Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Radical Larry]

You know, I have quite literally the best and possibly most reasonable and legitimate conclusion as to why people think she is overpowering and needs to be banned, despite results being on the contrary by far (she's even had some players beaten by Link players). Regardless, here's the explanation:

If you really think about it, Bayonetta seems to be designed [by players] to infuriate other players, albeit the infuriated player never looks like it. This tends to make players who can get angered easily or somewhat easily fall into Bayonetta's traps, as they will preemptively run into her combos and can't truly DI our of them, leading into a possible Zero-to-Death combo, or just a death combo in general. This is akin to pre-Patch Meta Knight, and I should know this is a factor within the characters themselves only due to having been infuriated against one player who constantly spammed the same combos in tournaments.

However, the players who don't get annoyed by her attacks and can keep a calm mind can find ways into beating her, such as some Links, Fox and even Mewtwo players themselves being able to beat some Bayonetta players! Bayonetta was designed by the programmers to be a combo oriented character, but the players ultimately made her into a character who turned out to be very frustrating to play against, and that's the reason as to why some people believe Bayonetta is overpowering; they state that Bayonetta gets free combos, but the player let themselves get ahead of their hot heads and preemptively rushed in without thinking of a tactic, thus leading into the "free" combo, for example.

So when you argue about Bayonetta, think of this. Is it her that's causing the problem, or is it your own anger and frustration that's clouding your mind from creating strategies to counter Bayonetta? It's more so the latter than anything, because if you get angered, you cloud your judgement heavily. Take it from someone who knows how being annoyed like hell by opponents he can't face properly due to this and the lack of MU experience of the opponents works in the opponents' favors.

 

[HeavyLobster]

You know, I have quite literally the best and possibly most reasonable and legitimate conclusion as to why people think she is overpowering and needs to be banned, despite results being on the contrary by far (she's even had some players beaten by Link players). Regardless, here's the explanation:

If you really think about it, Bayonetta seems to be designed [by players] to infuriate other players, albeit the infuriated player never looks like it. This tends to make players who can get angered easily or somewhat easily fall into Bayonetta's traps, as they will preemptively run into her combos and can't truly DI our of them, leading into a possible Zero-to-Death combo, or just a death combo in general. This is akin to pre-Patch Meta Knight, and I should know this is a factor within the characters themselves only due to having been infuriated against one player who constantly spammed the same combos in tournaments.

However, the players who don't get annoyed by her attacks and can keep a calm mind can find ways into beating her, such as some Links, Fox and even Mewtwo players themselves being able to beat some Bayonetta players! Bayonetta was designed by the programmers to be a combo oriented character, but the players ultimately made her into a character who turned out to be very frustrating to play against, and that's the reason as to why some people believe Bayonetta is overpowering; they state that Bayonetta gets free combos, but the player let themselves get ahead of their hot heads and preemptively rushed in without thinking of a tactic, thus leading into the "free" combo, for example.

So when you argue about Bayonetta, think of this. Is it her that's causing the problem, or is it your own anger and frustration that's clouding your mind from creating strategies to counter Bayonetta? It's more so the latter than anything, because if you get angered, you cloud your judgement heavily. Take it from someone who knows how being annoyed like hell by opponents he can't face properly due to this and the lack of MU experience of the opponents works in the opponents' favors.

Personally when I lose to Bayo while playing as Ganondorf, it's generally because that character has no real tools with which to effectively fight her. Nevermind Dropkick even, there are so many other awful things she can do to him basically for free. She invalidates characters in a far worse way than the typical high tier.

 

[TCT~Phantom]

Lets take a step back and talk about .

Let me be clear, that in my honest opinion, Corrin is a very strong character, even after the small nerfs.

Corrin is blessed with decent enough frame data for a sword character. It's not as good as Cloud's, but it get sits job done real well. Corrin also has exceptionally good range, with very strong pokes. D Tilt and U Tilt are great poking tools, and help offset Corrin's mediocre jab. But Corrin's greatest strengths lie in their range, projectile, and aerials.

