great but I feel you need to optimize his combo game, months ago I mentioned this in the Ryu combo thread.
He's built to kill in 2-3 hit confirms with narrow range combos that chain into each other and I don't see anyone really trying to figure out the whole structure like we did for Samus.
The Samus mains now understand *why* you would go for something like a D-air -> Up-tilt. Made no sense without careful, methodical listing, and then the big picture emerged.

Whilst that is technically a kill confirm, it's not a very good one.

The point of a kill confirm is that you can use a safer move to combo into an otherwise unsafe kill move. If you miss with the safer move you can react and not throw the kill move, so haven't put yourself at any extra risk. With Samus' SM to CS, you can't hit the SM and then CS on reaction - you need to fire the CS anyway. If the SM misses, you've still thrown your kill move. In this case, firing CS from across the stage doesn't put Samus at risk in a traditional sense, but in the context of this kill confirm, she has put herself "at risk" by burning a fully charged CS for nothing.

A proper kill confirm is one like Ness' Bthrow, which can be done completely on reaction to landing the combo starter (the grab) and only carries the risk of the combo starter. True 50/50s like Sheik's Dthrow Uair are the next best thing.

Kill confirms and true 50/50s, especially those from grabs, have slowly been taken away over the course of the game's patching. Few characters have true kill confirms left, with even fewer of those coming from grabs. Most kill throws are stock caps now. Even some of the best characters like Mario and Sonic don't have confirms that they can rely on. Ryu is one of the last remaining characters with a variety of ways to combo into his kills.

The meta is still kill confirm-centric, but it's less that way now than it's ever been before.

 

[DungeonMaster]

Most of Ryus best death sequences come from FA lvl3.
He essentially has to make a choice to "leave" neutral and enter this kind of limbo where his intent is to end a stock. That is, if he wishes to clench the stock around 80%.
Ryus dair is a solid neutral tool, but again as with Ryu in general. It can be fairly obvious when he is trying to go for it due to his commitment.

I don't disagree, I'm saying there's much left to explore with the combo game before he's to be truly optimized and I don't see much of it happening.
There's stuff like OOS rising F-air into F-air into DP which is a true combo, works in a specific percent range and is not impractical. Particularly since Ryu's shield has that great audio cue that you perfect shield.
Those F-air combos chain into stuff like D-air -> strong Up-tilt -> DP.
What I'm saying is if no one puts in the lab work, there's a chunk of the "king of combos" that will just remain random, curiosities, but no mastery.
Most ryu online run around trying for tiny hit into DP, and that definitely has its uses but really restricts the options for a character that has so so many hitboxes to work with.
I think there's another layer to the character that remains unexplored, I'm too tired with the lab to put in the work myself, and he's not my main.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Ryu has alot he can do I agree, but I dont think you are giving the Ryu community enough credit. There are def some scientists pushing that side of his meta namely False and Hooded. The key is optimizing and thats what needs to be done.

Also you said Ryu has specific ranges.

Kinda..generally once someone hits 75% thats it. He literally has like anywhere between 10 to 15 diff ways he can kill you off a hit. Most of it is situational, but his most reliable stuff doesnt stop working once you hit a certain percent.

To be honest I think Ryus focus too much on combos. His combos are terrifying but if you never land a hit then its all fluff anyways. I would rather steer the Ryu community towards a much greater understanding of his complicated and very dynamic neutral.

Almost everyone in the Ryu community is obsessed with his combo game. He doesnt need any extra help pushing that side of his meta imo.

 

[Ninety]

Kill confirms and true 50/50s, especially those from grabs, have slowly been taken away over the course of the game's patching.

I'm not sure that's correct. I mean, on one hand Diddy lost the Hoo-Hah, MK's ladders were gutted and Sheik lost her thankfully-never-given-a-cringy-name 50-50 dthrow confirm, but DK got the (sigh) Ding Dong, Robin got Checkmate and Bowser got his Shell Shock. Are there more removed kill confirms that I'm not aware of?

 

[FullMoon]

I'm not sure that's correct. I mean, on one hand Diddy lost the Hoo-Hah, MK's ladders were gutted and Sheik lost her thankfully-never-given-a-cringy-name 50-50 dthrow confirm, but DK got the (sigh) Ding Dong, Robin got Checkmate and Bowser got his Shell Shock. Are there more removed kill confirms that I'm not aware of?

There's Luigi's D-Throw -> Tornado I guess.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I'm not sure that's correct. I mean, on one hand Diddy lost the Hoo-Hah, MK's ladders were gutted and Sheik lost her thankfully-never-given-a-cringy-name 50-50 dthrow confirm, but DK got the (sigh) Ding Dong, Robin got Checkmate and Bowser got his Shell Shock. Are there more removed kill confirms that I'm not aware of?

Luigi still has dthrow > stuff for low % damage building, but I think at high % he can't confirm into a kill anymore. ZSS can still get stuff out of her dthrow but the recent patch nerfed the effectiveness of it overall. Sonic's throws lost kill power for whatever that's worth. Link could jab into kills but that got removed because IIRC jabbing repeatedly was either an infinite or just a huge pain, can't remember which.

