Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Y2Kay]

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

Kidd Goggles put in massive work at POUND this weekend.

 

[TurboLink]

Dash speed, air speed, and an air acceleration buff would make 's juggle and combo game significantly better. And would also make it that much harder to pin him down.

 

[Man Li Gi]

I have a weak grasp on a lot of Bayo matchups (as do many, I expect)

Anyone have solid info on how the matchup plays out with:

?

Specifically for DK v Bayo...here's how to play the MU from a DK perspective:
1. Unplug the controller.
2. Roast that MF real hard
3. Beat them unconscious with controller
4.Plug controller back in
5. Profit.

Being real with ya, its a solid 8-2. Bayo's attacks are hard for DK to punish as long as the Bayo is thinking. Covers all his landings and is hard for DK to gimp. On top of the 0-deaths. I don't want to exactly dive into the hoard of info I have on the MU, but it amounts to that.

 

[Y2Kay]

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.

I think that Mewtwo has good theory for his case too. His light weight can be worked around theoretically with his safe options and mixups. As long as he stays in disadvantaged state as little as possible, he should be able to beat anyone on the cast. Sure, this maybe true for a lot of characters. And true, that's a lot harder than I make it sound. However, this is much more feasible for Mewtwo to do than a lot of other characters.

 

[Nobie]

"If you buff just about everything a character has, they become better." -John Madden

A while back, I talked about how I thought Falco's neutral had to be at least decent because all of his range and frame data had to counteract his slow run and jump speeds to a good extent. This doesn't mean I discounted the strength of mobility buffs. In fact, when a lot of people were still down on 1.1.3 Mewtwo because all of that stuff couldn't possibly make up for Mewtwo being large, light, and easy to juggle, I actually said that Mewtwo's run and walk speed buffs were huge because they holistically buff everything the character can do.

People have mentioned how the speed buffs allow for better juggles, better approaches, etc., but one thing that can't be overlooked is the fact that it helps compensate for Mewtwo's poor traction. Shielding as Mewtwo used to be so bad, and it still kind of is, but now that Mewtwo has the dash speed to, in some cases, make up for loss ground, it opens up new opportunities.

I might be biased, but the reason I think Mewtwo's buffs were fair is because Mewtwo as he was originally lacked a very important trait in the kind of glass cannon Mewtwo was clearly meant to be: fear. Mewtwo could not instill fear in opponents, and that meant Mewtwo was always on the back foot because of how easy he is to KO.

Now, things are different. However, it's not just any kind of fear. It's fear mixed with the sweet scent of opportunity. When you fight Mewtwo, and you're on last stock, and Mewtwo has 60% on you, you're aware of how good Mewtwo is at dealing damage and sealing stocks. But then you remember, Mewtwo's light and easy to kill. That opportunity is there, all you need to do is capitalize on one or two mistakes and the game isn't just even, it's arguably in your favor due to the weight disparity. The same thing happens to Mewtwo players when faced with a mountain to climb. It's possible to make it back, you just need to NOT GET HIT BY ANYTHING. That glimmer of hope that exists on both sides is what makes Mewtwo fights so tense now, and it's really how I think it should be.

I know why Shaya calls Mewtwo's buffs the "Mario treatment," but I believe the ease by which Mewtwo flies off the screen is always going to be a relevant weakness that won't go away unless Mewtwo somehow gets a frame 3 or faster jab or something equally absurd. It's not like Melee Fox, who with enough technical ability provides a near-perfect character, nor is it like Smash 4 Mario who is built off of being incredibly forgiving.

I also understand that Mewtwo's buffs were massive compared to just about every other character in the game, so talking about them as if they're on the same level as, say, "Kirby got an up throw and some stronger moves" doesn't seem fair. On the other hand, Kirby got an up throw buff that lets him KO better. It's the kind of addition that rounds out his moveset well, and I feel that even with Kirby as slow as he's been (albeit also with a recent run speed buff), he's always exuded pressure because of how dangerous he is up close.

 

[NairWizard]

It's been said that Diddy w/banana has the best neutral in the game

I wonder if this is true, although I've said it before too. I think a lot of people play against Diddy with banana as though he were Diddy with banana and also Diddy without banana rolled into one, which may make his neutral seem stronger than it is.

People seem to forget that when Diddy pulls a banana, yeah, he's got an item in hand, but he's also got an item in hand. He can't do good Diddy things like f-air and d-tilt until he throws or drops that item.

No doubt that his neutral is amazing with and without the banana, but it's something to keep in mind. Sometimes we see Diddy fail to get results at big majors like today at Pound; it may be that these poorer placings are explainable by the idea that these players just run into matchups against people who know and respect the difference between banana Diddy and no-banana Diddy.

K9 vs. MVD was an excellent demonstration of this.

 

[Thinkaman]

I think that Mewtwo has good theory for his case too.

I mean, pure theory--describing a character's mechanical strengths--doesn't really get you to any meaningful conclusion.

I can wax poetically all day about how amazing the best aspects of DHD's kit is, but without some basis in results, people would be wise to ignore my rambling.

People seem to forget that when Diddy pulls a banana, yeah, he's got an item in hand, but he's also got an item in hand.

This! It's basically fighting a different character, with different strengths and weaknesses.


For a more polarized example, look at the case of Mega Man opponents.