Corrin has rather strong hitboxes with their sword, being able to swat away people easily and space them out. Dragon Lunge and Forward Smash have so much range for nabbing kills. Bair and Fair are fantastic spacing tools, with Fair even lending itself some decent combos. Uair is such a strong kill move. I'd rather SH Uair than ever use Corrin's trash U Smash. Corrin just has a solid tool kit.

Dragon Fang Shot at first seems rather weak. It's priority is rather weak, and it is hard to gain as much reward of it as a paralyzer shot. But this thing is hard to punish due to the hitbox at the end. Many characters can't just run in and punish, because not only do they have to play around the projectile itself, but also the bite. It might not be a top 5 projectile like Banana, Shadow Ball, Bullet Climax, Needles, or Shurikens, but it is a valuable tool for a spacing character to have.

Corrin's main weaknesses in my opinion are lacking a real get out of combos free card (I guess you can counter if they are trash, its the best counter save witch time), and has to DI and space to avoid combos. Corrin has a strong advantage state, and a weaker defensive state, but not the worst. Corrin also has a mediocre recovery, which may be lessend by bair's pushback and dragon lunge into a wall, but its not great.

Overall, I can really see Corrin becoming more talked about in the future. I know some might say Corrin is High Tier at best, but I can see Corrin as a possible top tier. She is like Fox in a sense. Little BS, but requires a lot of skill if you want to do well in top level play, your spacing must be on point.

Maybe I am wrong on Corrin, but I think they are solid. Not as good as Bayo, Cloud, Sheik, Zero Suit, or Diddy, but still strong.

 

[aεrgiα]

We're going in cycles at this point, and repeating the same arguments non-stop.

TL'DR arguments

Bayo is bad:
- Easy to play
- Overwhelming conversions
- Little risk
- Unfun to play

Bayo is good:
- Teaches good fundamentals
- Strong but not OP
- People misunderstand the character

Can we move on from this? We're seeing an explosion of meta and character development (Case in point-literally everyone in NC is playing - Cat, Rat, Frog, Dog is my ranking of the mons). Who knows if it's temporary or if it's a matter of time before the Bayo-pocalypse is upon us but there is so much more to discuss than whether Bayo is just bitter medicine or an actual carcinogen.

tfw isnt even a pokemon anymore TT_TT

I'm suprised bayos dive kick doesn't have landing lag in line with all the others (falcon, and other bombs).

Still, does anybody have a handle on lucas' main flaws. His game plan of pk fire/zair zoning air approaches, and grabbing ground approaches seems stong at first glance. He has a great grab game and great recovery options. What's holding him back?

well on the lucas boards theres a thread along the lines of is lucas viable, and the most common answer is yes, he just lacks representation, and thats very true, especially with pink fresh and, afaik, hakii dropping him. however imo thats simplifying it too much since, imo theres has to be a reason why he has no rep and why players dropped him, though of course hes unfortunate in the fact that he was basically always overshadowed by other characters, on release roy and ryu took the hype from him and then buffs made other characters better at the purely grappler archetype(eg dk) and he never really drew any attention to him. imo what holds lucas back as a character are various things, one core issue is imo his grab, yes for a tether it has crazy good faf... but all that low endlag isnt going to help you when it comes out on frame 12, its also by far the shortest tether range wise so that doesnt help either. but that in and of itself is not that bad, i mean theres definitely worse grabs out there, but lucas is so dependant on grabs that his being frame 12 really hurts him. its not just the immediate "oh, grab is slow" aspect that hurts him, it also ties into his oos game, his oos options are pretty meh, since his up b and usmash are both not exactly great moves for oos punishing, so youre left with nair oos, which is frame 7, or the shield drop route, though luckily jab (frame 2) and utilt(frame 4) are both pretty fast so its something at least, but neither of them are really threatening, so having a frame 12 grab really doesnt help :/ another problem is that none of his aerials ac out of a sh, and none of them are therefore safe on shield(which is amusing considering lucas probably has some of the least lag on all aerials combined out of the whole cast) except for maybe uair? but that has such a tiny miniscule hitbox you probably wont be using that in the same sense that ness can. outside of a grab lucas can also sturggle to get the kill, and since grab is frame 12(frame 14 for dash grab) with faf 46(56 for dash and pivot grab) its not exactly something you want to throw out thoughtlessly at high %s... his other options are basically his smashes and maybe catching someone above you with uair. it also doesnt help that his main combo tool, nair, is probably the most easily sdi able move in the whole game

