Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Amadeus9]

It used to be in most cases I would bet on a mewtwo player beating an mk player that wasnt like, tip top player mk because shadow ball completely stuffs all of mk's grounded options and most mks really really liked (used to heh) pushing that dash attack button. Now that theres pretty much going to be like no mid level mks i would bet more on the MK winning, mewtwo is awfully light so uair will be an issue if the player is not sdi'ing to full potential, and mk can punish airdodge really really hard with bair (and mewtwos sure love airdodging)

Oh and also MK has no shortage of kill confirms... something that mew2 doesn't like at all... At least MK retains that trait.

I'm gonna stuck to my guns tho that mew2 wins the mu, i said this before, dtilt and shadow ball are way too damn good for mk to deal with properly. And now that we have top level rep for mew2 (who isnt afraid to camp + play lame, seriously ive seen other mew2s play the mu and they play stupidly aggro, like no ok. don't do this), maybe we can see the mu pan out at top level... Here's hoping leo can come to NA sometime, seriously that guy is nuts and is carrying mk on his shoulders.

 

[FallofBrawl]

IIRC Mew^2 has beaten Aerolink and perhaps Iggy (?) and Aba beat Nyanko in 2 sets for GFs not too long ago.

Has Aba's Mew2 gone against 9B yet?

 

[LordShade67]

Well, we learned the meta is a cluster****

But a cluster**** of the most beautiful kind...as you already said.

EDIT: And frankly, after being trash in Melee and his rep last year(when he was released), Mewtwo deserves this. Seriously.

 

[BunbUn129]

But a cluster**** of the most beautiful kind...as you already said.

EDIT: And frankly, after being trash in Melee and his rep last year(when he was released), Mewtwo deserves this. Seriously.

Let's hope the same happens with Roy (the boy needs buffs, please). Some characters have to be low tier, but I believe every character should have a chance to be good in at least one game.

 

[[BROF]]

Let's hope the same happens with Roy (the boy needs buffs, please). Some characters have to be low tier, but I believe every character should have a chance to be good in at least one game.

In a perfect world, low tiers would still exist but it would be something like S, A, and B tiers, instead of going all the way down to G.
It is something truly difficult to achieve, and I personally think that it is impossible as characters not being equal already means one will be better than another by default, even if just by a little bit.

 

[Djent]

Has Aba's Mew2 gone against 9B yet?

Nope, and it could be awhile. They live rather far apart and rarely end up attending the same tournaments. Come to think of it, I'm not sure the two have ever squared off in this game. EDIT: No, teddystalin is right, I remember seeing that now. Figures I'd forget it after cancelling my Nico subscription.

 

[teddystalin]

Nope, and it could be awhile. They live rather far apart and rarely end up attending the same tournaments. Come to think of it, I'm not sure the two have ever squared off in this game.

They played a really great set a the Umebura Tokagi qualifiers (9B clutched it out), but it's lost to all of us without a NicoNico subscription.

 

[Shaya]

Mewtwo seems to have probably hit the "thematic" ideals we often hear about.
"Cloud is meant to be big, fast, strong, broken, a fallen angel... it's hard to do that without ruining the game so we made his recovery awkward!"

Mewtwo was one of the characters who seemed most out of place when we're told game themes impact on balance and design.
I've been preaching the mewtwo for months. The first time he got some mobility buffs and a few fixed hitboxes it was game time - his moveset shares a lot of similarities to Marth/swordies (so he's a good ranged, arcing hitboxes, footsie based, monster).

But to be fair, any character could be as good as Mewtwo is now when they got the Mario treatment (bigger hitboxes, bigger mobility, bigger frame data, bigger-better-and-easy single button presses). It's been mentioned by Sakurai before that he could give everyone mario-esque abilities and have great "character" balance, at the cost of much of everything else. Well, Mewtwo got Mario'd.
And every other character ever buffed or wanting to get buffed wishes they got Mario'd.

To contrast, prior to these buffs, Mewtwo's noticeable fastest means to get from one side of the stage to the other was rolling (Samus and Ganon mains cringing everywhere). Compared to now having top 5-ish mobility specs overall, this is insanely drastic.

