Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Das Koopa]

After GENESIS 42, Pound 2033, and and EVO 20XX, I've finally completed my official data-based tier list.

Now, some of these are pretty obvious (SSSSSSS+ Tier) but some are less obvious.

Lucas's stick, as determined by the 4BR, counts as a sword. This effectively makes him a swordsman. Meta Knight has a full head of blonde hair under his mask according to my sources, but since he hides it, he's bottom tier in Blonde Anime Swordsman Tier. Everything else is standard procedure. Have you seen Cloud's style? He leans up against his sword. Shulk is too pure. Link has a dedicated Waifu and everybody else is too young or too alien.

Husbando tier is a bit complicated. Dr. Mario, seeking a medical degree, is far more attractive as a partner than a regular plumber, but he's still kind of stubby. He's not a coward (Luigi) but he's certainly not a proper husbando like Olimar. He's not a proper Sugar Daddy like Pac or G&W, who still look as young as ever. G&W even got plastic surgery for this game. Top quality.

We all know that the Big 5 are on a different level. Ganondorf, being Falcon's dad, has a bit more swag to offer, so he knocks Falcon down a tier this year. Sheik, having been Top Tier in a brief era from 2015 to 2016, is still top quality - he's a dependable ninja. Wario is a swag biker. Dedede requires no explanation - he's Dedede.

Waifus should also be pretty obvious. Zelda retains her purity, making her far better than robo-waifus such as Samus, or impure Waifus like Bayonetta, who somehow has less innocence than Princess "I get kidnapped" Peach, who had eight illegitimate children. How low quality. Trash. Anyway, Zero Suit Samus ranks above Rosalina and Palutena because Nairo paid me off 20$.

Irrelevant tier, as has been for a decade, is irrelevant. Pit isn't old enough to be a Husbando.

Hopefully this is useful even though Smash 10 made Smash 4 somewhat obsolete. Still no Ridley though, but he'd be a garbage Husbando anyway. What kind of Husbando murders parents? Not my Husbando.

 

[Y2Kay]

Any girl would be lucky to have Mewtwo as a husbando TBH

 

[L9999]

After GENESIS 42, Pound 2033, and and EVO 20XX, I've finally completed my official data-based tier list.

Now, some of these are pretty obvious (SSSSSSS+ Tier) but some are less obvious.

Lucas's stick, as determined by the 4BR, counts as a sword. This effectively makes him a swordsman. Meta Knight has a full head of blonde hair under his mask according to my sources, but since he hides it, he's bottom tier in Blonde Anime Swordsman Tier. Everything else is standard procedure. Have you seen Cloud's style? He leans up against his sword. Shulk is too pure. Link has a dedicated Waifu and everybody else is too young or too alien.

Husbando tier is a bit complicated. Dr. Mario, seeking a medical degree, is far more attractive as a partner than a regular plumber, but he's still kind of stubby. He's not a coward (Luigi) but he's certainly not a proper husbando like Olimar. He's not a proper Sugar Daddy like Pac or G&W, who still look as young as ever. G&W even got plastic surgery for this game. Top quality.

We all know that the Big 5 are on a different level. Ganondorf, being Falcon's dad, has a bit more swag to offer, so he knocks Falcon down a tier this year. Sheik, having been Top Tier in a brief era from 2015 to 2016, is still top quality - he's a dependable ninja. Wario is a swag biker. Dedede requires no explanation - he's Dedede.

Waifus should also be pretty obvious. Zelda retains her purity, making her far better than robo-waifus such as Samus, or impure Waifus like Bayonetta, who somehow has less innocence than Princess "I get kidnapped" Peach, who had eight illegitimate children. How low quality. Trash. Anyway, Zero Suit Samus ranks above Rosalina and Palutena because Nairo paid me off 20$.

Irrelevant tier, as has been for a decade, is irrelevant. Pit isn't old enough to be a Husbando.

Hopefully this is useful even though Smash 10 made Smash 4 somewhat obsolete. Still no Ridley though, but he'd be a garbage Husbando anyway. What kind of Husbando murders parents? Not my Husbando.

Sheik is a woman. But I digress, I jut want this FE waifu crap to end. Wait, it won't because Fates and that stupid spinoff sealed how FE will be now.

 

[Ultinarok]

Did I miss something? What suddenly changed in the meta that caused Roy, a character once considered viable and or even high tier (and has since received landing lag reductions and improvement in shield pressure with the shield mechanic changes) to be now be considered a joke? Is it Cloud? Marth's overwhelming buffs? Dat recovery? Just anti-emblem jokes for April Fools?

