Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Megamang]

Re: Lack of approach on Jiggles.


I think I know the difference in the definition of approach here, and why someone with good mobility and long lasting hitboxes can struggle... She doesn't put out enough damage to discourage good, reactive shielding. She comes in with a fresh fair, maybe weaves around and does a nair... then what? She can land and start jabbing, but with her bad landing lag + slow ground game, it isn't exactly threatening if you play your cards right. This is where the importance of a grab game, or a really strong shield pressure game, is important. Because if you are only threatening for a few hitboxes in a burst moment and can't follow up on that, you can't really get around shield and are relying on opponent's mistakes to convert your hits to damage.

This is something I have found to make Bayonetta and Cloud MU's easier. If you just shield their landing, you force them to use their meh ground game instead of their unparalleled air games. You force options like the tomohawk and empty landing... which are better to fight against than his ridiculous Nair or Dair.

Jiggles can't even threaten that. Shield -> pellet -> Shield -> pellets basically just destroys her, because she never really makes me stop executing that gameplan.

She can get in, but she can't approach. It has a lot to do with the strong defensive options in this game; Jiggly's problems with shield pressure are greatly exacerbated when you know you can safely shield a decent %, then just roll away when things look scary, since she can't burst you down with any punishment for a roll.

So she can approach... but if you know the MU, and your options are executed correctly, the approach just dinks off a shield repeatedly while she takes real damage.


These are just thoughts off the top of my head as a response to why some would say their highly mobile character can't approach. Its like 1111 Brawler saying they can't kill... They have killing options, but not killing options that truly win against this games shields/rolls/dodges.

 

[Djent]

Turns out philosophers of science already had the whole theory vs. results discussion last century. Theirs didn't go well either.

 

[Kofu]

Re: Lack of approach on Jiggles.


I think I know the difference in the definition of approach here, and why someone with good mobility and long lasting hitboxes can struggle... She doesn't put out enough damage to discourage good, reactive shielding. She comes in with a fresh fair, maybe weaves around and does a nair... then what? She can land and start jabbing, but with her bad landing lag + slow ground game, it isn't exactly threatening if you play your cards right. This is where the importance of a grab game, or a really strong shield pressure game, is important. Because if you are only threatening for a few hitboxes in a burst moment and can't follow up on that, you can't really get around shield and are relying on opponent's mistakes to convert your hits to damage.

This is something I have found to make Bayonetta and Cloud MU's easier. If you just shield their landing, you force them to use their meh ground game instead of their unparalleled air games. You force options like the tomohawk and empty landing... which are better to fight against than his ridiculous Nair or Dair.

Jiggles can't even threaten that. Shield -> pellet -> Shield -> pellets basically just destroys her, because she never really makes me stop executing that gameplan.

She can get in, but she can't approach. It has a lot to do with the strong defensive options in this game; Jiggly's problems with shield pressure are greatly exacerbated when you know you can safely shield a decent %, then just roll away when things look scary, since she can't burst you down with any punishment for a roll.

So she can approach... but if you know the MU, and your options are executed correctly, the approach just dinks off a shield repeatedly while she takes real damage.


These are just thoughts off the top of my head as a response to why some would say their highly mobile character can't approach. Its like 1111 Brawler saying they can't kill... They have killing options, but not killing options that truly win against this games shields/rolls/dodges.

A little side note, something not helping Puff is the long duration of three of her aerials (though I have no clue when you'd approach with UAir lol). Game & Watch suffers from a similar problem. His whole schtick is basically "really long duration hitboxes with low cooldown" which is nice for beating other attacks/projectiles, but not so nice against shields. Multi-hits help a little, but blocking the initial hit of a lingering aerial often means a free punish. Game & Watch has it a little better than Puff, however. Though he lacks autocancels, he has big disjoints that give him safety. His average landing lag is also somewhat low (but not low enough lol). He's also got a much better ground game and actual grounded mobility.

 

[Nobie]

Why are Jigglypuff (and G&W) attacking without retreating immediately after?