When the balance team realised it was important to go for base stat changes to make characters strong and viable, they really went all out on Mewtwo with only fluff changes to the other characters (Kirby, Lucario).
But the truth of the matter is, take any character right now, and shift them from average to below average mobility to top 5-caste [there's more than 5 characters in this group by now, but I think it is self defining] and they're going to become a more significant threat than they are now.
Mobility has been stated time and time again as the biggest factor for a character's viability, and this has proved it. Cue mewtwo mains crying that "these combos and things were possible before!!!" Yep, and the character was still mediocre because you don't have top tier mobility specs to make it significantly easier.

Mewtwo also has an extremely fast, long ranged, safe horizontal aerial in forward air and this has been a significant point in defining the viability of mobile zoners/fighters since Melee. Having it buffed to come out 1 frame earlier so it matches it's animation? Yep, most of the cast wishes they could get something like this. But even beforehand it was incredibly strong, but now it's just monstrous when combined with top mobility.

Someone asked me if I think Mewtwo is suddenly abusive.
I think shadowball is close to the best projectile in the game (always was), and the increase of it's hitbox size was significant in allowing Mewtwo to have a stupendously good anti-approach tool because you can't really jump or dodge through it anymore. This combined with top mobility specs is producing something a lot better than most other characters have. A mewtwo on the ground charging shadowball is in almost complete control and it does it for free.
The damage/knockback on mewtwo's forward air is insane and was fine to be, but now is too heavily skewed with his mobility specs to be "fair" on the rest of the cast. A move which went from maybe getting one as a punish to getting two or three in succession - with it's clearly strong numbers it's impact on a game has arguably doubled.

Other than that, he's just... a Mario'd character with two or three silly moves. While Mario was Mario'd with maybe 1 silly move at best (Up Smash) between Brawl and S4.
Moral of the ramble is: balance wise, don't give characters with most definitely very strong character defining moves the Mario treatment. It's going to result in a monster.

And although I've been saying this for longer than the last 2-3 weeks, yay for tweethistory

Mewtwo could be high tier right now, imo. Maybe even the best Pokemon.

— shaya (@ShayaJP) March 19, 2016

 

[TDK]

One thing I would like to note about Sheik is that when I saw the Sheiks lose, it was because Sheik has a meaningful weakness that can be exploited, and is much harder to counterbalance the higher you get in percent. For instance, once you hit about 150 you will fly so far away from the Sheik that they need some form of read to properly take you down, and in the meantime, you have Rage.

 

[BunbUn129]

come to mind when you ask who would benefit the most from improved mobility. These three have strong CQC and effective combos, but they have sub-par mobility stats that prevent them from readily making use of these.

got a lot off a faster dashing speed.

One of 's biggest buffs from Brawl was much better air speed (0.846 -> 1.1, from bottom 10 to above average). If she had Brawl air speed, her whole combo game would be hit pretty hard.

has one of the best CQC's in the game, and this would break him if you only gave him a better dashing speed.

However, mobility isn't everything.....

 

[Pancracio17]

Ryu with top 5 mobility is scary to think of, but id love a falco that can not move like a rock.

 

[Thinkaman]

's kit is weirdly tuned where I suspect she'd end up disproportionately better with increased mobility stats (primarily air speed) in spite of lacking the frame advantage we'd normally look at to make a statement like that.

Jiggs' current horizontal air speed is just low enough to not be able to chain her aerials except in narrow ranges. Additionally, it is the main factor determining the range of "What is punishable with Rest on reaction?" and how flexible SHAD is both offensively and defensively.

Along a similar line of thought, if you cut the landing lag of Jiggs dair significantly, braindead drill-Rest becomes a thing.

 

[Dathx]

Pretty much the only high level Bayo-Robin games I can think of have been Pink Fresh vs. Dath at Glitch (1-1)...
Dathx ?

I still don't have enough experience in the MU to say for sure, but I'd call it even. Robin has a big sword, tons of damage off of grabs/projectiles, as well as a kill confirm off grab on Bayo ~80% (all things I feel Bayo loses to). Bayo's got great mobility, zone-breakers that give her good % (or death), and great off-stage. In a way, both characters kind of counter each other.