I'm serious, what's so terrible about him, isn't he a reasonable mid tier? He has great damage, kill power, solid edgeguarding, a combo throw/kill throw, generous sweetspots and among the best mobility in the game. His frame data isn't especially terrible either.

Really, I am curious, someone enlighten me.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

jigglypuff is bad and results at oversized locals do not prove she isn't a **** tier character

You missed the point.

I never said certain characters weren't bad, hell I said this.

literally anyone else because oh gosh poor Jiggs,

The point was that you can't afford to only care about high tiers.

You need to look at everyone or else you're harming your own competitive career.

C'mon girl, you're better than cherry picking,.

 

[Das Koopa]

Sheik is a woman. But I digress, I jut want this FE waifu crap to end. Wait, it won't because Fates and that stupid spinoff sealed how FE will be now.

What evidence is there that it's not a she? It's a random ninja that's totally not Zelda in disguise.

 

[Trunks159]

If Pink Fresh ends up in top 3 @ Pound, I will officially buy my ticket for the Bayo hate express train..

 

[Das Koopa]

jigglypuff is bad and results at oversized locals do not prove she isn't a **** tier character

Beefy Smash Dudes did a video on her Rest setups and I gotta say they're pretty unimpressive overall. Needing to hit a specific part of a specific move in order to then be able to reliably go into Rest is bad enough on its own, but if you mess up, you're done. She has the weight of a balloon, meaning that she'll die early to a lot of strong attacks. One factor the video didn't mention was that damage-only Rest setups that don't kill are heavily flawed because you'll get damage returned to you AND lose positioning, since efficient punishes will typically have a lot of knockback.

Puff's recovery is fine, but it's more than just about recovery, it's putting her into a disadvantage state for 30%. Not worth it since you'll most likely take that much if not more attempting to regain the position you had. Only sounds beneficial if you use it in a losing position. If you're at 40% on the edge and your opponent is below kill % using Rest and you use it, you might die at a comparatively low cost of 30% for the opponent.

I mean, you wouldn't use it at that point if you're smart, but that places limitations on already limited setups. Jiggs is fundamentally flawed. She needs easy and reliable Rest setups that force your opponent to think about approaching her. Her aerials need to be more threatening. Give them disjoints, or let them have minimal lag/startup to compensate for her abysmally bad range.

Like, make her the defensive glass cannon she was in 64 and Melee. I'm not asking for a carbon copy of Melee Jiggs, but she needs tools that balance out her blatant flaws, and Rest kill setups forcing your opponent to play at your speed and adapt seems far better than the mess she's currently saddled with.

Side note: Make Sing go through Shields. It's been the absolutely worst move in the series for 4 games. Please make it good. If it can force a Rest if you play recklessly against her, that'd be fantastic. While we're at it, make Rest automatically Star KO when it KOs, so it isn't unsafe on hit in certain scenarios.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

You missed the point.

I never said certain characters weren't bad, hell I said this.



The point was that you can't afford to only care about high tiers.

You need to look at everyone or else you're harming your own competitive career.

C'mon girl, you're better than cherry picking,.

Jigglypuff's also uniquely difficult to fight sometimes because she can weave back and forth in the air so well that it's hard to judge when she can be punished vs her just fading back and punishing your whiff. Or hell, just trying to anti-air her for exactly the same reason.

I tend to do better against her when I remember that trades are basically never in her favor, which just leaves Rest as a move I have to respect.

 

[Drarky]

Did I miss something? What suddenly changed in the meta that caused Roy, a character once considered viable and or even high tier (and has since received landing lag reductions and improvement in shield pressure with the shield mechanic changes) to be now be considered a joke? Is it Cloud? Marth's overwhelming buffs? Dat recovery? Just anti-emblem jokes for April Fools?

I'm serious, what's so terrible about him, isn't he a reasonable mid tier? He has great damage, kill power, solid edgeguarding, a combo throw/kill throw, generous sweetspots and among the best mobility in the game. His frame data isn't especially terrible either.

Really, I am curious, someone enlighten me.

The truth is that what you said is true, Roy does have a lot of good things...

And then disadvantage happens.

Roy has probably one of (it not) the worst disadvantages in the entire game, he's easy to combo, to edgeguard, does not have any GTFO moves and overall it's just plain bad. So the optimal way of playing Roy is to not get in disadvantage and play always the neutral/advantage, and in that case, why even bother to play Roy when EVERY character can do that to win?