It may be more accurate to say that "characters who were already good got their kill confirms nerfed/removed" instead of "kill confirms in general got nerfed/removed".

 

[bc1910]

The Shell Shock(?) is mostly gone now.

Luigi lost his confirms from grab. ZSS' ladders were toned down/removed on flat stages and her Dthrow Uair is now a 50/50 with good DI rather than a true confirm. Sonic's Bthrow was severely weakened. ROB's Uthrow was weakened. Greninja had an Uthrow Uair 50/50 way back in the day which now only has a tiny percent window where it works on light fast fallers.

With a couple of exceptions I don't see how you can deny that there's a trend toward removing and weakening kill confirms. The only new grab confirms were given to characters who really needed the help.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Give Ryu a grab confirm Nintendo

I dare you.

 

[bc1910]

Please no.

Real talk, Ryu or Fox with a grab confirm would be better than pre-patch Sheik.

 

[R3D3MON]

Ninety

Luigi lost three true combo kill confirms: d-throw > nair, d-throw > bair, and d-throw > tornado. Additionally tornado was nerfed in both angle and hitlag (angle change allowing survival DI to be more effective and increased hitlag for Luigi on the last hit of tornado). Anyone who mentions falling nair as "reliable kill confirms" is delusional.

ZSS basically has a niche 50-50 from d-throw instead of guaranteed kill confirms at high %s. I think Trifroze mentioned that there is a very small window where d-throw > uair is actually a true combo kill confirm, but it is highly impractical.

Samus's original f-tilt allowed tech chases situations with CS in the 3DS days. Sakurai responded by nerfing Samus's f-tilt to the ground.

bc1910 is right in saying that Sakurai is against kill confirms and other forms of safe 50-50s (especially ones from grabs), and this isn't the first time someone mentioned this either. Of course things could change but the rather sudden removal of MK's ladder death combo (after being untouched for many, many patches) somewhat cements Sakurai's anti-kill confirm stance, which is why many people are also predicting that Bayo will get most or all of her kill confirms removed or nerfed heavily in viability.

EDIT: King DDD also lost d-throw > bair kill confirm at the early days of 3DS.

 

[Emblem Lord]

This is why we cant have nice things guys. Yall wanna complain about power creep and ****.

Smh.

We coulda had a game full of gods, guys.

I dream of what could have been. *tears slowly stream down my cheeks*

 

[Luig]

I think sakurai wants us to follow his "Throw out a smash attack and hope it hits!" mentality.

Seriously, he just doesn't like kill confirms. Maybe he wants the game to be more read based or something.

 

[Sneak Sneaks]

This is why we cant have nice things guys. Yall wanna complain about power creep and ****.

Smh.

We coulda had a game full of gods, guys.

I dream of what could have been. *tears slowly stream down my cheeks*

Half full of gods half full of trash, tbh brawl fits perfectly to that description, just add a titan

 

[Yonder]

Ninety

Luigi lost three true combo kill confirms: d-throw > nair, d-throw > bair, and d-throw > tornado. Additionally tornado was nerfed in both angle and hitlag (angle change allowing survival DI to be more effective and increased hitlag for Luigi on the last hit of tornado). Anyone who mentions falling nair as "reliable kill confirms" is delusional.

ZSS basically has a niche 50-50 from d-throw instead of guaranteed kill confirms at high %s. I think Trifroze mentioned that there is a very small window where d-throw > uair is actually a true combo kill confirm, but it is highly impractical.

Samus's original f-tilt allowed tech chases situations with CS in the 3DS days. Sakurai responded by nerfing Samus's f-tilt to the ground.

bc1910 is right in saying that Sakurai is against kill confirms and other forms of safe 50-50s (especially ones from grabs), and this isn't the first time someone mentioned this either. Of course things could change but the rather sudden removal of MK's ladder death combo (after being untouched for many, many patches) somewhat cements Sakurai's anti-kill confirm stance, which is why many people are also predicting that Bayo will get most or all of her kill confirms removed or nerfed heavily in viability.

EDIT: King DDD also lost d-throw > bair kill confirm at the early days of 3DS.

Don't forget D throw to up b. That was a nice one on Rosa.

...at least Luigi has jab to up b still (ha). It's actually not a horrible kill confirm, just have to research what characters it will work on (NOT Sheik). I still use it as my trump card when the opponent is at 55% and I'm falling behind in the 100% zone. I even took a game once against one of the best Yoshis in BC (Firefly) because of it.

It's by no means an amazing kill confirm but it's one heck of a nice yolo card when you've got nothing to lose .

 

[ぱみゅ]

I think sakurai wants us to follow his "Throw out a smash attack and hope it hits!" mentality.

Seriously, he just doesn't like kill confirms. Maybe he wants the game to be more read based or something.

Literally Brawl 2.0

 

[HoSmash4]

Sheik's downthrow uair was called '50/50'.

 

[Luig]

Don't forget D throw to up b. That was a nice one on Rosa.