 

[TDK]

Mewtwo seems to have probably hit the "thematic" ideals we often hear about.
"Cloud is meant to be big, fast, strong, broken, a fallen angel... it's hard to do that without ruining the game so we made his recovery awkward!"

Mewtwo was one of the characters who seemed most out of place when we're told game themes impact on balance and design.
I've been preaching the mewtwo for months. The first time he got some mobility buffs and a few fixed hitboxes it was game time - his moveset shares a lot of similarities to Marth/swordies (so he's a good ranged, arcing hitboxes, footsie based, monster).

But to be fair, any character could be as good as Mewtwo is now when they got the Mario treatment (bigger hitboxes, bigger mobility, bigger frame data, bigger-better-and-easy single button presses). It's been mentioned by Sakurai before that he could give everyone mario-esque abilities and have great "character" balance, at the cost of much of everything else. Well, Mewtwo got Mario'd.
And every other character ever buffed or wanting to get buffed wishes they got Mario'd.

To contrast, prior to these buffs, Mewtwo's noticeable fastest means to get from one side of the stage to the other was rolling (Samus and Ganon mains cringing everywhere). Compared to now having top 5-ish mobility specs overall, this is insanely drastic.

When the balance team realised it was important to go for base stat changes to make characters strong and viable, they really went all out on Mewtwo with only fluff changes to the other characters (Kirby, Lucario).
But the truth of the matter is, take any character right now, and shift them from average to below average mobility to top 5-caste [there's more than 5 characters in this group by now, but I think it is self defining] and they're going to become a more significant threat than they are now.
Mobility has been stated time and time again as the biggest factor for a character's viability, and this has proved it. Cue mewtwo mains crying that "these combos and things were possible before!!!" Yep, and the character was still mediocre because you don't have top tier mobility specs to make it significantly easier.

Mewtwo also has an extremely fast, long ranged, safe horizontal aerial in forward air and this has been a significant point in defining the viability of mobile zoners/fighters since Melee. Having it buffed to come out 1 frame earlier so it matches it's animation? Yep, most of the cast wishes they could get something like this. But even beforehand it was incredibly strong, but now it's just monstrous when combined with top mobility.

Someone asked me if I think Mewtwo is suddenly abusive.
I think shadowball is close to the best projectile in the game (always was), and the increase of it's hitbox size was significant in allowing Mewtwo to have a stupendously good anti-approach tool because you can't really jump or dodge through it anymore. This combined with top mobility specs is producing something a lot better than most other characters have. A mewtwo on the ground charging shadowball is in almost complete control and it does it for free.
The damage/knockback on mewtwo's forward air is insane and was fine to be, but now is too heavily skewed with his mobility specs to be "fair" on the rest of the cast. A move which went from maybe getting one as a punish to getting two or three in succession - with it's clearly strong numbers it's impact on a game has arguably doubled.

Other than that, he's just... a Mario'd character with two or three silly moves. While Mario was Mario'd with maybe 1 silly move at best (Up Smash) between Brawl and S4.
Moral of the ramble is: balance wise, don't give characters with most definitely very strong character defining moves the Mario treatment. It's going to result in a monster.

And although I've been saying this for longer than the last 2-3 weeks, yay for tweethistory

Mewtwo could be high tier right now, imo. Maybe even the best Pokemon.

— shaya (@ShayaJP) March 19, 2016

You could give Zelda or D3 top-tiered mobility and she'd still be fairly poor. Mewtwo is only great because he had an amazing toolkit hampered by poor mobility. Now that he has amazing mobility, he is a great character. Someone like Zelda could have amazing mobility and still be a poor character because her toolkit isn't that great.

And then, of course, there's Roy, who proves that Mobility isn't everything.

 

[BunbUn129]

's kit is weirdly tuned where I suspect she'd end up disproportionately better with increased mobility stats (primarily air speed) in spite of lacking the frame advantage we'd normally look at to make a statement like that.