Also, there's the fact that if you want a swordman with good neutral/Advantage AND not such a terrible disadvantage, you can just pick up MK or even Cloud, there's simply no reason to pick Roy in almost any situation.

I love my boy, but he's certainly not a very viable character with so many things going against him

Side note: Make Sing go through Shields. It's been the absolutely worst move in the series for 4 games. Please make it good.

The thing is, you don't want Sing to be good. Trust me. YOU DON'T.

Thinkaman explained a long time ago, but the idea itself of having Sing pass through shields is just a no-no.

 

[BunbUn129]

Honestly...

I'm starting to think that people in this thread don't know characters they don't play barring the high tiers.

Like at all.

People are really quick to dismiss the mid/low/bottom even though the mid/low/bottom have pretty good results considering their current tier. Some of the stuff I'm reading shows minimal labbing, no play time (rarely even casuals) or even reading stuff from a character's mains.

I mean if Jigglypuff can get a 7th in a notable tournament, I think the likes of Roy, Shulk, literally anyone else because oh gosh poor Jiggs, etc. can at least be noteworthy or have a niiche.

STORY TIME!!!

Back in my first Melee tournament, there was a pretty good . I chose my main (laugh all you want, I got pretty far) and we fought. In the first round, he was kicking my *** thoroughly, but somehow I landed Mewtwo's down air and evened it up, allowing me to win the round.

He had no idea Mewtwo had a meteor, and this was an L-Canceling, wavedashing, uber competitive kind of guy.

After that, he played sloppily and I won the set comfortably. He told me afterwards that he never knew Mewtwo could do ANY of what I did, because he just regarded him as trash and never looked into him more than a superficial glance.

The guy was blinded by the "high tier goggles." The moment something different came by, he crumbled because he didn't know what to do. Not because he didn't get enough practice, but because he straight up knew nothing.

A lot of the stuff I'm reading recently reminds me of that player.

Yeah, Roy may not win a national any time soon. But Roy can beat you and harm YOUR competitive career because he did stuff you didn't know or think was possible.

Don't count out low tiers.

The moment you do is the moment they gain a distinct advantage.

In many of these situations, the character's unexpected success is often more a result of the player, not really the character. After all, you are limited by your character, and that's, of course, why tiers exist in the first place. For example, Ike in Smash 4 is a good character, but someone like Ryo makes Ike look way better than he really is due to his skill in making reads--and making reads is not a character-exclusive trait.

"The moment you do is the moment they gain a distinct advantage"--the problem with this statement is that, in such anecdotes where a low-tier beats a high- or top-tier, the player of the higher-tiered character is to blame for match-up inexperience. A major reason as to why low- and bottom-tiers like can get 7th at a tournament is that the other players simply don't have the knowledge and experience to combat them and exploit their glaring weaknesses--in the end, characters like will succeed only on raw skill and a lack of MU experience, and not on the quality of their kits.

If I lose to a character who is substantially lower on the tier list, that's mostly going to be my fault. Jiggs is staying where she is unless she--by some miracle--gets consistent and convincing results at majors.

Therefore, it's not about respecting low-tiers, but respecting their players.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Sheik is a woman

Excuse me? I never remember this being true, as a die-hard Nintendo fan I of all people would know this!

On the note of Jiggs, yeah the character's terrible. It's a unique sort of terrible where one of their best tools (a move that I guarantee would be absurd on like, most any other char) makes them worse because getting in range to use said tool (Rest) is incredibly risky and difficult against characters with either range or good frame data, and good range vs. Puff is not a trait that's unique in this game.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

In many of these situations, the character's unexpected success is often more a result of the player, not really the character.

That was the goddam point...

The moment a PLAYER underestimates a low tier is the moment they lose.

Not because of the character, but because he ****ed up because he was too ignorant about the situation.

 

[Das Koopa]

The thing is, you don't want Sing to be good. Trust me. YOU DON'T.

Thinkaman explained a long time ago, but the idea itself of having Sing pass through shields is just a no-no.

I'm of the general philosophy that most moves in a moveset if not all of them should be good

but I can accept Sing being bad if she can get to be a glass cannon otherwise

 

[Ghostbone]

Roy is punished for spacing properly, it's been said thousands of times but his gameplan is that of a brawler with the frame data of a swordy, it's essentially non-functional and he's only somewhat playable because of his high mobility

 

[Ultinarok]

The truth is that what you said is true, Roy does have a lot of good things...