People are always catching Metal Blades, and there's that awkward moment where they sort of stand there with it, unsure what to do, and you think:

"They've got my projectile! ...that poor *******!"


The difference is that Diddy's moveset is in many ways optimized around having a banana, far better than most random movesets are optimized around holding a Metal Blade.

 

[TDK]

is quite literally the Ice climbers of Smash 4. You can outplay the Bayo player all you want, but as soon as you get hit, you will most likely lose a stock. This is why they are top-tiered.

And Pugwest vs Saj is a good example of that.

 

[Y2Kay]

I wonder if this is true, although I've said it before too. I think a lot of people play against Diddy with banana as though he were Diddy with banana and also Diddy without banana rolled into one, which may make his neutral seem stronger than it is.

People seem to forget that when Diddy pulls a banana, yeah, he's got an item in hand, but he's also got an item in hand. He can't do good Diddy things like f-air and d-tilt until he throws or drops that item.

No doubt that his neutral is amazing with and without the banana, but it's something to keep in mind. Sometimes we see Diddy fail to get results at big majors like today at Pound; it may be that these poorer placings are explainable by the idea that these players just run into matchups against people who know and respect the difference between banana Diddy and no-banana Diddy.

K9 vs. MVD was an excellent demonstration of this.

This is something I've been thinking about too. In the Greninja: Diddy match up, I actually kinda like facing diddy with a banana in hand than w/o one. Mainly because his SH Fair makes it incredibly hard to use Nair or my own Fair. And Greninja struggles to use the banana against him due to how high his toss is.

 

[Jams.]

I wonder if this is true, although I've said it before too. I think a lot of people play against Diddy with banana as though he were Diddy with banana and also Diddy without banana rolled into one, which may make his neutral seem stronger than it is.

People seem to forget that when Diddy pulls a banana, yeah, he's got an item in hand, but he's also got an item in hand. He can't do good Diddy things like f-air and d-tilt until he throws or drops that item.

No doubt that his neutral is amazing with and without the banana, but it's something to keep in mind. Sometimes we see Diddy fail to get results at big majors like today at Pound; it may be that these poorer placings are explainable by the idea that these players just run into matchups against people who know and respect the difference between banana Diddy and no-banana Diddy.

K9 vs. MVD was an excellent demonstration of this.

He can still z-drop fair and autocancel it. I don't think having a banana in hand significantly reduces the effectiveness of his aerials, since the only downsides are reduced aerial control because your analogue stick has to be in neutral to z-drop, and not being able to buffer z-drop aerials. That said, z-drop aerials are basically non-existent in high level Diddy gameplay, which makes me wonder whether there are other drawbacks or if Diddy players just haven't explored this option.

 

[Kofu]

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.

Someone pointed out to me that Puff with a frame 4 jumpsquat would be able to get Rest's invincibility at frame 5 from shield. Kind of crazy. But Puff's design really isn't super threatening with patient defensive play right now so maybe it would be warranted? She deserves a frame 5 jumpsquat at least.

 

[shrooby]

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.

You ended up making me go into a super long rant. Curse youuuu

Spoiler: I tell myself I don't main him anymore but I'm still a DDD nerd

He definitely has the worst mobility in the game. He always did, and then they nerfed his airspeed. Maybe the airspeed nerf was just preparation for other things??? "If we make him slower, then we can actually make him function as a character!"
I can dream.
I'm just sorta hoping that the latest patch was a sign of caring about things besides For Glory because otherwise Sheik wouldn't have been nerfed as much as she was. She's hardly oppressive online.
In the end I think they just went too far with making us forget Brawl DDD and now we're left with this.

The way to fix him is the same way they've gone about fixing DK, and Ike, and Bowser... The other slow heavy hitters that they realized they should try to make decent characters out of. (Sad that a single move has to completely ruin this trend. Curse you, online input delay.)
But anyway, give them more reward for doing right things + in Ike's case make his moveset work.
DDD does not get much reward for doing right things. His literally-the-worst mobility and inability to throw out large (by heavy weight standards) and/or long lasting hitboxes give him a relatively poor advantage state (I miss Brawl bair sobsob). To add to this, people like to say he hits hard... I guess he does, but he hits noticeably less hard than his fellow big dudes, overall at least. So the amount of "right" he has to do is so much more than them on average.
He gets less reward than other heavies, in a broad sense, in terms of how much reward he gets for making good decisions ("reward" being potential for follow-ups, positioning, damage, KB, etc.) Despite this, he also has to wait longer to get KOs because he overall has less KB than the other super-heavies... Weird.
The thing that's supposed to make up for this is that DDD has the best overall survivability in the game, imo (surviving hits + recovering ability). Meaning, on a super basic level, while he does have to make more right choices than the other heavy weight, he's given the most time to make those right choices out of all of them.
I think that sort of philosophy towards a character is pretty neat. And really differentiates him just on that super basic level.