Jiggs' current horizontal air speed is just low enough to not be able to chain her aerials except in narrow ranges. Additionally, it is the main factor determining the range of "What is punishable with Rest on reaction?" and how flexible SHAD is both offensively and defensively.

Along a similar line of thought, if you cut the landing lag of Jiggs dair significantly, braindead drill-Rest becomes a thing.

Jiggs' dair landing lag always stood out to me. For those who don't know, it has 30 frames of landing lag. Know what other move has that? The Knee Smash.

Well, they took away its short-hop auto-cancel for a reason.

Plus, for an air fighter, Jigglypuff's landing lag doesn't really reflect that. No aerial has less than 15 frames of landing lag, and so her landing lag is above average, though this is partially made up for by favorable auto-cancels. Still, quite a few things in her design are in conflict with her supposed design as Queen of the Air.

But then she's a joke character, I guess.¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Shaya]

's kit is weirdly tuned where I suspect she'd end up disproportionately better with increased mobility stats (primarily air speed) in spite of lacking the frame advantage we'd normally look at to make a statement like that.

Jiggs' current horizontal air speed is just low enough to not be able to chain her aerials except in narrow ranges. Additionally, it is the main factor determining the range of "What is punishable with Rest on reaction?" and how flexible SHAD is both offensively and defensively.

Along a similar line of thought, if you cut the landing lag of Jiggs dair significantly, braindead drill-Rest becomes a thing.

"If Jigglypuff was essentially Mario except with Rest [i.e. "hello Melee!"], she'd be disproportionately better".

It's not only mobility that Mewtwo received. Hitbox sizes, start up and end lag are all there too.

You could give Zelda or D3 top-tiered mobility and she'd still be fairly poor. Mewtwo is only great because he had an amazing toolkit hampered by poor mobility. Now that he has amazing mobility, he is a great character. Someone like Zelda could have amazing mobility and still be a poor character because her toolkit isn't that great.

And then, of course, there's Roy, who proves that Mobility isn't everything.

Sit down and play these characters with custom equipment with high mobility specs and you'll change your mind very quickly (at least with Zelda)
Do you know how easy it is to make all of Zelda's moves suddenly confirm or trap into up air, forward air or back air?

Dedede on the other hand probably requires more, he doesn't really have character defining strong moves.

Yes, mobility is not everything (I didn't say it was, just a huge thing); and it wasn't everything Mewtwo received either.

 

[NairWizard]

The reverse also applies. Take any character with top-tier mobility now, and nerf him/her to below average mobility, and he/she is probably going to fall off the map. Imagine ZSS with Dedede's air speed/acceleration parameters. Imagine Sheik with Dr. Mario level run speed. Heck, imagine Cloud with Marth's mobility parameters including dash to shield.

"In smash, mobility is king" is not so farfetched as some would have you believe.

However, mobility isn't everything.....

Roy would actually be a good character if he had better mobility specs, particularly on his dash and aerial acceleration. His airspeed may be good just statwise/on paper, but don't be fooled, his mobility's pretty average/bad in a real in-game situation.


To quote another post I made in the past as it seems relevant now:

When we say "mobility," though, we're actually talking about more than one thing. The reason that mobility is so strong is because it's an umbrella term for several stats:

• horizontal aerial acceleration and speed
• vertical aerial acceleration and speed
• jump height
• initial dash speed
• walk speed
• run speed (least important)

When a character has good stats in the above parameters, he seems to "flow" really well, and high-level players will gravitate to him. With good mobility, you can:

• Get out of bad aerial situations by drifting away. Corollary: if you're not a fast faller, you don't get combo'd as much
• Follow up on your attacks more easily both on the ground and in the air
• Be more unpredictable in general just by moving around; also, "feint" attacks, by moving in and out
• Abuse your opponent's misspacing
• Space yourself in such a way that commitment-based characters with good range are uncomfortable throwing out their attacks
• Take stage control more consistently and easily in neutral

All of these are huge. A character with good mobility can apply his mobility advantage to advantage, disadvantage, and neutral. It's not a strictly one-dimensional advantage like weight. Range is similar in that it applies to all the states, but not as blatantly as mobility (like really, how much does your range matter in disadvantage, for example? you can swat people away, but we all know how good Shulk with his 11-frame n-air is at doing that! he'd prefer to be able to jump/drift away, which he does get to do in Speed/Jump).