And then disadvantage happens.

Roy has probably one of (it not) the worst disadvantages in the entire game, he's easy to combo, to edgeguard, does not have any GTFO moves and overall it's just plain bad. So the optimal way of playing Roy is to not get in disadvantage and play always the neutral/advantage, and in that case, why even bother to play Roy when EVERY character can do that to win?

Also, there's the fact that if you want a swordman with good neutral/Advantage AND not such a terrible disadvantage, you can just pick up MK or even Cloud, there's simply no reason to pick Roy in almost any situation.

I love my boy, but he's certainly not a very viable character with so many things going against him



The thing is, you don't want Sing to be good. Trust me. YOU DON'T.

Thinkaman explained a long time ago, but the idea itself of having Sing pass through shields is just a no-no.

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't Jab and Blazer good GTFO tools? And yeah his disadvantage state is horrible but so is Falcon's and that doesn't hold him back too much. His GTFO tools also aren't that great either and he lacks Roy's disjoint. I can understand him never being able to top tier but poor disadvantage states aren't as much of a deal breaker as poor disadvantage AND neutral, like Ganondorf. At least Roy has hope, I suppose.

 

[BunbUn129]

I've seen people say Roy's jab -> Up b is a true KO confirm? And doesn't nair 1 confirm into his kill moves?

Ultinarok Falcon's disadvantage state doesn't hold him back as much because his neutral and advantage states are much stronger than Roy's.

 

[Das Koopa]

Of course Roy is flawed - he has the moveset of a character designed for spacing.

What did Project M do to make Roy good and what ideas could be emulated in some manner to achieve that success?

 

[Game7a1]

Side note: Make Sing go through Shields. It's been the absolutely worst move in the series for 4 games. Please make it good.

I'll repeat what I said much earlier. It'll still be punishable. So it goes through shields. It's slightly safer. That doesn't mean much. You realize you can grab, attack, or escape during Sing, right? It hits three times at varying, lengths (two opportunities to act, essentially).

 

[Ultinarok]

I've seen people say Roy's jab -> Up b is a true KO confirm? And doesn't nair 1 confirm into his kill moves?

Ultinarok Falcon's disadvantage state doesn't hold him back as much because his neutral and advantage states are much stronger than Roy's.

I suppose I underestimate Falcon's neutral and advantage more than I should. Knee and Dair are scary stuff and his jab and dash grab are admittedly pretty amazing. That said, Roy as a doubles partner sounds like magic. Disadvantage is much more manageable when you have a teammate. Wonder how he'd do. Completely overshadowed by Cloud though I guess.

 

[Deleted member]

In many of these situations, the character's unexpected success is often more a result of the player, not really the character. After all, you are limited by your character, and that's, of course, why tiers exist in the first place. For example, Ike in Smash 4 is a good character, but someone like Ryo makes Ike look way better than he really is due to his skill in making reads--and making reads is not a character-exclusive trait.

"The moment you do is the moment they gain a distinct advantage"--the problem with this statement is that, in such anecdotes where a low-tier beats a high- or top-tier, the player of the higher-tiered character is to blame for match-up inexperience. A major reason as to why low- and bottom-tiers like can get 7th at a tournament is that the other players simply don't have the knowledge and experience to combat them and exploit their glaring weaknesses--in the end, characters like will succeed only on raw skill and a lack of MU experience, and not on the quality of their kits.

If I lose to a character who is substantially lower on the tier list, that's mostly going to be my fault. Jiggs is staying where she is unless she--by some miracle--gets consistent and convincing results at majors.

Therefore, it's not about respecting low-tiers, but respecting their players.

All three characters you mentioned () can do more damage than expected if you don't respect them (seriously, not respecting a character is one of the worst things you can do to yourself in this game) or lack MU experience against them, but undoubtedly gets the most out of people not knowing how the fight him when we're considering his relatively good results at major tournaments compared to other characters in his current tier. Most people when they encounter Dedede for the first time are just at a loss to deal with his tools because he's such a rare character to face in bracket if its a dedicated main, way moreso at high-level play. The same applies to Jiggs or Zelda too. I feel like once people learn the Dedede MU and know how to exploit his weaknesses, he'll fall on the next iteration of the list pretty hard.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

Roy still benefits from spacing. The difference is that he needs to space his moves so that the opponent is hit with the middle of his blade rather than the tip for maximum safety. Even if the opponent is hit by the tip of his blade, he still will be relatively safe due to him being a fair space away from his opponent. Tippers also arent as completely useless as people are implying as they are still good at setting up tech chases as well as gimping opponents.