I think buffing him in such ways that would take away from that dynamic would be kinda sad. Since I think it fits him~
He does need buffs. But those buffs should focus on giving him ways of extending his time in advantage, rather than making his disadvantage...less disadvantageous.
If they really wanted to be smart about it, they could buff him in some ways while nerfing him in others. Make Gordos easier to deal with, but give DDD less endlag after tossing it. Gordo is imo what's meant to make up for DDD's lack of mobility and in general lack of ability to keep control of advantage. He's literally just able to summon this huge hitbox that takes up all this space. He has three ways to throw it. It deals 14% percent clean. That's how he's supposed to be able to maintain an advantage despite basically all of his stats working against him. But he's not able to use it to its full potential because the move is so slow.
I'm not going to say I know the best way to change this move to optimally compliment the character in as many environments as possible. I know the character super well, but in only one environment. But I like to think there's a way to do it.
If they really wanted to make him a "good" character while making him not a stupid good scrub-killer and while keeping him true to his design, then they could do it, imo. Wouldn't be an easy thing to figure out, but they could do it. They'd just have to try, which they haven't~

That's not counting quality of life changes like making his hotboxes match their animations (bair and upsmash), making fair a decent move, and giving him some a way of killing off of grabs before 160% (please not a Hoo Hah, I don't think that fits him very well #_#). That should happen no matter what. He'd still be a low tier character with just those changes, but he wouldn't as bad.

 

[Shaya]

Why is it so hard for me to say anything about character strengths without posts replying or referring to what I say as if it were a proclamation of "watch out everyone, Brawl Meta Knight or Melee Fox is here and you're DOOMED####"
>_>
(Not referring entirely to you Nobie).

All characters have functional weaknesses (including Mario...), they should be acknowledged if people are ignorant of them; but I think we've been talking about Mewtwo's weaknesses due to his previous low tier disposition long enough that I don't feel the need to highlight them (lest anyone who ever complained about ZSS while not measuring the necessary 30 frame start ups or 50 frames of lag should be smitten). However, if the balance is in such a way that they become negligible in practice ("I'm a glass cannon, but theoretically I should never get hit first anyway or when I find a reward it is so vastly better that you'll never make it to a similar position mentally in the match" - although I think it's safe to say a lot of characters are JUST as fragile as he is), then you get high/top tier characters with polarizing abilities. When you get high/top tier characters, anything of theirs that is good suddenly becomes GREAT and you're going to have to get used to that truth - even if you are unable to overcome the distinct weaknesses of the character yourself.
We already know the game is balanced well enough that a higher skill player should generally come out on top, the people using great characters and doing great have the skill to negate the character's inherent weaknesses; and this is a common reoccurring theme of what we get to see when a top level player is using a character.

Yes, Mewtwo's buffs were "fair" in the sense that they didn't make MewonettaTwo out of it, and it's taken quite a bit of time for him to get where he is now (the 1.1.4 buffs pushing an already 'ticking time bomb' over the threshold more than necessary).
But he still has a easy to see things which do too much. Which if slightly worse would still be insanely good, because of everything else (mobility + kit capabilities).

Oh, but it isn't "fair" to everyone else who has issues with their viability that aren't defined by their current mobility specs. Mewtwo is really lucky in the sense that his kit was so easy to buff in every single way/Mario'd without creating an overwhelming demon at most levels of play; which is easy to see because of his general similarities to other characters in the game/series ("just a bad version of Mewtwo" people will say about Marth in the years to come ).
Falco could really really really do with similar love as he's still one of the most dysfunctional characters that isn't defined by low mobility (almost his entire kit exists with a higher mobility version in Fox without having anything distinctively better otherwise).
Heck, I think it would be really really easy to make Zelda good just like Mewtwo has actually (heck their similarities in certain areas of design and also where their power levels resided were also distinct); the act of them not doing so yet in my mind has a lot to do with Mewtwo being DLC + INSANELY popular. I would like to hope that this isn't a reason for it, but I do believe it's the reason for it.
Who here with a childhood didn't want Mewtwo to be amazing? Especially if their childhood involved the disappointment of him in Melee.
But then Dedede and Link (heavies, huge damaging moves, etc) and others similar are a lot more precarious to buff without making them demons at lower levels of play. Shroob's thoughts flesh these out further.

 

[Das Koopa]

This weekend's results, in Top 16 format

Pound 6

Spoiler

1st: Abadango (,)
2nd: Ally ()
3rd: Marss ()
4th: Mr. R ()
5th: Tweek ()
5th: VoiD ()
7th: Pink Fresh ()
7th: Larry Lurr (,)
9th: Dabuz ()
9th: ESAM (,)
9th: KID Goggles (,)
9th: Hyuga ()
13th: Saj ()
13th: Scatt ()
13th: NAKAT (,,)
13th: K9 ()

Avalon U-III

Spoiler

1st: Sodrek (,)
2nd: S1 (,)
3rd: Eddy (,)
4th: LoNg0uW ()
5th: Yikarur (, )
5th: AscWolf (, )
7th: Cat ()
7th: Meru ()
9th: Thomau5 (,)
9th: Yoh ()
9th: Gregs ()
9th: Prodigy (.)
13th: Peeko ()
13th: Narayan ()
13th: Grove (..)
13th: Broberto ()

Hypespotting V

Spoiler

1st: Ixis ()
2nd: JMiller ()
3rd: AfroSmash ()
4th: GRDBRKR|MINT ()
5th: Plastic Poptart (,)
5th: Khanage ()
7th: DX17 ()
7th: Magi (,)
9th: DAT VsW G~P ()
9th: 8va ()
9th: Yackabean ()
9th: Skarfelt ()
13th: EOE ()
13th: Jezo ()
13th: ED|Willksy15 ()
13th: FROG (Unknown)