A lot of things go into "mobility," which is why Roy doesn't have good mobility and also why good mobility seems so disproportionately powerful compared to other positive characteristics.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

's kit is weirdly tuned where I suspect she'd end up disproportionately better with increased mobility stats (primarily air speed) in spite of lacking the frame advantage we'd normally look at to make a statement like that.

Jiggs' current horizontal air speed is just low enough to not be able to chain her aerials except in narrow ranges. Additionally, it is the main factor determining the range of "What is punishable with Rest on reaction?" and how flexible SHAD is both offensively and defensively.

Along a similar line of thought, if you cut the landing lag of Jiggs dair significantly, braindead drill-Rest becomes a thing.

I'm not sure if I want Jigglypuff to have reliable Rest setups or not. On the one hand, it's her signature move and limiting it to whiff punishes and frame-perfect (or nearly so) defensive reactions seems very limiting. On the other hand, it's Rest and kills at, what, 60-70%? If she could reliably set that up she'd be scary as hell.

I expect the devs are aware of the conundrum and are choosing to err on the side of caution. I don't know enough about Jigglypuff to judge what could be buffed about her -- she's already a pain to fight because she can weave so well in the air. Makes it hard to punish sometimes. Or even know if she can be punished.

 

[[BROF]]

For I still feel that rest being so bad as it is will still hold her back. While I understand that giving her 's rest back would not fit the game given its 2 Stock format, rest should still kill a lot earlier than it currently does. It killing so late is also what makes the setups into rest so limited.

In terms of air speed, an air speed buff would improve the character so much without breaking her. You dont even need to change her landing lag, she just needs to be able to wall of pain people again, and carry them off stage. Bair is too slow to do that anymore, but fair still works but only at such low %.

A combo throw, while being the "cheap fix", could help too since she could combo into her aerials to set up into edeguards a lot better than just b-throw/f-throw.

Air speed alone could make such a difference as Thinkaman said. Rest could serve as a nice crutch tool but not as important as the air speed.

 

[BunbUn129]

Roy would actually be a good character if he had better mobility specs, particularly on his dash and aerial acceleration. His airspeed may be good just statwise/on paper, but don't be fooled, his mobility's pretty average/bad in a real in-game situation.

Roy has other major problems; giving him better air acceleration and dash acceleration isn't gonna turn the world upside down for him.

Edit: above. If they buff Jiggs, they probably won't give her a combo throw, because then she'll likely get relatively easy set-ups into Rest, which I'm pretty sure the devs don't want.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Mewtwo was always a fast, offensive character in the actual Pokemon games, only held back(relative to other Uber tier chars at least) by subpar defenses. The drastic changes to such specs makes sense because it corrects what Melee botched about him and makes him feel like Mewtwo is supposed to be. Mewtwo was given good offensive tools to begin with, with some of them being turned from good to great over time, but it's definitely true that mobility was what really turned him into a meta-relevant character. It's not easy to really balance low mobility characters for high level play without making them oppressive for low-level play. Right now Dedede's the character hit hardest by this, as he can be difficult to fight on For Glory due to input lag making Gordos tougher to deal with, as well as his big, powerful hitboxes, but he's also pretty limited in terms of what he can do since his overall effective mobility is likely the worst in the game. (Ganondorf has burst mobility options to compensate, and Robin at least has decent airspeed) While there are a couple of buffs that he clearly deserves that wouldn't break him anywhere, (Fair in general should be better and Utilt should kill sooner) it's hard to see what would substantially fix his design in competitive 1v1s without either violating his core design or making him obnoxious to deal with in other game modes. Even Ganondorf would be easier, since you could meaningfully buff his grab game and give him reliable combos without making him too strong online due to how tricky getting grabs with him can be at any level of play. A kill throw/Dark Dive being more powerful would also help a lot, especially against Bayonetta, his current worst MU. Also NAir having reduced landing lag so you could land with the first hitbox safely and reliably get meaningful confirms with it would also be tremendous but would require a bit of finesse to fully utilize.