 

[LancerStaff]

Seems Jiggs missed the buff train that came with Pokken's release... Not a lot of hope left for her at this point. I'm guessing most think she's the worst character now?

 

[S_B]

I think this is relevant to the discussion of the puff:

I still think she's not a great character, but I see their point about basically trying to 50/50 on breaking shields.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

Seems Jiggs missed the buff train that came with Pokken's release... Not a lot of hope left for her at this point. I'm guessing most think she's the worst character now?

I think she's a bottom 10 character, but she does have some really good tools such as amazing aerial acceleration and deceleration (really useful in spacing), long lasting hitboxes on all of her aerials, smashes, and DA, Pound for Shield pressure, and of course Rest (really dangerous OOS option that can KO super early). These aren't enough to make her a good character, but I feel they are enough to allow her to compete with the cast to some extent.

 

[BunbUn129]

Things that are in conflict with Jiggs' aerial fighting design:

-No aerial is faster than frame 6; and even Little Macaroni have aerials that are faster than frame 6.

-Air dodge is frame 4

-The above two points partially negate the combo-defense brought about by her floatiness and weight

-Up aerial is frame 9, which is relatively slow for an up aerial (even has a frame 6 uair), and with short range; as most characters' best juggling tools are their up aerials, this gives Jiggs a comparatively hard time juggling. Jiggs' uair has long active frames (9-21), but this is also true for most renowned uairs ().

-Above average landing lag (15/15/18/15/30), though somewhat compensated by good auto-cancels.

-Lack of an up special move; she's intended to be a queen of recovery, but cleanly beat her here.

But then Jiggs weight and shield-jump are evidence that she's a joke character (and this was stated by Sakurai before, wasn't it?), so her flaws look like they're here to stay. Sigh.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

I think that Ganondorf is intentionally kept where he is due to balancing around casual play. Ganondorf is a pretty scary character for the vast majority of people who play smash, and even competitively he can't be entirely slept on as long as you're not like, at a regional or something.

How could you meaningfully buff Ganondorf without making him complete bull**** to fight against for people at a medium skill level? Have him kill you in 3 hits?

Make flame choke not put you in freefall
cant tech flame choke
give him a better grab range
give him Falco's air/dash speed
there, balanced

 

[Nobie]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nT2VOLwrqk

This video might be important. Basically, all controllers, including the Gamecube controller, have about 6 frames of input delay. Combined with human reaction time, and basically most attacks in Smash 4 are unreactable and must be predicted.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nT2VOLwrqk

This video might be important. Basically, all controllers, including the Gamecube controller, have about 6 frames of input delay. Combined with human reaction time, and basically most attacks in Smash 4 are unreactable and must be predicted.

so basically anything 19 frames or faster is unreactable by average human standards

 

[DblCrest]

Make flame choke not put you in freefall
cant tech flame choke
give him a better grab range
give him Falco's air/dash speed
there, balanced

An untechable flame choke would annoy me haha XD

BunbUn129
Has Jiggz had any good patches that helped her in the past. Don't know what they could actually do to help her out.
Also ...what about her shield-jump?

I think Kirby is in a similar boat. He sure as hell is no air fighter with his low air speed and lack of disjoints.
Yet the patches are gradually increasing the knockback of all his smashes and his hammer of all things. I'm not sure what to group him as now. A CQC character actually needs a way to get in on someone so how is he even classed as one?

 

[Megamang]

I think by shield jump, he is referring to Jiggly's death launch when her shield breaks.

I don't like what they are doing with Kirby. He needs either improved ground or air speed/accel, not just getting stronger and stronger. He is an aerial fighter by his games, so I don't see why he has to be so freakin slow in the air. Also, starting with a copied ability and never losing it to hitboxes would be really nice in 1v1, and wouldn't destroy anything else. Its unfortunate in certain MUs that he would have a decent chance when he has the projectile, but a good opponent basically won't allow them to ever have that chance.

I think it'd be cool if you could decide which way you throw someone after landing a flame choke. Throw olimar down all the same, but throw the harder to tech chase characters into the air. Ganon deserves a chance at advantage for landing his slow, low priority side B anyways.