Tech Republic

Spoiler

1st: Rydlle ()
2nd: Greward (,,,)
3rd: Macbri (,)
4th: Robo Luigi ()
5th: Sefi ()
5th: El_Pitikla (,)
7th: Hikotsu ()
7th: Nau ()
9th: El_Bardo ()
9th: MazZone ()
9th: Slay (,)
9th: FotuRAN ()
13th: Seton ()
13th: Darklu ()
13th: Orfen ()
13th: Pocafeiner ()

Collegiate Colosseum

Spoiler

1st: Tyrant ()
2nd: MrConCon ()
3rd: Falln ()
4th: Aphro (, )
5th: Charger (, )
5th: TLTC ()
7th: Rich Brown ()
7th: Tearbear ()
9th: Zan ()
9th: Scizor ()
9th: Elegant ()
9th: NCJacobT ()
13th: Pitbull (,)
13th: Jingen ()
13th: Xzax ()
13th: Hexfactor ()

 

[Browny]

Mewtwo is cool

thx bby

I guess if anything, I feel vindicated. I post so much highly opinionated stuff on this forum and get a lot of flack for it but I've never backed down and Abadango just proves everything I've been saying for ages.

Interesting note: If abadango didnt attend pound, or say he used all MK. Would anyone be freaking out over Mewtwo being the best pokemon character? Mewtwo has always been a decent character but the only thing he ever lacked was a top-level representative. No character with that range, speed, combos, power, projectile and recovery could ever be bad in smash 4 where the aim of the game is spacing. Being lightweight never stopped sheik, rosalina, zss, bayonetta and fox trouncing people, it was a required weakness. He had a handful of high level players, but no top. I am confident that this same effect is hovering around many characters right now and people don't quite realise the amount of influence a single person can have over an entire communities perception of one character.

If Mario lost ally, if greninja lost istudying, if fox lost larry, if pikachu lost esam... So many 'high tier' characters would fall off the map and not even place top 16 at nationals. A handful of players literally change everyones opinion on the entire game and Mewtwo is a prime example right now of what effect a top player can have.

Despite that, I believe they are all high tier whether they have representation or not. Yoshi remains a big unknown and I am confident he still is a very good character, he just needs one top level rep. Just one.

Finally though, so much proof of Mewtwo's weaknesses being overblown. 'When mario gets in he destroys Mewtwo'. Implying thats just a given and that Mewtwo doesnt have any attacks to keep him out. The finals vs Ally were so... boring. But it was optimal. Don't give Mario a chance to start anything, just space him out for as long as possible.

And another thing, anyone who downplays ZSS' boost kick nerf really need to watch that set vs Abadango at least 38 times. Absolutely no doubt in my mind those nerfs directly cost Marss matches and possibly the entire set. It was glaringly obvious.

 

[Kofu]

You ended up making me go into a super long rant. Curse youuuu

Spoiler: I tell myself I don't main him anymore but I'm still a DDD nerd

He definitely has the worst mobility in the game. He always did, and then they nerfed his airspeed. Maybe the airspeed nerf was just preparation for other things??? "If we make him slower, then we can actually make him function as a character!"
I can dream.
I'm just sorta hoping that the latest patch was a sign of caring about things besides For Glory because otherwise Sheik wouldn't have been nerfed as much as she was. She's hardly oppressive online.
In the end I think they just went too far with making us forget Brawl DDD and now we're left with this.

The way to fix him is the same way they've gone about fixing DK, and Ike, and Bowser... The other slow heavy hitters that they realized they should try to make decent characters out of. (Sad that a single move has to completely ruin this trend. Curse you, online input delay.)
But anyway, give them more reward for doing right things + in Ike's case make his moveset work.
DDD does not get much reward for doing right things. His literally-the-worst mobility and inability to throw out large (by heavy weight standards) and/or long lasting hitboxes give him a relatively poor advantage state (I miss Brawl bair sobsob). To add to this, people like to say he hits hard... I guess he does, but he hits noticeably less hard than his fellow big dudes, overall at least. So the amount of "right" he has to do is so much more than them on average.
He gets less reward than other heavies, in a broad sense, in terms of how much reward he gets for making good decisions ("reward" being potential for follow-ups, positioning, damage, KB, etc.) Despite this, he also has to wait longer to get KOs because he overall has less KB than the other super-heavies... Weird.
The thing that's supposed to make up for this is that DDD has the best overall survivability in the game, imo (surviving hits + recovering ability). Meaning, on a super basic level, while he does have to make more right choices than the other heavy weight, he's given the most time to make those right choices out of all of them.
I think that sort of philosophy towards a character is pretty neat. And really differentiates him just on that super basic level.

I think buffing him in such ways that would take away from that dynamic would be kinda sad. Since I think it fits him~
He does need buffs. But those buffs should focus on giving him ways of extending his time in advantage, rather than making his disadvantage...less disadvantageous.
If they really wanted to be smart about it, they could buff him in some ways while nerfing him in others. Make Gordos easier to deal with, but give DDD less endlag after tossing it. Gordo is imo what's meant to make up for DDD's lack of mobility and in general lack of ability to keep control of advantage. He's literally just able to summon this huge hitbox that takes up all this space. He has three ways to throw it. It deals 14% percent clean. That's how he's supposed to be able to maintain an advantage despite basically all of his stats working against him. But he's not able to use it to its full potential because the move is so slow.
I'm not going to say I know the best way to change this move to optimally compliment the character in as many environments as possible. I know the character super well, but in only one environment. But I like to think there's a way to do it.
If they really wanted to make him a "good" character while making him not a stupid good scrub-killer and while keeping him true to his design, then they could do it, imo. Wouldn't be an easy thing to figure out, but they could do it. They'd just have to try, which they haven't~

That's not counting quality of life changes like making his hotboxes match their animations (bair and upsmash), making fair a decent move, and giving him some a way of killing off of grabs before 160% (please not a Hoo Hah, I don't think that fits him very well #_#). That should happen no matter what. He'd still be a low tier character with just those changes, but he wouldn't as bad.