 

[Luco]

IMO Pound could just break non-PS shield straight up. That'd give Jiggs a real place in the meta.

What Swampy says is very true. As a competitive player myself it's so easy for me to get surprised by a character I just never saw played competently. I remember getting trashed the first time I met my scene's best Mewtwo player in friendlies, and I recall going against my long-time friend and rival who hated Pit in smash 4 and went to Jiggs and... Really you'll be surprised at the things you can get punished for if you're not putting in a lot of mental effort in this game.

It's important for good players to know the ins and outs of both their own character and the character they're facing in any given MU. In higher level matches respecially it's also super important to understand the player as well. Mewtwo may have a really good shot against Cloud as an MU but I'm pretty sure most of what made Mew^2 so threatening in his matches vs M2K was that he played Mewtwo in a way M2K had never seen before and went for different traps and set-ups.

In my scene we have a whole host of PR players who can beat certain other people in the PR but lose to others as well in really weird ways, like there's player-counters and it goes right up to our best player.

To be good, you have to know who and what you're going against every time and tiers probably won't matter for a few matches until you understand WHY and HOW you can abuse a character or player.



--

On another note, I'm feeling kinda edgy and I just don't understand why... >_> <_< <_> >_<

 

[BananaBake]

Any girl would be lucky to have Mewtwo as a husbando TBH

but... Mewtwo has no gender...

 

[TDK]

but... Mewtwo has no gender...

In the movies Mewtwo's appeared in one is male and one is female. Mewtwo counts as both a Waifu and a Husbando.

 

[BunbUn129]

Roy still benefits from spacing. The difference is that he needs to space his moves so that the opponent is hit with the middle of his blade rather than the tip for maximum safety. Even if the opponent is hit by the tip of his blade, he still will be relatively safe due to him being a fair space away from his opponent. Tippers also arent as completely useless as people are implying as they are still good at setting up tech chases as well as gimping opponents.

The problem with Roy's spacing is that he has to choose between 1) hitting at max distance at the cost decreased damage, hitstun, and shield-stun, and 2) hitting at the hilt for increased damage, hitstun, and shieldstun at the cost of distance. As a sword-wielder, Roy has to space, but he can't do so effectively because of his inverse tipper and the fact that his range isn't long enough. It's the same issue that he had in Melee: either option comes with pros and cons, and while this is true for every option, it's especially detrimental to Roy because he simply can't afford to lose neutral once. Roy has to make the correct decision every time and gets only decent reward off of winning in neutral, all while getting out-damaged severely due to his disadvantage state.

Roy can't space at all like because Marth has a clear-cut best option: hitting the opponent at max range, and trying to space for tippers offers Marth with only benefits. And then you have non-tipper characters like who just want to hit you with their giant swords.

All sword-wielders have either long range but below average frame data (), balanced range and frame data (), and short range but great frame data (). and are the exceptions: Cloud for having absurd range and good frame data, and Roy for having relatively low range and below average frame data.

As has been said time and time again, 's combination of a dysfunctional game plan and horrid disadvantage state doom him. isn't a good character, but Marth generally plays as designed: a sword character who wants to outspace you with his swings.

Then ask about Roy:

Is he a spacer?
Does he want to pressure?
Is he a comboer?
Does he want to rush in?

I doubt that anyone can give you a definitive answer. I'm sure even Roy mains can't come to a general consensus on what archetype(s) Roy falls into.

What does aim to do? He wants to punish you with combos, kill set-ups, and edge-guards.
? He wants to space you out, and punish you with his grab set-ups.
? He wants to space you out and hit you with tippers.
? Despite not having a tipper, Lucina adopts a very similar play style to Marth.
? Zones you out with projecties and bomb set-ups.
? Same as Link, but aided by good mobility.
? Zones you out, and mixes up his use of his two swords.
? Spaces you out, and makes different uses of his Arts.
? Spaces you out and threatens you from where you cannot punish.
? Balanced with all the above play styles, without excelling at one particular area.
? Cheese. A lot of cheese.

And what about ?

 

[BananaBake]

In the movies Mewtwo's appeared in one is male and one is female. Mewtwo counts as both a Waifu and a Husbando.