overall, personally i think lucas is a good character (solid mid tier imo) but he has some small issues that hold him back, and a severe lack of underrepresentation dont help either, and realistically what reason do you have to play lucas? zss can pretty much do what he does better(except for cool footstoll combos yay )

 

[Das Koopa]

I'm not too caught up in the bayodrama partly because every character that has been comically overtuned in certain areas has gotten nerfs that directly address community complaints

See: 3DS-era Rosalina, Diddy's Hoo Hah, Luigi's throws, Sheik, etc.

 

[KamikazePotato]

As far as some characters like Wario being 'forgotten' goes: it's important to remember that this is a game with an absurd number of characters, the majority of whom are viable in competitive play. There's going to be plenty of them that don't see a lot of play - not because they've gotten weaker, but because there are so many options. Wario is a legit pick, but maybe his mains just got bored of him, or saw something else that was new and shiny. And apologies to Wario mains, but I never got the impression that he was a very popular pick in general to begin with. Someone like, say, Olimar is just never going to be as inherently popular as someone like Mewtwo, regardless of levels of effectiveness.

 

[Nintenpro]

I think this is the first time I've seen anyone use this particular instance as an example of why Bayonetta is a badly designed character.

Like, you could have gone for literally every other Oddshot out there, chances being I'd most likely agree with you (or at least that the design itself is poorly executed by the developers), but you had to use this one - the one where Pink Fresh managed to read Mr. R's DI, and carry Sheik to the upper corner blast zone with some of the most demanding levels of finesse.

Actually this is the perfect example, it shows that with a good read she potentially can combo you to death from anywhere.
The character only has 2 months, Bayonetta's players will discover a lot of new follow up in the futur. She can potentially be broken, time will tell

 

[sedrf]

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So for anybody learning to di bayo combos. You should probably keep this in mind if you're a heavy or a floaty.

edit: http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Weight
So basically when a bayo lands a witch twist or after burner kick you would basically di out of it the same way a cloud would.

 

[BunbUn129]

Meta-changing knowledge right there. The things you learn.

For those Bayo-defenders, this is just more proof how poorly designed she is. If you want an example of something that needs to be gone, it's that right there. Because **** the rules that the rest of the cast has to follow, ya know. Meta Knight and ZSS were indeed law-abiding citizens.

Thank God for folks like Kurogane.

 

[NotLiquid]

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So for anybody learning to di bayo combos. You should probably keep this in mind if you're a heavy or a floaty.

edit: http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Weight
So basically when a bayo lands a witch twist or after burner kick you would basically di out of it the same way a cloud would.

Nice to have some hard data on that front. It doesn't strike me as the most surprising revelation considering her followups were virtually guaranteed against every character (hurtboxes be damned) but at least this seems as good of a place as any to start considering for subsequent nerfs and counterplay strategies.

Speaking of that I was wondering earlier today whether something the team might consider nerfing is the endlag for the first FAir hit (as in the time it takes for you to be able to throw out the first FAir hit again) since it might decrease extended horizontal ladders by intermittent stalling.

 

[Mister M]

a nice reply

Thanks. I suppose your right in the sense that zss is a way more rewarding grappler.

Any clue about his match ups with top tiers?

 

[Luco]

Actually, Lucas' grab probably isn't the most serious issue. The active frames on the grab are so good that it can be used to punish most landings and whiffs with relative ease, it's pretty rare that your grab war is going to lose to a faster move because ideally you should be spacing it. But that does lead to a problem which is his OoS game is poor. SH Nair doesn't AC and can get punished before he can do other things. FH Dair is usually decent but obviously not particularly quick and semi-punishable.