Dedede has better lingring hitboxes than most heavies IMO, between NAir, UAir, dash attack (if you're not interrupted before the hitbox comes out), DTilt, and FTilt.

I actually really like the idea of reducing the end lag on Gordos some. Would help the character out a lot. They may as well just make BThrow kill if you want him to kill off of a throw.

He's largely distinguished from the other heavies by disjoints. Bowser, DK, and Charizard all have intangible limbs which creates a similar effect but I feel like Dedede's schtick in this game (something you kind of pointed out) is to be something of a hitbox fiend, as he wields some of the biggest, most disjointed attacks in the game. With the exception of his multi-hits most of his moves can either outbutton the opponent's completely or create a very favorable trade for him. It's probably why his mobility is trash and why he tends to not kill quite as well as the other heavies.

 

[Thinkaman]

Character usage by top players does dictate results.

After all, how many placings in top 8 would Rosalina have had at Pound if not for Dabuz? Pikachu and ESAM? Toon Link and Hyuga? ZSS and Nairo?

 

[Megamang]

I don't know why they added damage over time to rest if you get punished for using it sub kill %. Perhaps it should have heavily reduced cooldown if you land it, so its punished if its missed but then you can actually use it early in a stock without being punished almost equally for even landing the hit. Seriously, what else is the Lip Stick effect for, if not for when rest doesn't kill? That, to me, screams a lack of sight for her kit...

Also, sonic wins? Wo.

 

[Amadeus9]

Character usage by top players does dictate results.

After all, how many placings in top 8 would Rosalina have had at Pound if not for Dabuz? Pikachu and ESAM? Toon Link and Hyuga? ZSS and Nairo?

Subtle

 

[Rizen]

Character usage by top players does dictate results.

After all, how many placings in top 8 would Rosalina have had at Pound if not for Dabuz? Pikachu and ESAM? Toon Link and Hyuga? ZSS and Nairo?

I agree with your point but I am seeing several of said characters in the latest results. I realize they're not all as big as Pound though. I mean, if you don't count top players the next wave of placers shows results for those characters too.

This weekend's results, in Top 16 format

Pound 6

Spoiler

1st: Abadango (,)
2nd: Ally ()
3rd: Marss ()
4th: Mr. R ()
5th: Tweek ()
5th: VoiD ()
7th: Pink Fresh ()
7th: Larry Lurr (,)
9th: Dabuz ()
9th: ESAM (,)
9th: KID Goggles (,)
9th: Hyuga ()
13th: Saj ()
13th: Scatt ()
13th: NAKAT (,,)
13th: K9 ()

Avalon U-III

Spoiler

1st: Sodrek (,)
2nd: S1 (,)
3rd: Eddy (,)
4th: LoNg0uW ()
5th: Yikarur (, )
5th: AscWolf (, )
7th: Cat ()
7th: Meru ()
9th: Thomau5 (,)
9th: Yoh ()
9th: Gregs ()
9th: Prodigy (.)
13th: Peeko ()
13th: Narayan ()
13th: Grove (..)
13th: Broberto ()

Hypespotting V

Spoiler

1st: Ixis ()
2nd: JMiller ()
3rd: AfroSmash ()
4th: GRDBRKR|MINT ()
5th: Plastic Poptart (,)
5th: Khanage ()
7th: DX17 ()
7th: Magi (,)
9th: DAT VsW G~P ()
9th: 8va ()
9th: Yackabean ()
9th: Skarfelt ()
13th: EOE ()
13th: Jezo ()
13th: ED|Willksy15 ()
13th: FROG (Unknown)

Tech Republic

Spoiler

1st: Rydlle ()
2nd: Greward (,,,)
3rd: Macbri (,)
4th: Robo Luigi ()
5th: Sefi ()
5th: El_Pitikla (,)
7th: Hikotsu ()
7th: Nau ()
9th: El_Bardo ()
9th: MazZone ()
9th: Slay (,)
9th: FotuRAN ()
13th: Seton ()
13th: Darklu ()
13th: Orfen ()
13th: Pocafeiner ()

Collegiate Colosseum

Spoiler

1st: Tyrant ()
2nd: MrConCon ()
3rd: Falln ()
4th: Aphro (, )
5th: Charger (, )
5th: TLTC ()
7th: Rich Brown ()
7th: Tearbear ()
9th: Zan ()
9th: Scizor ()
9th: Elegant ()
9th: NCJacobT ()
13th: Pitbull (,)
13th: Jingen ()
13th: Xzax ()
13th: Hexfactor ()

 

[Browny]

Character usage by top players does dictate results.

After all, how many placings in top 8 would Rosalina have had at Pound if not for Dabuz? Pikachu and ESAM? Toon Link and Hyuga? ZSS and Nairo?