But... the games... I don't know what's canon anymore...

 

[Nobie]

I don't know Roy well, but as I said in a previous post I wonder if people are overselling the impact of Roy's sourspots. Like, the conversation is mostly about how you need to hit with the hilt of the sword to do damage, and max range means you hardly do anything, but it seems like a lot (not all) of his moves are designed to have some middle ground.

Fair has four different hitboxes, which do 11/11/11/7 damage. That means most of the sword is strong, not just the hilt. While absolute max range does piddly damage, it's not like he's without a practical disjoint entirely.

Bair is 12/12/9. Ftilt is 12.5/9/8. Fsmash is 20/17/12.

Marth is pretty much the opposite. 75% of his hitboxes are sourspots most of the time, whereas Roy's blade is mostly designed to do good damage except for the tip.

People talk about how Roy is dysfunctional but I think a lot more consideration was put into him than many realize.

 

[BunbUn129]

I don't know Roy well, but as I said in a previous post I wonder if people are overselling the impact of Roy's sourspots. Like, the conversation is mostly about how you need to hit with the hilt of the sword to do damage, and max range means you hardly do anything, but it seems like a lot (not all) of his moves are designed to have some middle ground.

Fair has four different hitboxes, which do 11/11/11/7 damage. That means most of the sword is strong, not just the hilt. While absolute max range does piddly damage, it's not like he's without a practical disjoint entirely.

Bair is 12/12/9. Ftilt is 12.5/9/8. Fsmash is 20/17/12.

Marth is pretty much the opposite. 75% of his hitboxes are sourspots most of the time, whereas Roy's blade is mostly designed to do good damage except for the tip.

People talk about how Roy is dysfunctional but I think a lot more consideration was put into him than many realize.

Marth also has longer range, though.

 

[Nobie]

Marth also has longer range, though.

Well yes. I've also always thought that even pre-patches that Marth eats Roy's lunch, but it's more like, people like to pretend Roy's sword doesn't matter if he isn't fighting at max range with it, but if we compare it to someone like Mewtwo who has decent but not great disjoints on a bunch of moves and benefits from hitting stronger hitboxes up close (Mewtwo's dtilt, bair, up air, etc. are all like this), then it doesn't seem that odd for Roy to function somewhat similarly.

 

[Yikarur]

Today is Avalon U-III in the netherlands. It's the first dutch event with a very high attendance of germans so it should be very interesting so keep an eye on the stream.
The event is streamed by www.twitch.tv/GeekyGoonSquad the best stream in the world (leave that guy some subs )

The best players attending are S1-14 (Ness, winning record against istudy), Sodrek (Fox / Cloud arguable best german, very close defeat to istudy and S1-14 at Beast), Longouw (Probably Europe's best Rob), me 8) (Yoshi / Mii Brawler, Guest Mii with all moves are allowed), Yoh (Europe's best Ike), Eddy (Greninja), Meru (best Placing Peach at Beast) and many more.

It's sad that the tournament is parallel to the pool phase of Pound but Pools are not that interesting anyway and it's 3 Stocks !

The stream is starting in about 5 hours from now on with doubles starting on 12:00pm CEST and Singles at 2:00pm CEST.

 

[Shaya]

I'll take this opportunity to openly admit that Pikachu is actually a good character, probably is top 3 with no losing match ups and that up throw thunder is actually a guaranteed kill combo.

Oh and that I hate every single one of you.
Except gheb.
And trifroze
and probably you as well if you're European.

[Who knows where the sarcasm lies?]

-

Roy's "dysfunctional" because his tipper hits don't do anything in match ups (many) where spacing is important.
Against lower range characters, useless flub that sends them no where but hey, they're still struggling to get within his range, YAY
Everyone else it's mostly just self-punishing.

He has a few functional sour spots, but their knockback scale way too much to be useful (fair, bair, dtilt, nair). Like, for a very long time, these moves don't 'hurt you', but are still providing nothing to his game plan because they're barely allowing combos or follow ups for much longer than his sweet spots are (sweet spot nair will be allowing combos for 15-40%ish while tipper is like 25% to 50%... honestly Marth's flubs are significantly more helpful; it hurts).
Meanwhile the rest of his flubs are generally worthless; never having knockback that's worthwhile to Roy - the mild exception is up air, but this is character dependent and you're hoping for an optimal height to hit these things where you're on the ground at least a dozen or so frames before your opponent would be to apply pressure while air dodging will get them killed if they use it.