 

[Ninety]

Yup, mobility's the name of the game. If Robin got his speed buffed up to even average, he'd shoot up the tier lists. I've always felt they went a bit overboard in giving him his weaknesses (which feel very deliberate in a way that's different from most of the cast) -- and judging from all the patches, the devs may agree with me.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I'm not totally on the Mewtwo hype train yet because we need to see where things go from here. Mewtwo being anything less than awkward as all hell is still only a few month old concept and I think what we saw this weekend was people getting blindsided by a character that had hardly any representation until very recently. Aside from Bayo, Cloud, and Megaman, all the other characters that made it to top 16 were characters that have been fairly standard for almost the whole lifespan of the game and now we have a character that many people argued wasn't even viable until about a month ago. Come EVO, we'll have a better idea of where Mewtwo stands overall.

 

[Amadeus9]

While we are talking about mobility, Metaknight with increased airspeed and new uair angle would be better than prepatch mk. Just sayin.

#DreamBuff

 

[BunbUn129]

While we are talking about mobility, Metaknight with increased airspeed and new uair angle would be better than prepatch mk. Just sayin.

Also better air acceleration would be nice for changing directions for a ladder.

But MK has good air speed and acceleration for a multi-jumper, so we're being very greedy wanting more.

 

[NairWizard]

Roy has other major problems; giving him better air acceleration and dash acceleration isn't gonna turn the world upside down for him.

Roy with better air acceleration would have better followups on both his tipped and non-tipped attacks as well as the ability to actually tip more often, both of which improve the character just by virtue of his design.

In disadvantage, he'd be able to recover more easily, maneuver around aerial hitboxes more easily (reversing his momentum would be crazy good on Roy, what with that snazzy b-reverse too), and just plain reset to the ledge in dangerous situations more easily.

Giving him a good dash to shield (8 frames, with adequate distance, let's say) would not by itself make his neutral game overpowering, but it'd be an incredible buff nonetheless, as he'd get tons and tons of grabs (and his grab reward is decent/good).

You'd definitely be looking at a high-tier character with those kinds of buffs. Top tier might be a stretch unless you go overboard on the buffs like giving him a 5-frame dash to shield lol, but his other major problems would seem like they had disappeared in the face of such improvements.

Mobility is scary.

 

[Shaya]

The reverse also applies. Take any character with top-tier mobility now, and nerf him/her to below average mobility, and he/she is probably going to fall off the map. Imagine ZSS with Dedede's air speed/acceleration parameters. Imagine Sheik with Dr. Mario level run speed. Heck, imagine Cloud with Marth's mobility parameters including dash to shield.

"In smash, mobility is king" is not so farfetched as some would have you believe.




Roy would actually be a good character if he had better mobility specs, particularly on his dash and aerial acceleration. His airspeed may be good just statwise/on paper, but don't be fooled, his mobility's pretty average/bad in a real in-game situation.


To quote another post I made in the past as it seems relevant now:



A lot of things go into "mobility," which is why Roy doesn't have good mobility and also why good mobility seems so disproportionately powerful compared to other positive characteristics.

To follow up on this.
A lot of what makes/made Zero Suit's moves combo (from the down throw to the nairs to anything else) has little to do with the frame data as much as it has to do with the mobility specs.
She has the jump height to reach you from a down throw in 40 frames before you hit your air dodge window, a lot of characters would have similar end lag available on their moves but would never ever get the confirms.
In recent times there was quite a bit of talk about Cloud having amazing frame data while the other swordies do not. His frame data isn't that much better than other sword characters, it's just the hitbox durations that are ultimately excessive.
Cloud without limit has no real follow ups from down throw that aren't immediate tilts/side-b, yet with Limit (suddenly zeh best mobility specs you could imagine) and he's finding follow ups from it up until the 80% or so range. Frame data didn't get any better for him but the mobility boost did mean losing several frames off dashing before getting to you, several frames off of reaching his jump apex, etc etc.
So from a follow up range of maybe 10-20% to a 50-60%+... just from 10-20% mobility modifiers.