I'm saying that I wish people could look at the game a little more deeply than raw results. The following post is not a rebuttal at you, I'm just continuing on from before.

Anyone who's been around this boards for a long time would know I have been a very staunch defender of results 100% determining the tier list but there was always an impossible scenario you would face;

Do we consider the results only of the top representative who is proving how the character plays at an optimal level, or do we disregard them as an outlier (and rightfully so) where if said player used literally any SUPPOSED mid tier character, they would probably perform just as well.

For way too long, people are incapable of doing that. They cant see just how massive a difference one player makes and the way to accurately account for this is to look at the placings of the next best players (2-3 or so) AND account for the top player. People long dismissed Mewtwo as having 'no results' yet they made no effort whatsoever to acknowledge Blue and Mew^2 winning decently large tournaments in regions that arent free and of course, Abadango doing well with Mewtwo in Japan since day 1. If you compared this to the case of Pikachu where you had one player getting good results at large tournaments yet almost nothing at a smaller level, what does that tell you?

To me it says that more people were capable of playing Mewtwo at a level consistent enough to win tournaments, but he simply lacked a top level rep. Thats obvious and with time he would get one. Pikachu however showed that there was only one player capable of using him at top level. If you removed the outlier in both cases, Pikachu drops off completely while Mewtwo is at least still doing well.

Pikachu is the easiest character in the world to use as a target for this analogy, but plenty of other characters are in a similar situation and over time, people will eventually realise that having one top level rep will eventually see the character get worse. You need a larger amount of high level mains to push their 'meta' further beyond. From this, people should be able to predict the future of the 'meta' with some sort of process and not just blindly looking at results from one player.

 

[shrooby]

Dedede has better lingring hitboxes than most heavies IMO, between NAir, UAir, dash attack (if you're not interrupted before the hitbox comes out), DTilt, and FTilt.

I actually really like the idea of reducing the end lag on Gordos some. Would help the character out a lot. They may as well just make BThrow kill if you want him to kill off of a throw.

He's largely distinguished from the other heavies by disjoints. Bowser, DK, and Charizard all have intangible limbs which creates a similar effect but I feel like Dedede's schtick in this game (something you kind of pointed out) is to be something of a hitbox fiend, as he wields some of the biggest, most disjointed attacks in the game. With the exception of his multi-hits most of his moves can either outbutton the opponent's completely or create a very favorable trade for him. It's probably why his mobility is trash and why he tends to not kill quite as well as the other heavies.

What I meant by lingering hitboxes was more-so moves that allow him to control space/wall-out effectively. (ala DK's bair)
Nair does literally "linger," but doesn't offer that sort of ability to control space and maintain advantage state. Same with most of the moves you mentioned.
Ftilt is good but it's a generally too punishable to serve that purpose as well as it should. It really depends on the character whether or not it's able to serve that purpose. (Bowser for example DDD can control space with ftilt really well against.)
Upair is good, but only controls the space directly above him. This combined with DDD's horrible horizontal mobility means it's hard to really make the most of it. You need to be able to follow someone in the air to effectively apply pressure in that space, after all.

The amusing and depressing thing is that I'm baaaasically describing his old bair. It's as if he actually needed that move.

 

[Shaya]

mfw mewtwo is someone I jump to throw out a zair towards, react to the shadowball with a retreating double jump/flip jump instead, and he can dash to where I am and up smash before I reach the ground~
Let's just say he had zero chance of doing that before lol.

yw bby~

I'm saying that I wish people could look at the game a little more deeply than raw results. The following post is not a rebuttal at you, I'm just continuing on from before.

Anyone who's been around this boards for a long time would know I have been a very staunch defender of results 100% determining the tier list but there was always an impossible scenario you would face;

Do we consider the results only of the top representative who is proving how the character plays at an optimal level, or do we disregard them as an outlier (and rightfully so) where if said player used literally any SUPPOSED mid tier character, they would probably perform just as well.

For way too long, people are incapable of doing that. They cant see just how massive a difference one player makes and the way to accurately account for this is to look at the placings of the next best players (2-3 or so) AND account for the top player. People long dismissed Mewtwo as having 'no results' yet they made no effort whatsoever to acknowledge Blue and Mew^2 winning decently large tournaments in regions that arent free and of course, Abadango doing well with Mewtwo in Japan since day 1. If you compared this to the case of Pikachu where you had one player getting good results at large tournaments yet almost nothing at a smaller level, what does that tell you?

To me it says that more people were capable of playing Mewtwo at a level consistent enough to win tournaments, but he simply lacked a top level rep. Thats obvious and with time he would get one. Pikachu however showed that there was only one player capable of using him at top level. If you removed the outlier in both cases, Pikachu drops off completely while Mewtwo is at least still doing well.

Pikachu is the easiest character in the world to use as a target for this analogy, but plenty of other characters are in a similar situation and over time, people will eventually realise that having one top level rep is over time, going to see the character get worse. You need a larger amount of high level mains to push their 'meta' further beyond. From this, people should be able to predict the future of the 'meta' with some sort of process and not just blindly looking at results from one player.