PK Fire and Zair are great but PS all of them and Lucas eventually has to bite the bullet and choose something meaningful, meanwhile most of these options don't convert to anything amazing on his part until he can actually get someone in the air and punish their landing with a grab ---> followups, of which he has guaranteed followups at all percents until PK hoohah, and when that stops working his kill throws are up shortly thereafter. His edge-guarding game using PKT is good but he wants to finish by looping PKT around to hit himself to remain safe. He can also go offstage safely because tether is fantastic and Bair and Dair are usually highly rewarding to land. Meanwhile recovering he can mix up between a longer PKT or tether, both of which are punishable in different ways but he also has a fantastic DJ AD game just like Ness.

Anyway you're probably not going to sit there and read about a character you're not interested in, but what's mostly relevant is that aside from his OoS game and awkward neutral he has some hectic strong tools. He sports significantly better MUs than Ness against Rosa, Ryu, Sonic, Corrin and probably Luigi.

EL once said he's probably about as good as Ness and I get why he said that. He probably wouldn't say it now but I'm gonna pull from Thinkaman and say that Mewtwo came first; Lucas will probably be next to jump tiers if he can actually show that off.

If. Taiheta's doing well but is inconsistent, and NAKAT doesn't always pull him out. Tearbear has pulled him out before, tbh I think a bunch of people have him as a weird pocket kind of like how a bunch of people used to have a Falcon in their arsenal. We just wait and see if that amounts to anything I guess.

Also The Revolutionary Cafe tbf 90% of characters in this game don't have the overwhelming tools that and have. But yeah.

 

[Hero_2_All]

Lets take a step back and talk about .

Let me be clear, that in my honest opinion, Corrin is a very strong character, even after the small nerfs.

Corrin is blessed with decent enough frame data for a sword character. It's not as good as Cloud's, but it get sits job done real well. Corrin also has exceptionally good range, with very strong pokes. D Tilt and U Tilt are great poking tools, and help offset Corrin's mediocre jab. But Corrin's greatest strengths lie in their range, projectile, and aerials.

Corrin has rather strong hitboxes with their sword, being able to swat away people easily and space them out. Dragon Lunge and Forward Smash have so much range for nabbing kills. Bair and Fair are fantastic spacing tools, with Fair even lending itself some decent combos. Uair is such a strong kill move. I'd rather SH Uair than ever use Corrin's trash U Smash. Corrin just has a solid tool kit.

Dragon Fang Shot at first seems rather weak. It's priority is rather weak, and it is hard to gain as much reward of it as a paralyzer shot. But this thing is hard to punish due to the hitbox at the end. Many characters can't just run in and punish, because not only do they have to play around the projectile itself, but also the bite. It might not be a top 5 projectile like Banana, Shadow Ball, Bullet Climax, Needles, or Shurikens, but it is a valuable tool for a spacing character to have.

Corrin's main weaknesses in my opinion are lacking a real get out of combos free card (I guess you can counter if they are trash, its the best counter save witch time), and has to DI and space to avoid combos. Corrin has a strong advantage state, and a weaker defensive state, but not the worst. Corrin also has a mediocre recovery, which may be lessend by bair's pushback and dragon lunge into a wall, but its not great.

Overall, I can really see Corrin becoming more talked about in the future. I know some might say Corrin is High Tier at best, but I can see Corrin as a possible top tier. She is like Fox in a sense. Little BS, but requires a lot of skill if you want to do well in top level play, your spacing must be on point.

Maybe I am wrong on Corrin, but I think they are solid. Not as good as Bayo, Cloud, Sheik, Zero Suit, or Diddy, but still strong.