...at least Luigi has jab to up b still (ha). It's actually not a horrible kill confirm, just have to research what characters it will work on (NOT Sheik). I still use it as my trump card when the opponent is at 55% and I'm falling behind in the 100% zone. I even took a game once against one of the best Yoshis in BC (Firefly) because of it.

It's by no means an amazing kill confirm but it's one heck of a nice yolo card when you've got nothing to lose .

One thing I noticed that isn't very practical but does good damage is a jab to dsmash. It's 2 frames faster than up b and takes a lot less commitment, along with the fact that if they roll behind you, the second pretty strong hit will hit them and ko them if they're around 100.

 

[R3D3MON]

Y Yonder

Oh that is true. However I consider d-throw > up-b more of a disrespect combo rather than a reliable kill confirm since DI away immediately meant d-throw > up-b was not a true combo at kill %s. RIP regardless.

From what I understand jab cancel into anything (f-smash, up-b, etc.) is always a mixup option at all %s and not really a true kill confirm or true combo since opponent can quickly react by DJ away (or roll away at low-mid %s). From what I understand the jab mixup only works if the opponent tries to shield after getting hit by jab 1 or 2 but accidentally airdodges into the ground.

EDIT: HoSmash4 What about ROB's d-throw > uair?

 

[Ninety]

So... the odds of them patching in a grab kill confirm for Pikachu and turning him into the undisputed best character are pretty low.

 

[Planty]

So... the odds of them patching in a grab kill confirm for Pikachu and turning him into the undisputed best character are pretty low.

He does have a grab kill confirm. U-throw -> thunder. You could follow the DI on reaction and kill off of it. It's just really, really hard to do. Like so hard that people still can't do it consistently.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I think despite all the hysteria that's going on right now because of Bayonetta, Diddy is actually the best character in the game now.

While I actually agree with this statement, I believe he has unfavorable matchups against Ryu and Little Mac, two characters whose ground games are so strong that they can keep up with him for better reward.

That being said I don't think he loses to any of the other top competitive characters, given nobody else has a better ground game for the most part.

At any rate as people may or may not have noticed, most of the top tier meta revolves around disadvantage state due to how mixup based Smash 4 is fundamentally. Diddy is a character that fits this meta perfectly when options like Monkey Flip and 0 commitment B reverse Popgun cancel make him very tough to pin down, and his Up-B handled accurately is a great recovery move that can reactively stall out the vast majority of edgeguard attempts especially by the popular top characters.

 

[Lhivorde]

He does have a grab kill confirm. U-throw -> thunder. You could follow the DI on reaction and kill off of it. It's just really, really hard to do. Like so hard that people still can't do it consistently.

Not this **** again.

 

[Planty]

Not this **** again.

I'm sorry I had to. I don't like misinformation.

 

[[BROF]]

He does have a grab kill confirm. U-throw -> thunder. You could follow the DI on reaction and kill off of it. It's just really, really hard to do. Like so hard that people still can't do it consistently.

I'm sorry I had to. I don't like misinformation.

For not liking misinformation you sure do like spreading it.
Please refer to previous posts on how this is not a kill confirm.
Do not bring up uthrow>thunder again. It is not DI reactable and many other users have gone a long way explaining why it doesn't work.
No, uthrow>RAR thunder does not work on reaction either.
Learn your frame data.

 

[Fatmanonice]

In that case, who would you say is 's worst matchup now? perhaps? Despite my thinking might be the worst objectively, I personally struggle more with Cloud.

A hear a lot of people argue that Sonic is Bowser's worst match up, typically noting that Sonic exploits Bowser's lack of landing options better than anyone else in the cast and how his strings are virtually effortless to connect because Bowser is a scaly John Goodman on the battlefield. I don't play either character but it seems to make sense on paper.

Add in: And then I suddenly realized that Bayo exists in this game... Haven't seen any arguments for it but she absolutely destroys most of the other heavy weights in the game.

 

[sedrf]

nakat talks about 3 stocks

 

[Kofu]

I don't disagree, I'm saying there's much left to explore with the combo game before he's to be truly optimized and I don't see much of it happening.
There's stuff like OOS rising F-air into F-air into DP which is a true combo, works in a specific percent range and is not impractical. Particularly since Ryu's shield has that great audio cue that you perfect shield.
Those F-air combos chain into stuff like D-air -> strong Up-tilt -> DP.
What I'm saying is if no one puts in the lab work, there's a chunk of the "king of combos" that will just remain random, curiosities, but no mastery.
Most ryu online run around trying for tiny hit into DP, and that definitely has its uses but really restricts the options for a character that has so so many hitboxes to work with.
I think there's another layer to the character that remains unexplored, I'm too tired with the lab to put in the work myself, and he's not my main.

I respect the Samus boards immensely for researching in detail their character's combo game. It's part of the reason why I've felt Samus is a step up from where most people place her. The issue is for all that work, her reward is often eclipsed by other characters', who can get the same or better results for less work/precision.

Y Yonder What about ROB's d-throw > uair?[/USER]

I'm no ROB main but I've used the character since release, but his DThrow to UAir is heavily DI/rage dependent. In particular when ROB's at high percent DThrow almost always sends the foe too far away to follow up. I could he wrong though.