Pound always breaking shield would also be cool, but this is something that would legitimately cause lots of waves at the casual level. Of course, you can kinda fight her with just back rolls instead of shield, so maybe instant break-pound would be a good way to get casuals thinking about their habits.


Anyways, this isn't a wishlist thread... but that video makes me confused on how consistently we see top players powershield. Are they that good at predicting? Do people with superior reaction time naturally filter to the top level? Are they secretly reptilian people that can connect with the game from within, therefore bypassing the barrier created by our controllers?

 

[TheGoodGuava]

An untechable flame choke would annoy me haha XD

BunbUn129
Has Jiggz had any good patches that helped her in the past. Don't know what they could actually do to help her out.
Also ...what about her shield-jump?

I think Kirby is in a similar boat. He sure as hell is no air fighter with his low air speed and lack of disjoints.
Yet the patches are gradually increasing the knockback of all his smashes and his hammer of all things. I'm not sure what to group him as now. A CQC character actually needs a way to get in on someone so how is he even classed as one?

an untechable flame choke would be amazing for him, he would be able to do so much more with it
Also isn't it punishable on hit rn?

 

[Megamang]

Its not really punishable on hit, but it creates a mixup situation in which the ganon can choose wrong and get hit. So, if they tech it and you shield, you can be fine... but say you went for a dtilt punish and they tech'd, and the tech had invincible frames during the time you were dtilting... then that person will have a nice frame advantage on Ganon, but only because he chose the wrong option coverage.


Correct me if i'm wrong, im just filling in until a real life ganon main can actually say whats going on.

 

[SaltyKracka]

Its not really punishable on hit, but it creates a mixup situation in which the ganon can choose wrong and get hit. So, if they tech it and you shield, you can be fine... but say you went for a dtilt punish and they tech'd, and the tech had invincible frames during the time you were dtilting... then that person will have a nice frame advantage on Ganon, but only because he chose the wrong option coverage.


Correct me if i'm wrong, im just filling in until a real life ganon main can actually say whats going on.

That's broadly correct. Against any competent player, Flame Choke (if it even hits) is 12% and a guessing game Ganondorf often loses.

 

[LancerStaff]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nT2VOLwrqk

This video might be important. Basically, all controllers, including the Gamecube controller, have about 6 frames of input delay. Combined with human reaction time, and basically most attacks in Smash 4 are unreactable and must be predicted.

Seems everybody's talking about this kinda thing today...

For some perspective, that would mean the second hit of Pit/Toon Link's Dsmash is unreactable, assuming the math was correct.

 

[BunbUn129]

An untechable flame choke would annoy me haha XD

BunbUn129
Has Jiggz had any good patches that helped her in the past. Don't know what they could actually do to help her out.
Also ...what about her shield-jump?

I think Kirby is in a similar boat. He sure as hell is no air fighter with his low air speed and lack of disjoints.
Yet the patches are gradually increasing the knockback of all his smashes and his hammer of all things. I'm not sure what to group him as now. A CQC character actually needs a way to get in on someone so how is he even classed as one?

Jiggs hasn't been touched in patches; aside from a bugfix to rollout which nerfed her.

Re: Ganon. They made flame choke techable presumably because it resulted in item infinites in Brawl (a Ganon main told me this and showed me a clip a long time ago, don't take my word for it).

 

[FullMoon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nT2VOLwrqk

This video might be important. Basically, all controllers, including the Gamecube controller, have about 6 frames of input delay. Combined with human reaction time, and basically most attacks in Smash 4 are unreactable and must be predicted.

I thought I had seen something like that a long time ago, I think there was even a thread in the boards?

 

[DanGR]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nT2VOLwrqk

This video might be important. Basically, all controllers, including the Gamecube controller, have about 6 frames of input delay. Combined with human reaction time, and basically most attacks in Smash 4 are unreactable and must be predicted.

While this video is mostly correct, it fails to mention how much quicker our auditory reaction times are than our visual ones. (Look for my youtube comment) For example, my auditory RT is on average 115ms faster (~7 frames!) than my visual RT. Additionally, I'd be willing to bet the Smash4 auditory cues tend to happen significantly quicker than the first recognizable visual ones, further distancing the two from one another practically speaking.