I'm glad we somehow have had our lenses on viability come to a personal union on this.
You used to think Marth was pretty overrated in Brawl for his [lack of] top level results, but eventually we got them somewhat consistently. But he always maintained a lot of results at all levels of play throughout it's lifetime.
Perhaps that history keeps doing it's thing, marked by the death of Marth, and our mutual upheaval over Pikachu brought ideas together~
Kinda like France and England when they weren't arguing over succession for a 100 years or Napoleon.

Subtle

What he's trying to say is Zero Suit is still a really good character :^)

 

[ILOVESMASH]

All this recent talk about mobility and Falco reminded me how poorly designed this character is in this game. He has the unique distinction of being one of the few characters in the game that has mobility specs that are lower than half the cast (although his initial dash is p. good), a rather large hurtbox, low weight, AND a frame 6 jumpsquat. If he had some sort of overbearing quality like his laser in brawl or some easy death combo like the one Bayonetta has, maybe I could understand why the developers gave him such terrible attributes, but he doesn't. Compared to fox, Falco has very few qualities to make him worth using. Fox has a much better recovery (having a hitbox at the end of side B is much more important than I initially thought), better KO power and setups, a much better projectile, much greater ground speed, better frame data due to not being plagued by a frame 6 jumpsquat, etc. with his only relevant pros over Fox being a better combo and edgeguarding game, which don't make up for his worse neutral. This is a large reason why is tournament representation is so barren; he doesn't do anything noticeably better than fox to make him worth using. I really hope the developers address this by giving him some sort of buff to help fix this issue.

 

[LordShade67]

Falco has good CQC options.....That's about all I can think of. I believe someone else here mentioned awhile back that if you want a character like Falco but more rewarding, Ryu'll give you more bang for your buck(figuratively and probably literally, lol.).

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Talk of mobility kinda got me thinking on Marth. People constantly say his neutral is only sub-par but I don't see why. He's a rather mobile character having the fastest walk, above average run speed, and slightly above average air speed, fast startup on all of his moves with many of them being safe on shield when spaced right, good oos options, and a usable grab, his neutral should be great. What exactly makes it so poor?

 

[bc1910]

Talk of mobility kinda got me thinking on Marth. People constantly say his neutral is only sub-par but I don't see why. He's a rather mobile character having the fastest walk, above average run speed, and slightly above average air speed, fast startup on all of his moves with many of them being safe on shield when spaced right, good oos options, and a usable grab, his neutral should be great. What exactly makes it so poor?

Marth's neutral is great, it's probably the best thing about him. You don't really see people lamenting his neutral outside, like, Reddit.

His lacklustre advantage state is by far his biggest issue, followed by a pretty suspect disadvantage state.

 

[Megamang]

No projectile i guess? His neutral is amazing imo, its just his advantage that is lacking. His neutral lacks conversion threat.

Edit: Greninja'd. I'd like to add that his range buff helps with all three of those states, and he is a decent character now. He even has the results to prove it; he feels like marth should have initially.

 

[NairWizard]

Talk of mobility kinda got me thinking on Marth. People constantly say his neutral is only sub-par but I don't see why. He's a rather mobile character having the fastest walk, above average run speed, and slightly above average air speed, fast startup on all of his moves with many of them being safe on shield when spaced right, good oos options, and a usable grab, his neutral should be great. What exactly makes it so poor?

His neutral isn't poor, but Marth isn't a mobile character. He sports the worst initial dash -> shield animation in the game (something like 13 frames? the fastest is Corrin's 7 by comparison) and his biggest mobility draw, his high walk speed, is neutered by a subpar walk acceleration that means in practice you won't get to use all that walk speed for spacing.

Marth with good stats in both of those parameters would be trending toward high tier for sure. He has the hitbox placement and KO threat for it.

 

[ReroRero]

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!"

Welp, Ike is also meant big, fast, strong, broken and a great commander but Sakurai didn't did him favor

Not to mention Ganondorf who is supposed to launch projectiles and uses swords

 

[Shaya]

Well all the regulars here know the spiel by now, but I'LL HAVE MY RANT STILL.

Talk of mobility kinda got me thinking on Marth. People constantly say his neutral is only sub-par but I don't see why. He's a rather mobile character having the fastest walk, above average run speed, and slightly above average air speed, fast startup on all of his moves with many of them being safe on shield when spaced right, good oos options, and a usable grab, his neutral should be great. What exactly makes it so poor?

Well, for starters,
he has a slower walk than like, a third of the cast in most relevant situations due to the non-existent acceleration.
This means that he may be walking faster than Fox, but this is after a second++ of him "slowly walking up to you", but without the PogChamp. Up his walking acceleration and this would truly be relevant (hmmm tasty walking jab, it would almost be as good as sheik's walking ftilt or fox' walking reverse up tilt).

Furthermore, I don't think it's his neutral that gets hated on that much, he has some of the best footsie tools in the cast.
His paramount issue all this time that gets highlighted in almost any match you watch a good Marth play against a top tier in tournament is his feeble reward for getting successful hits.
This means that many characters can play a harsh attrition game against him, and that's where his neutral (these terms are horribly overlapping, btw) starts to fall apart because in turn of him taking more risks, he's still getting little reward. And let me tell you now, this character is FULL of risks.

Marth still has no grab reward or real kill set ups. He had one semi-relevant set up in shieldbreaker deleted. He has extreme reward in something like his forward smash, but that's truly nothing more than the sexiest whiff punish in the game that comes with 40 frames of lag.
Thankfully they've made him usable competitively by having three strong (when spaced well still) aerial kill moves, but that's almost all he has that's "good" - raw KOing aerials. But I must highlight that even though they're some of his "best moves", they're still not some of the "best" moves in the cast, above average definitely but I wouldn't put them much further than that.