The shield stun patches nerfed the relatively powerful niche of his tippers as they were safer on block. Roy still wants to space these moves on block, but their pitiful shield stun/pushback are problematic. He was not really compensated for this, although the aerial landing lag buffs did cover the loss on aerials a little.

Roy could ideally be the anti-marth; a more difficult but in turn more rewarding version of him (the much higher mobility specs kinda signify this but his initial dash acceleration being poorish and the aerial deceleration are kicks in the shin for this). His common hitting sweetspots being weaker in power and damage than Marths after the recent patch are also kicks in the shin. The nearly useless flubs would generally indicate to someone that his sweet spots should actually be more rewarding, but they are not. The flubs that he does have that are remotely usable are "less usable" than Marth's flubs because they ramp up in knockback so quickly beyond what Roy can do anything with.

• His sword shouldn't be shorter than Marth's,
• His dancing blade/side-b shouldn't be that much weaker than Marths in damage output (like wtf, it's so demoralizing to have a feasible combo follow up move in a kit with only 20% combo windows do sub 10%, it also quickly loses the ability as a punish due to hit 1 to 2 not comboing from mid percent)
• His sweet spots shouldn't be doing almost universally worse reward than Marth; fair/bair/nair sweet spots doing more damage would actually be a significant boon to him because he currently doesn't find raw aerial KOs (and his only adaptable and relatively safe parts of his kit are from aerials...) almost ever. The difference in strength to Marth suddenly having fair be a reliable KO move was massive for his viability.
• His sour spots which are usable come to spit in your face very quickly, just like the rest of his flubs do all the time. I don't mind finding some unique interactions with his flubs that don't explicitly mean mini-Sheik (although that's essentially how you would turn this character into an amazingly fun, well designed [albeit polarizing against low range chars] super beast), but they currently are not redeemable whatsoever (unlike Marths; blah blah his sweetspots are better too rinserepeat).

He is quite dysfunctional, just like Marth was noticeably before he got range buffs and KO power buffs on aerials.
Marth still has a noticeably worse walk than the rest of the high/top tiers, and being a more fragile, slower, weaker Cloud still doesn't make much sense either; but at least he is above the 'low tier' threshold as he currently is.
Roy has 2/3rds of the explicit options of his moveset draw blanks against good characters / people who know how to space. His risk/reward is very poorly adjusted.
Seeing as he's the last "to be helped properly" DLC I could see some major shifts to him in the next patch.

If aerial up-b wasn't killing people at 200% compared to the grounded 110-120%ish, his only kill set up (from jab) wouldn't be always avoidable with good DI. !_!

 

[Fatmanonice]

Did I miss something? What suddenly changed in the meta that caused Roy, a character once considered viable and or even high tier (and has since received landing lag reductions and improvement in shield pressure with the shield mechanic changes) to be now be considered a joke? Is it Cloud? Marth's overwhelming buffs? Dat recovery? Just anti-emblem jokes for April Fools?

I'm serious, what's so terrible about him, isn't he a reasonable mid tier? He has great damage, kill power, solid edgeguarding, a combo throw/kill throw, generous sweetspots and among the best mobility in the game. His frame data isn't especially terrible either.

Really, I am curious, someone enlighten me.

A number of things:

-Almost every other swordsman in the game outclasses him in significant ways: range, recovery, offstage, throw set ups, edgeguarding, shield pressure, OoS options, etc.
-He's a fast faller with a below average, one dimensional recovery so his offstage game is arguably the second worst in the game and even then Little Mac has more options to mix things up like the jolt haymaker and wall jumps.
-No high level representation and severely lacks results except at local levels.
-Gets comboed easily thanks to his fall speed.
-Most of his kill options are high risk.
-Doesn't have too many answers to projectile camping compared to the other swordsmen.
-Most of his throw set ups rely on hard reads outside of low percentages.
-Never really went anywhere after release and then Cloud and Corrin along with the buffs to literally every other swordsman except Metaknight since last summer made him even more irrelevant.

As time has gone on, the character has basically become seen as Little Mac with a sword: dangerous in close quarters but get him off the ground or off the stage and he has one of the worst disadvantage states of the whole cast. He's basically a Melee character trapped in SSB4 and only excelling on the ground is a fast track to mediocrity in this game.