That's doubling a character's damage out put in certain situations and doubling the amount of time before they stop being real.
Just from a 10-20% mobility increase.

And yeah, Roy's aerial deceleration/acceleration is quite poor.
He can't dash jump aerial without stopping his dash first otherwise his retreating jump will have him travel no where.
Marth's "best walking speed in the game" while having a walk that is definitely worse than just about every other good character due to them having walking acceleration modifiers while he does not.

 

[wedl!!]

Ryu's out of dash options aren't too bad but he prefers walking, so giving him faster dash speed wouldn't break him that much. It makes his ability to score kills better though.

If he had a fast walk or high air accel/decel, he'd be busted.

 

[SubconsciousRose]

On the note of mobility specs, I think a good comparison for how big a difference it can make is comparing the air speeds for Mario (0.94>1.15) and Sheik (0.84>1.1) from Brawl. The massive buff with these numbers made a serious difference in how well they perform in the air in this game.

In general these increased air speeds are serious boons for their combo games in the air with Sheik being able to string fairs repeatedly to get opponents into a position where she holds the advantage very well and Mario is better able to string aerials such as bairs and uairs together and follow the opponent where they go.

Mobility specs are a very crucial thing in this game and adjusting those numbers can really go a long way. Mewtwo's incredibly increased ground speed is super notable because he's able to keep opponents away better and chase them down better as well. The threat of Mewtwo when you're at kill % for his up throw is increased MASSIVELY when you take the Mewtwo with around average run speed and suddenly bump it up to among the fastest in the game.

 

[TTTTTsd]

There is a reason I say Doctor Mario with Luigi's runspeed or slightly higher would be entirely viable, without even changing airspeed. He just would be.

One of the less looked into mobility things are overtuned on Doc tbh, mostly his short hop being among the lowest in the game while also possessing his mighty Bair and largely lenient autocancel windows + better active frames on his Bair and most aerials vs. Mario. His shorthop and shorthop game/empty jump game is legitimately among the best in the game.

 

[BunbUn129]

While we all know how hard the nerfs were to MK coming from Brawl, the air speed buff he got (0.752 -> 0.99, from poor to borderline average) is pretty big. With Brawl air speed and the decreased range on his up air, he probably wouldn't have been able to do the ladder. He would legitimately be mediocre without the air speed buff.

 

[Y2Kay]

I think Mewtwo's Nair hitbox increase was a big help to Mewtwo. Mewtwo usually had this blindspot right behind him, but now he can answer crossup attempts with Nair OOS. You can see Abadango do this a lot in his sets.

People have failed to mention that Mewtwo's juggle game is also very strong. His high run speed, Shadow Ball, dash attack, up smash, up air, and DJ Fair makes it very difficult for characters with mediocre landing options and mixups to get back on to the ground.

 

[LordShade67]

Corrin with top/high tier mobility specs to add to their reach and their 7-frame Dash into Shield. That is all.

 

[R3D3MON]

There is a reason I say Doctor Mario with Luigi's runspeed or slightly higher would be entirely viable, without even changing airspeed. He just would be.

One of the less looked into mobility things are overtuned on Doc tbh, mostly his short hop being among the lowest in the game while also possessing his mighty Bair and largely lenient autocancel windows + better active frames on his Bair and most aerials vs. Mario. His shorthop and shorthop game/empty jump game is legitimately among the best in the game.

That would make Luigi's old kill confirms and setups become viable again (or at least not create a situation where Luigi dies while trying to make a read from d-throw at kill %s), which would be glorious. I would be able to laugh at all the salty people again XD.

On the note of Roy, would a buff to his overall air mobility buff his combo ability from d-throw? From what I understand d-throw combos from Roy gets ruined after about mid %s because it is super-DIable. A roy main's input would be much appreciated

 

[Shaya]

People have failed to mention that Mewtwo's juggle game is also very strong.

That's because you don't need to mention this for people to already know that's the case.
Mobility + fast moves with some vertical disposition = juggle machines. Applies to everyone.