THIS..... Tbh I also see allot of fox in Corrin and could see her rise with time. Most of their weaknesses are similar; such as the lack of true throw combos, mediocre recovery, and both are at the mercy of momentum (like fox, Corrin's disadvantage is very meh... I would say her dis advantage is marginally better than fox's, but Corrin's advantage is also marginally worse than fox's). As is the same with fox, corrin might be easy to pick up at a basic lvl, but you will require very precise control of the character to get results with them at mid to high lvl. This in my opinion is most notable in the fact that both need to apply constant safe shield pressure (as shielding is very good vs both fox and Corrin. Though vs Corrin you REALLY need to due to instant pin). Corrin has the tools for amazing spacing, but the spacing still has to be on point due to her low mobility (IE: you need to realize when a opponent is going to dash shield in for a grab and retreat F-air/ N-air or you will be grabbed. Also when to stop your forward momentum when your doing aerials on shield, which is harder than it sounds due to her mobility issues). Really whats sets Corrin and fox apart is its a classic case of range vs speed. Also Corrin's kill throw helps so much (something fox wishes he had). Your post has been my thoughts for a while, and I see Corrin as high tier atm, but could rise to low/ mid top tier when optimized.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Lets take a step back and talk about .

Let me be clear, that in my honest opinion, Corrin is a very strong character, even after the small nerfs.

Corrin is blessed with decent enough frame data for a sword character. It's not as good as Cloud's, but it get sits job done real well. Corrin also has exceptionally good range, with very strong pokes. D Tilt and U Tilt are great poking tools, and help offset Corrin's mediocre jab. But Corrin's greatest strengths lie in their range, projectile, and aerials.

Corrin has rather strong hitboxes with their sword, being able to swat away people easily and space them out. Dragon Lunge and Forward Smash have so much range for nabbing kills. Bair and Fair are fantastic spacing tools, with Fair even lending itself some decent combos. Uair is such a strong kill move. I'd rather SH Uair than ever use Corrin's trash U Smash. Corrin just has a solid tool kit.

Dragon Fang Shot at first seems rather weak. It's priority is rather weak, and it is hard to gain as much reward of it as a paralyzer shot. But this thing is hard to punish due to the hitbox at the end. Many characters can't just run in and punish, because not only do they have to play around the projectile itself, but also the bite. It might not be a top 5 projectile like Banana, Shadow Ball, Bullet Climax, Needles, or Shurikens, but it is a valuable tool for a spacing character to have.

Corrin's main weaknesses in my opinion are lacking a real get out of combos free card (I guess you can counter if they are trash, its the best counter save witch time), and has to DI and space to avoid combos. Corrin has a strong advantage state, and a weaker defensive state, but not the worst. Corrin also has a mediocre recovery, which may be lessend by bair's pushback and dragon lunge into a wall, but its not great.

Overall, I can really see Corrin becoming more talked about in the future. I know some might say Corrin is High Tier at best, but I can see Corrin as a possible top tier. She is like Fox in a sense. Little BS, but requires a lot of skill if you want to do well in top level play, your spacing must be on point.

Maybe I am wrong on Corrin, but I think they are solid. Not as good as Bayo, Cloud, Sheik, Zero Suit, or Diddy, but still strong.

Corrin I can't see as better than high-mid tier since it's really hard for them to pressure opponents should they fall behind. Even Ryu has a decent run speed and FADC against turtling foes. Corrin can wall and punish well, but poor mobility and bad grab range are liabilities at times. Unlike Cloud and Bayo, Corrin does have areas in which he's significantly below average for the entire cast as opposed to relative weaknesses. Corrin has shown an ability to be an effective pocket, but I don't see him as an outstanding solo character.

 

[DanGR]

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So for anybody learning to di bayo combos. You should probably keep this in mind if you're a heavy or a floaty.

edit: http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Weight
So basically when a bayo lands a witch twist or after burner kick you would basically di out of it the same way a cloud would.

Separate fall speed/gravity values is still a thing. You also have to consider whether or not your DI will put you in a spot to be killed with other attacks (namely upair), which are still affected by different character weights. It's not literally the same DI as Cloud.