 

[BunbUn129]

Roy's mobility was one of his only niches as a sword fighter, and even this was always in heavy contention by Meta Knight. Just for the sake of comparison:

Meta Knight/Roy:

Dash: 1.9/1.95
Walk: 1.18/1.15
Air speed: 0.99/1.24
Fall speed: 1.66/1.8
Air acceleration: 0.065/0.03

And throw in that Meta Knight has his jumps and Cape for more flexible mobility, and this rubs away what was one of Roy's biggest selling points.

And then showed up and also took that little bit of thunder from Roy.

For the note, I only just found out how bad Roy's air acceleration was (3rd worst), so it turns out he doesn't even fully shine in the mobility department. And he doesn't have a 4-frame jumpsquat, unlike most fast characters.

If Roy had his Melee down tilt, he would be infinitely better IMO. D tilt is a good poke, and giving it its old vertical launch angle would open up combo options and KO set-ups. I think this change was probably the most harmful in the transition, even if that seems a little random.

Edit: comparing Roy to Little Mac, Mac's CQC focus is at least supported by his rolls, better frame data, and super armor. Meanwhile, Roy can seemingly get punished for anything.

 

[LancerStaff]

Yaknow what bugs me? When people say Cloud's range/frame data are ridiculous. Like, one the two moves yeah. I get that's all it takes... But still. And things like how swordsman don't get things like projectiles or good dash attacks when a swordsman with both exists, and both being better in all but niche ways too.

It also bugs me how people look at Roy's lack of range on his tilts (basically everything else is Marth's range, right? sorta forgetting) and don't look at a different swordsman and think that's a relevant weakness.

 

[TDK]

[Who knows where the sarcasm lies?]

Right here:

I'll take this opportunity to openly admit that Pikachu is actually a good character, probably is top 3 with no losing match ups and that up throw thunder is actually a guaranteed kill combo.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Most of Cloud's moves have easy follow ups and are relatively safe if spaced right though. He doesn't have to have the best range or frame data when the reward for connecting attacks is consistently good and punishment for whiffing attacks or having them shielded is relatively low.

 

[Lag Chan]

I'm off to Hypespotting today so hopefully i'll be able to contribute to the thread, even then i hope it'll be more than "Well i drowned in pools and i can safely say Gunner is still bottom tier ect ect"

 

[LancerStaff]

Most of Cloud's moves have easy follow ups and are relatively safe if spaced right though. He doesn't have to have the best range or frame data when the reward for connecting attacks is consistently good and punishment for whiffing attacks or having them shielded is relatively low.

Last I heard his grounded moves weren't safe unless spaced immaculately... Likewise I don't see a lot of combos out of him.

IDK, I just think 99% of Cloud's kit is overrated as heck and that happens because SSB4 players don't get how to handle swordfighters.

 

[BunbUn129]

Last I heard his grounded moves weren't safe unless spaced immaculately... Likewise I don't see a lot of combos out of him.

IDK, I just think 99% of Cloud's kit is overrated as heck and that happens because SSB4 players don't get how to handle swordfighters.

-Up aerial is frame 7, deals 12% clean, lingers, has a huge hitbox, and auto-cancels in a short-hop and the very frame after the hitbox ends, while having only 15 frames of landing lag otherwise, and to top it all off, the move comboes into itself.
-Down aerial is frame 11, lingers, has a huge hitbox, and auto-cancels the first frame after the hitbox ends.
-Throw -> Limit Charge is perhaps the single best combo in the game: it's true and guaranteed against all characters regardless of percent, DI, and rage.
-Basically everything has disgusting range (look at his hitboxes with interpolation; they're terrifying).
-The whole LB mechanic is a chargeable KO punch with 4 variations and grants Cloud the ability to camp.
-Mobility stats: 10th fastest dash speed, good air speed and average acceleration, high jumps and a 4-frame jumpsquat. And boost that all with Limit.
-Two "weaknesses" that really aren't weaknesses: a lack of reliable throw follow-ups is wrong because of throw -> Limit Charge, and Cloud's recovery is only exploitable by 10 relevant characters.

Is he overrated? Not with the outcry surrounding . Do people know how to fight him? No, for the most part. But you have to give credit where credit is due: Cloud has an overtuned kit brimming with melted cheese that happens to be sitting on some really good mobility stats.

Cloud is #1 in my opinion, not Bayonetta (stop using unsafe moves on Bayo's shield; that way it becomes harder for her to land Witch Twist). Meanwhile, there's not much you can do against Cloud if he decides to be lame and camp for limit--if you don't have a really good projectile and/or get outrun by Cloud, have fun.