 

[Megamang]

And im glad for this, since the most annoying thing ever to fail to react to is freakin bouncing fish. Thank sakurai it makes that distinctive ping, or it'd be netting sooo many (more)kills.

Speaking of which, it sucks that only one person gets headphones in the wii U gamepad. As far as I know, there isn't a sound port into the Wii U either; you have to just hope either the venue is quiet enough for the gamepad's speakers, your opponent doesn't want sound, or the moniter/TV has good enough audio... which is rare, IME its just a simple moniter with no sound jack.

I haven't had any opponent have an issue with me plugging my headphones into the gamepad to bogart the sound, but I'd imagine as this knowledge spreads this would be more applicable.

I should just carry speakers around instead of headphones!

Are there any characters that can fake out the noise from their kill move? I know in Brawl, as GaW I could fake a turtle landing where it wouldn't have a hitbox, but the turtle would still appear to come out... Some sort of cancel like that, that triggers the initial sound, might be powerful if you know your opponent is reacting to auditory clues.

 

[thehard]

I think by shield jump, he is referring to Jiggly's death launch when her shield breaks.

I don't like what they are doing with Kirby. He needs either improved ground or air speed/accel, not just getting stronger and stronger. He is an aerial fighter by his games, so I don't see why he has to be so freakin slow in the air. Also, starting with a copied ability and never losing it to hitboxes would be really nice in 1v1, and wouldn't destroy anything else. Its unfortunate in certain MUs that he would have a decent chance when he has the projectile, but a good opponent basically won't allow them to ever have that chance.

I think it'd be cool if you could decide which way you throw someone after landing a flame choke. Throw olimar down all the same, but throw the harder to tech chase characters into the air. Ganon deserves a chance at advantage for landing his slow, low priority side B anyways.

Pound always breaking shield would also be cool, but this is something that would legitimately cause lots of waves at the casual level. Of course, you can kinda fight her with just back rolls instead of shield, so maybe instant break-pound would be a good way to get casuals thinking about their habits.


Anyways, this isn't a wishlist thread... but that video makes me confused on how consistently we see top players powershield. Are they that good at predicting? Do people with superior reaction time naturally filter to the top level? Are they secretly reptilian people that can connect with the game from within, therefore bypassing the barrier created by our controllers?

Kirby's pretty slow in the air in his mainline games.

And as for the post you just made, there's a famous Kirby technique called "hup-canceling", which is just autocanceling Kirby's dair before the hitbox comes out so he says "hup", meant to trick your opponents based on that audio cue.

 

[Megamang]

What does the hup usually indicate though? I'd just think Kirby sometimes made a noise when he lands lol.

And i guess its true he is kinda slow in his games... but he can also mix and match powers in some of them, or turn into a ball and stuff. He could use any power from any of his games for some justifiable burst mobility, thats all he needs. Forward B being jumping inhale and B being a starshot from his mouth would give him a much more fluid neutral, IMO.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Tbh Kirby if I were to make Kirby I would make it a lot different

He swallows a character with a sword, he turns into sword Kirby with some sword Kirby attacks in ****
He swallows a fighter, he turns into fighter Kirby with some fighter Kirby ****
He swallows a projectile based character, he turns into some projectile based Kirby with projectile ****
I would like this Kirby a lot more tbh, but sadly that isn't happening

 

[Megamang]

From a dev team standpoint, that is 3 more characters to produce, balance, and worry about in each MU.

Although I guess sword kirby would never 1v1 with a non sword character, since he has to take the power, etc etc.

But thats an entirely new character.

His runspeed buffs were actually pretty great for the character. The power buffs, don't make a difference in my mind.