Obligatory edit: Kuroganehammer corrected me after his testing, confirming that fall speed is still affected while gravity is not.

 

[The Revolutionary Cafe]

Problem with is that he simply doesn't have the overwhelming tools that , , or have nor a dedicated user has in Abadango. Lucas is a fairly good character held back by no one to fully explore him. Footstool combos were found day one and that's it. His kit or character has appealed to a really good player to show this off yet. Quiet a few Smash 4 characters are in this position due to the amount of characters in the game, hell Lucas isn't the only DLC like this also exists.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Speaking of that I was wondering earlier today whether something the team might consider nerfing is the endlag for the first FAir hit (as in the time it takes for you to be able to throw out the first FAir hit again) since it might decrease extended horizontal ladders by intermittent stalling.

Editing Fair to be more like MK Ftilt where the hits can only be canceled if going straight into the other hit(s) of the move should be an easy fix, because MK Ftilt exists as a template.

 

[Nobie]

Here's something I've been wondering about more generally:

Why are some limits surpassed by players, while others aren't?

Specifically, I'm thinking about the difference between using Sheik and using Zelda. Pre-patch, Sheik's weakness was supposed to be that she has a difficult time killing, but players found ways around that, developing 50/50s that gave Sheik the edge in many situations.

Zelda is supposed to kill more easily, but it's a challenge, for example, to precisely land her lighting kicks with any consistency. However, if we have all of these strong players who are smart and technically skilled, what is it about the lightning kick sweet spots that make them so difficult to land? Why is this a barrier that top players haven't been able to overcome (in before "because no top players use Zelda?").

 

[Empyrean]

Corrin's main weaknesses in my opinion are lacking a real get out of combos free card (I guess you can counter if they are trash, its the best counter save witch time), and has to DI and space to avoid combos. Corrin has a strong advantage state, and a weaker defensive state, but not the worst.

Something I'd like to add in regards to this is that, while Corrin certainly doesn't have a combo/tight-string breaking move like a frame 3 nair or frame 1 invincibility, etc, she has some tools that demand serious respect in disadvantage. Very few characters can do anything meaningful against fastfall nair to get back onstage. Chasing her after knocking her diagonally is much riskier than with most characters; an unreactable frame 10, disjointed kill move in DL might just swat you away if it doesn't outright kill. You CAN predict the DL, but at that point the Corrin can read this and land on stage for free. Dair and counter also deserve a mention; the former being a relatively fast and greatly disjointed vertical divekick that can autocancel from a bit below the ceiling, while the latter is likely the most usable counter in juggle situations (although mighty punishable if whiffed).

That said, I agree that her disadvantage is nowhere near top tier, specially not vs an opponent who knows what to look out for.

 

[C0rvus]

Corrin's matchup spread is currently under developed but I think it could end up being quite good, and he'll land somewhere around the Pits or above. Many characters struggle with his zoning and turtling, especially slower characters or those with poor range (likely has a positive MU with the likes of the plumbers + Wario) but his advantage and disadvantage, while not bad at all, are pretty tame for top/high tier standards. Yes, nair and sometimes dair and pin need to be respected, Corrin has very little to threaten a grounded opponent with. With few ways to maneuver to the floor save the aid of platforms and DL mixups, the character doesn't have a terribly explosive disadvantage, though his aerials are pretty fast (frame 6 nair iirc, frame 7 fair) and his counter can really pop someone for a poorly executed juggle attempt.

I think, like many zoners, he struggles with characters with strong rushdown like Fox, but he also has the potential to be out-zoned because of his mobility, but also because of the way he struggles with non-linear projectiles. So characters like Toon Link, Pit, Duck Hunt, and Olimar may be worth exploring for mains of both characters.