Marth could be a lot better in every way with his mobility specs buffed, even considering walking (he got a lot more out of in Brawl) he had all of his mobility specs comparatively nerfed between games.

He sports the worst initial dash -> shield animation in the game (something like 13 frames? the fastest is Corrin's 7 by comparison) and his biggest mobility draw, his high walk speed, is neutered by a subpar walk acceleration that means in practice you won't get to use all that walk speed for spacing.

Actually it's 17 frames.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Well all the regulars here know the spiel by now, but I'LL HAVE MY RANT STILL.



Well, for starters,
he has a slower walk than like, a third of the cast in most relevant situations due to the non-existent acceleration.
This means that he may be walking faster than Fox, but this is after a second++ of him "slowly walking up to you", but without the PogChamp. Up his walking acceleration and this would truly be relevant (hmmm tasty walking jab, it would almost be as good as sheik's walking ftilt or fox' walking reverse up tilt).

Furthermore, I don't think it's his neutral that gets hated on that much, he has some of the best footsie tools in the cast.
His paramount issue all this time that gets highlighted in almost any match you watch a good Marth play against a top tier in tournament is his feeble reward for getting successful hits.
This means that many characters can play a harsh attrition game against him, and that's where his neutral (these terms are horribly overlapping, btw) starts to fall apart because in turn of him taking more risks, he's still getting little reward. And let me tell you now, this character is FULL of risks.

Marth still has no grab reward or real kill set ups. He had one semi-relevant set up in shieldbreaker deleted. He has extreme reward in something like his forward smash, but that's truly nothing more than the sexiest whiff punish in the game that comes with 40 frames of lag.
Thankfully they've made him usable competitively by having three strong (when spaced well still) aerial kill moves, but that's almost all he has that's "good" - raw KOing aerials. But I must highlight that even though they're some of his "best moves", they're still not some of the "best" moves in the cast, above average definitely but I wouldn't put them much further than that.

Marth could be a lot better in every way with his mobility specs buffed, even considering walking (he got a lot more out of in Brawl) he had all of his mobility specs comparatively nerfed between games.



Actually it's 17 frames.

Ah see, thanks for clearing that up
I would love to see what people do with Bidou, saw someone doing something with his jab that sort of reminded me of Sheiks PP Ftilts

 

[Ghostbone]

Marth's advantage state is really good if you actually get them off-stage

Sweeping aerials that cover a lot of space with high kill power + counter is a pretty potent combination.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Marth's advantage state is really good if you actually get them off-stage

Sweeping aerials that cover a lot of space with high kill power + counter is a pretty potent combination.

Edgeguarding is one of the places Marth shines. If you can get someone without a Pika/Sheik/MK tier recovery they're going to die at like 60 offstage. Not even Bayo with a double recovery can really recover against a good Marth in my experience. Despite this his advantage state is pretty average. Whats hindering him is his lack of a decent combo game, this makes it hard for him to rack up damage and kill without a read.

Sakurai pls, just give back SH double fair

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Mewtwo looks like a wicked combination of Fox gameplay [huge mobility, lots of raw kill power, good damage output, "glass-canon"] and Ness gameplay [extremely evasive in the air, overwhelmingly strong aerials, kill throw] with a better recovery and one of the best projectiles in the game. Hard to say whether he's a high tier or just straight-up top now but if you look at these specs it's kind of hard to argue against him being solo-viable. It's perhaps worth pointing out that the Fox vs Mewtwo matchup went from 75/25+ in Fox favor to about 55/45 for Fox within two patches. That kind of goes to show how much his matchups must have improved over time. If he had a solid disadvantage against anybody I wouldn't know against whom right now.

 

[Dre89]

Speaking of edgeguarding, who are the best edgeguarders in the game?

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Speaking of edgeguarding, who are the best edgeguarders in the game?

Pikachu is arguably the best, MK a close second, then Sheik. Not sure about the rest tbh

 

[Smog Frog]

has a REALLY good edeguarding game. nair with it's speed and angle is all you need to be a good edgeguarder. don't even get me started on limit cross slash.

 

[Rizen]

Speaking of edgeguarding, who are the best edgeguarders in the game?

If there were tiers for edge guarding I'd put Link in high tier, not top tier. My reasoning is he has arrows that fall with gravity and boomerang that can be angled for long range safe pressure. These can force actions and frame trap into Link's aerials. Closer to the ledge Link has disjointed aerials that either last a long time (Dair/Nair) or cur twice (Fair/Bair). Early Dair is a strong spike that can probably kill anyone after 40%ish. Link can also throw a bomb down and combo into an aerial. He's great at exploiting the 2 frames of ledge grab vulnerability with Nair/Dair.

Link doesn't get top tier because he can't go deep and is slow in the air. Characters like Mewtwo beat him at edge guarding.

 

[Routa]

Speaking of edgeguarding, who are the best edgeguarders in the game?

*insert floaty character here*

Anyways MK, Pikachu, Ike, Swordfighter and Sheik are the first 5 characters that come up to my mind.

Edit: I'm at work atm so I will reason why Swordfighter has one of the best edgeguarding games later today.