On the note of Roy, would a buff to his overall air mobility buff his combo ability from d-throw? From what I understand d-throw combos from Roy gets ruined after about mid %s because it is super-DIable. A roy main's input would be much appreciated

Jump and dash acceleration would apply more.
Down throw up air works for a very long time on most characters for Roy (it's my go to follow up) and there not being other follow ups and him not getting much out of that is a lot to do with up air being mediocre and the next best (forward air) being slow start up - when combined with his jump.

 

[Y2Kay]

That's because you don't need to mention this for people to already know that's the case.
Mobility + fast moves = juggle machines. For every character.

yeah but it's not just the dash speed buff that helped his juggle game . Up air's knockback being increased drastically and a bigger shadow ball also helped his juggle game really cement into one of the best in the game.

 

[C0rvus]

I think if anything, Puff wants less jump squat and a better air dodge. For a character based around being in the air, she's not great at getting there or staying there. Less jump squat would make Rest out of shield even better, and generally improve her ability to move around and threaten space. More air mobility would of course be great. It would unlock a lot of followups that almost exist already, and fair chains would be silly. Plus, it would make her recovery better, too.

 

[Thinkaman]

Ryu's out of dash options are underwhelming so giving him faster dash speed wouldn't break him.

You... do know you can up-b out of dash, right?



Right now ranking the top ~5-10 characters varies pretty wildly on:

• The exact level of play you are talking about.
• How much you value current results/meta vs. historical.
• How speculative on future development you are willing to go.
• How much you emphasize solo-viability, giving bonus weight to worst matchups.

On almost all of these, people have their own internal position that they feel is sort of obvious and don't even feel the need to disclaim or explain.

Among such diverse sets of criteria that people may have, extremely reasonable arguments can be made for any of the following being not just top, but #1:


Uniquely rewards both creativity and consistency in ways that will only become better with age. People have spent a year specifically labbing the Sheik matchup, and she still performs better in top placings than most characters on this list. No shortage of top level talent arguing for her.
Amazing matchup spread and great tourney results at all levels. It's been said that Diddy w/banana has the best neutral in the game, and he has no weaknesses big enough to invalidate this. Also, Zero.
If you consider tier lists an unbiased average of matchups, then Rosalina is probably #1 in your eyes. If you think a couple bad matchups, less abundant representation, or the threat of future anti-luma developments disqualify her, then... well, she isn't.
In front of everyone but overlooked. Tons of promising results at the regional level (consistently), and Ally showing that the road is clear as far as people are willing to take him. Can adapt to any matchup thanks to having safe pressure, solid damage, kills, an incredible grab game, reliable recovery, and good gimp potential--this adaptability will let Mario always ride the waves of the meta.
Lots of high level placings, and there's believable evidence that there is room to grow into top level placings. If you believe the game will slow down, and move more towards cautious engagements leading to juggling rather than off-stage play + emphasis on safe kill-pokes, then it's a no-brainer to you that Cloud's trend will continue.
Honestly, there is no way you can honestly claim Bayonetta is #1 based on results in the now. But it's very reasonable, is still very speculative, to assert that her theoretical potential beats everyone's. Honestly, this is sort of like the fringe position some had in Brawl that ICs was actually better than MK in theory; it's probably wrong, but you can't really argue with it.
ZSS is the being dismissed more than Sheik, and yeah, probably fairly. But she has solid matchups, a history of dealing with the entire roster just fine, a remarkable set of players pushing her, and demands a level of constant fear second only to Bayonetta. (Whilst being more capable in a broader set of talents than just OoS- and divekick-conversions) I expect her to place consistently in national top 8s forever.
If you insist that results are everything and theory never earned much prize money, then sure: Mewtwo is the only character who has won a Smash 4 1.1.5 supermajor--which he did almost exclusively and with limited resistance.


Also, it can't be said enough how much a just cleaned up doubles. Not Cloud--Pac-Man.

 

[FallofBrawl]

Mobility as a base stat is great for characters overall.

However there are some exceptions to this, like having great burst mobility built in your specials (), having great space controlling tools (), or having fast and fat hitboxes ().

In the end, mobility is still king.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Where is sonic nowadays? It's like he fell off the map