 

[Shady Shaymin]

Every day I learn something new about that character that makes me hate her even more. Her combo starter specials disregard weight values completely? What the actual ****? Why does this one character have so many tools at her disposal that seem to just be completely contrary to the fundamentals of this game? Forget about dumb ladder jank. What other character in this game can use up specials more than once in the air, let alone have an up special anywhere as good as witch twist? What other character has a frame 1 air dodge? Why do captain falcon's mediocre rushdown specials and his aerial falcon kick have startup and endlag, while bayonetta can just throw out her high-reward burst mobility nonsense and be almost unpunishable? With all these strong anti meta traits, you'd think they'd compensate in some crucial areas. Nope. At least cloud has mac-tier recovery most of the time. Bayo's got everything.

Why is she even in this game? She didn't win that ballot by any significant landslides. She comes from a game where you massacre angels with chainsaws while your breats and asscheeks fly around like it's a melee TAS. She's also inspired by Western character design, so she's not even a real waifu. Smh!!!

 

[HoSmash4]

Here's something I've been wondering about more generally:

Why are some limits surpassed by players, while others aren't?

Specifically, I'm thinking about the difference between using Sheik and using Zelda. Pre-patch, Sheik's weakness was supposed to be that she has a difficult time killing, but players found ways around that, developing 50/50s that gave Sheik the edge in many situations.

Zelda is supposed to kill more easily, but it's a challenge, for example, to precisely land her lighting kicks with any consistency. However, if we have all of these strong players who are smart and technically skilled, what is it about the lightning kick sweet spots that make them so difficult to land? Why is this a barrier that top players haven't been able to overcome (in before "because no top players use Zelda?").

Maybe the hitbox for it is horrendously bad?

Lets compare Falcon knee to Zelda lightning kick: Falcon has much superior mobility to position himself to land a sweetspot, setups like uair/dthrow which are much safer and reliable than whatever setups Zelda has into it. Sometimes its not a fact that no one amazing has picked up that character, its just that character isnt good.. and needs buffs.

Bayo/Rosa getting nerfed isnt making Ganon's matchup with Sonic any better, lets remember that.

 

[LancerStaff]

Meta-changing knowledge right there. The things you learn.

For those Bayo-defenders, this is just more proof how poorly designed she is. If you want an example of something that needs to be gone, it's that right there. Because **** the rules that the rest of the cast has to follow, ya know.

Thank God for folks like Kurogane.

If a combo oriented character couldn't combo properly I'd say that'd be a bigger design failure then if she was as good as pre 1.1.5 Sheik. If her combos didn't work she'd be lower mid tier at best.

 

[Ninety]

You mean if her combos followed the same rules as the other 57 characters'?

 

[Rizen]

Here's something I've been wondering about more generally:

Why are some limits surpassed by players, while others aren't?

Specifically, I'm thinking about the difference between using Sheik and using Zelda. Pre-patch, Sheik's weakness was supposed to be that she has a difficult time killing, but players found ways around that, developing 50/50s that gave Sheik the edge in many situations.

Zelda is supposed to kill more easily, but it's a challenge, for example, to precisely land her lighting kicks with any consistency. However, if we have all of these strong players who are smart and technically skilled, what is it about the lightning kick sweet spots that make them so difficult to land? Why is this a barrier that top players haven't been able to overcome (in before "because no top players use Zelda?").

It's more about Sheik being a much better character than Zelda. Zelda can Dthrow>read air dodge (trying to escape Nair or Uair, % depending) >Fair. But to do that she has to actually approach and therein lies the game. She generally gets zoned hard, is easy to read and has to commit to punishable options. Zelda's setups are also much less reliable than sheik's.

 

[Shady Shaymin]

You mean if her combos followed the same rules as the other 57 characters'?

I love how that LancerStaff is convinced that if witch twist et al actually corresponded with weight values, then she wouldn't work as a character. My friend, THAT is what we call bad design.

 

[R3D3MON]

Here's something I've been wondering about more generally:

Why are some limits surpassed by players, while others aren't?

Specifically, I'm thinking about the difference between using Sheik and using Zelda. Pre-patch, Sheik's weakness was supposed to be that she has a difficult time killing, but players found ways around that, developing 50/50s that gave Sheik the edge in many situations.