 

[ARGHETH]

Tbh Kirby if I were to make Kirby I would make it a lot different

He swallows a character with a sword, he turns into sword Kirby with some sword Kirby attacks in ****
He swallows a fighter, he turns into fighter Kirby with some fighter Kirby ****
He swallows a projectile based character, he turns into some projectile based Kirby with projectile ****
I would like this Kirby a lot more tbh, but sadly that isn't happening

He swallows Link and turns into projectile and sword Kirby.
He swallows Ness and turns into fighter and projectile Kirby.
He swallows Ganondorf and turns into fighter and sword Kirby.
The thing is, characters in smash just can't be fit into those archetypes very neatly, so trying to determine who would fit into what category would just end up with a giant mess where everybody complains about how a character's defined unless it's, like, Marth.
Also, even if they could fit everyone into a certain number of categories, they'd still need to create that amount of unique fighters, when they could spend that time making an actually unique character.

 

[Dre89]

Brawl had Snake and D3. Both compensated for their subpar mobility with the ability to camp and had great reward compared to most of the rest of the cast. Ryu is probably the closest thing in Smash 4 to this. None of the other Smash 4 heavies have any sort of meaningful camp game to let them control the tempo, and they don't have CQC anywhere near Ryu/Snake, though Charizard and Ike at least have decent jab speed. Bowser and DK right now actually do have really good grab reward that allows them to compete, but in general heavies tend to get outrewarded by faster hard punish characters, with Bayo and Cloud atm being the main culprits after ZSS/MK got nerfed. Ryu to a lesser extent overshadows most other heavies. Right now, Bowser, DK, and probably Charizard are in a place where they have decent tools, but need other characters to get toned down for them to have a chance at meaningful meta niches as hard punish characters. Ganondorf needs more grab reward for sure, and probably at least a moderate air mobility buff(which incidentally would improve his ability to combo off throws) in addition to some sort of Nair fix so as to make landing with the first hitbox generally viable, as right now he lacks fast aerials that consistently hit short characters. Smash 4 D3 I don't know where to start.

I don't really get this logic that heavies aren't viable.

DKs have taken games off Zero, and Larry won a set against Void using DK.

No one is playing at a level where they automatically invalidate heavies. So I don't understand why people want buffs for characters who already win games at the highest level of play.

 

[Megamang]

Sometimes, they just have one issue that means MU knowledge is their death; the best example I can think of is DK's ledge options and how he can be reactivly killed if someone knows his bad ledge options.

Speaking of which, what Heavy has the best ledge options?

 

[bc1910]

DK is still the only truly viable heavy and it's almost purely because of ding dong. He doesn't really need buffs though IMO, he's good at what he does.

Assuming you mean coming back from the ledge, best ledge options would likely be Charizard because of Rock Smash armour and 2 midair jumps allowing him to mix up his landings. Though his ledge hurtbox is terrible. D3's ledge jump Nair is really good as well.

 

[adom4]

Sometimes, they just have one issue that means MU knowledge is their death; the best example I can think of is DK's ledge options and how he can be reactivly killed if someone knows his bad ledge options.

Speaking of which, what Heavy has the best ledge options?

Ganon has a decent ledge game, choke & choke out of a ledge jump (which is also one of the best in the game) are always a threat but the real kicker is his broken ledge hang, a ton of stuff just straight up misses him when he hangs on the ledge.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

DK is still the only truly viable heavy and it's almost purely because of ding dong. He doesn't really need buffs though IMO, he's good at what he does.

Assuming you mean coming back from the ledge, best ledge options would likely be Charizard because of Rock Smash armour and 2 midair jumps allowing him to mix up his landings. Though his ledge hurtbox is terrible. D3's ledge jump Nair is really good as well.

http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Weight
You forgot Ike, Wario, ROB, Captain Falcon, Yoshi, Ryu, Cloud and Lucario
I would also argue Charizard and Link but I doubt anyone would agree with me

 

[Ghostbone]

When most people say heavyweight they usually mean Ganondorf and up

 

[MistressRemilia]

http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Weight
You forgot Ike, Wario, ROB, Captain Falcon, Yoshi, Ryu, Cloud and Lucario
I would also argue Charizard and Link but I doubt anyone would agree with me

It's kind of obvious but people are still falling for it.
When people say " heavy " when talking about DK, they're talking about superheavies, which are:
Donkey Kong , Bowser , Charizard , Dedede & Ganondorf.

Edit: Accelgor'd

 

[Aunt Jemima]

Just throwing something out -- when comparing Kirby's speed in Smash 4 to Kirby's speed in Return to Dreamland, using RtDL's unit block measurement and Smash U's stage builder block measurement, Smash 4 Kirby is faster. Like, a lot faster.

Kirby has always been incredibly slow in his games, the main exceptions are Kirby's Adventure, along with the two GBA titles. The reason he's fast in those is because he just carries momentum from everything, though. Otherwise, Kirby's really damn slow on the ground and in the air.

In recent titles, Kirby loses literally all momentum when he puffs up. In actuality, being puffed up is the slowest movement option. Thus, it can be assumed that Kirby is meant to be slow. It's part of his design. He may get some really slight run speed buffs, but I highly doubt it's ever going to really be changed.

so ye no speed buffs l0l

Spoiler

i lied this guy exists

 

[meleebrawler]

Just throwing something out -- when comparing Kirby's speed in Smash 4 to Kirby's speed in Return to Dreamland, using RtDL's unit block measurement and Smash U's stage builder block measurement, Smash 4 Kirby is faster. Like, a lot faster.

Kirby has always been incredibly slow in his games, the main exceptions are Kirby's Adventure, along with the two GBA titles. The reason he's fast in those is because he just carries momentum from everything, though. Otherwise, Kirby's really damn slow on the ground and in the air.

In recent titles, Kirby loses literally all momentum when he puffs up. In actuality, being puffed up is the slowest movement option. Thus, it can be assumed that Kirby is meant to be slow. It's part of his design. He may get some really slight run speed buffs, but I highly doubt it's ever going to really be changed.

so ye no speed buffs l0l

Spoiler

i lied this guy exists

What Kirby really needs is a strong burst movement attack like Burning or Wheel, either as a dash attack or new aerial side b. But that's not happening either.

 

[bc1910]

http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Weight
You forgot Ike, Wario, ROB, Captain Falcon, Yoshi, Ryu, Cloud and Lucario
I would also argue Charizard and Link but I doubt anyone would agree with me

Already been said but heavies refers to the 5 superheavies. Dunno why people still fall for this.

Incidentally, no, Link is not viable. Charizard is damn scary at times but he probably isn't viable either.

 

[-Lavos-]

Hello everyone! Frequent lurker of this thread, thought i ought to start posting. I have trouble understanding the differences between the 4 main heavies (Bowser, DK, Ganon, Charizard) and subsequently i have trouble in the matchups against them because i have a generic "vs heavy" strategy in my mind. Can any players of the characters shed some light on the differences between them? What strengths and weaknesses do they have relative to each other, and also, why is it that DK is so much more viable compared to the other 3?

 

[TheGoodGuava]

When most people say heavyweight they usually mean Ganondorf and up

Don't worry I know, just kinda bored

 

[Aunt Jemima]

I do find it kind of funny how Break Spin, his current dash attack, goes against what the move actually is in Super Star. In that game, it's an incredibly fast burst option with little lag while also doing decent damage, plus is invincible.

In Smash, it's an incredibly slow, laggy, low-damage dash attack with terrible hitboxes, inconsistent multi-hits, disgusting burst range and no combo potential.

I guess Kirby hasn't trained hard enough...

 

[Wintermelon43]

Hello everyone! Frequent lurker of this thread, thought i ought to start posting. I have trouble understanding the differences between the 4 main heavies (Bowser, DK, Ganon, Charizard) and subsequently i have trouble in the matchups against them because i have a generic "vs heavy" strategy in my mind. Can any players of the characters shed some light on the differences between them? What strengths and weaknesses do they have relative to each other, and also, why is it that DK is so much more viable compared to the other 3?

Dedede is so bad people don't remember him when referring to superheavies

DK is better than the rest because of better frame data for the most part, better matchup spread, better more combos but then great knockback too, up-throw to up-air (ding-dong), better results, and being able to edgeguard better than the rest of then.