Zelda is supposed to kill more easily, but it's a challenge, for example, to precisely land her lighting kicks with any consistency. However, if we have all of these strong players who are smart and technically skilled, what is it about the lightning kick sweet spots that make them so difficult to land? Why is this a barrier that top players haven't been able to overcome (in before "because no top players use Zelda?").

Good question. I think it is because of multiple factors that includes the character's history (stigmas), the actual properties of the move (the hitbox is reallllllly small), and also just the timespan of the meta in general. And this is what I want to focus in: the timespan of Smash 4's meta. The game's meta has not been around nearly as much as melee, and people didn't become good with unknown/underrated characters in one or two years. For example HBox didn't become a god in one or two years with Jigglypuff, and Peach was placed rather low in the melee tier lists until Armada's rise to fame. And both of these characters were rather underrated in the beginning. Another great and recent example is Pikachu and Axe.

Another reason why I think Zelda has been less developed is because of patches (or the continuation of patches, to be more specific). Patches do change the game, and this is for both Zelda the character and MUs in general. I think people (and Sakurai) should really allow the meta to settle down and develop because the amount of MU that you have to learn in this game is immense and as seen before with top tier characters (i.e. ZSS), counterplay takes a very long time to develop, even for simple combos/kill confirms, etc. It takes a long time for the meta to really develop, and it is even more challenging when the meta is changed suddenly and without prior notice (i.e. patches). We should let the meta settle down first and develop before we judge Zelda (although imo she does not look like a character that can go very far in tournaments because her options are rather committal, similar to King D3 in that regard).

 

[TTTTTsd]

You mean if her combos followed the same rules as the other 57 characters'?

Entertainingly it's a double edged sword though obviously still moderately in her favor.

JJRockets doesn't have to put "This was only tested with Diddy" anymore as far as optimal DI goes. Granted Gravity and Fallspeed do still play a role for certain followups as DanGR said (let's not forget that) but hey! Interesting tidbits, at least my DI doesn't have to be different when I use a different character.

 

[BunbUn129]

We Meta Knight players had to lab what specific percents the ladder worked on each character.

Bayonetta has a design anomaly that basically means she can partially bypass that and be more consistent with less effort.

 

[TTTTTsd]

On that note, how is it even possible to be coded like that? @Aerodrome help a bro out.

I actually think they should put this kinda thing on certain rapid jabs or moves that could actually use the knockback consistency LOL now that I know it's possible I'm sad they didn't experiment with it more. Like maybe perhaps on Duck Hunt's Smash attacks =O or moves that people commonly fall out of (not necessarily combos)

 

[Yonder]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JG5U1RKGPww

Mewtwo "infinite", what do you all think? It's basically an loop of the nair to footstool fast fall disable Aba pulled off at Pound.

 

[NotLiquid]

I love how that LancerStaff is convinced that if witch twist et al actually corresponded with weight values, then she wouldn't work as a character. My friend, THAT is what we call bad design.

If we're only speaking logistically I'd say having moves made in a way that guarantees follow-ups into each other (specifically in a way that can suit her game plan) isn't so much bad design as it is, possibly, misguidedly deliberate design. Back when the Smash 4 Direct revealed what she could do I rationalized that her long combo strings was a way to offset the level of damage she would actually dispense on account of combos since trailers have a habit of overselling character capabilities. Several ending strings didn't seem like they provided much knockback while it was hard to gauge her damage output due to concealment of percentage counters. The way combos work with Bayonetta remind me of how people in this thread recently have compared her to Ryu in terms of how her moves and buttons work but that Ryu needs the additional button presses and better hold of the situation to pull it off. Bayonetta just takes that concept and owns it, to that end certain fixed properties are partially given.

The only bad part about it is how she's allowed to bypass the specific traits inherent to her in order to guarantee off-the-top kills (which compound onto her already insanely good counter), and I'm not sure whether that has necessarily much to do with the fact that several moves to her have fixed treatment of weight. There's always the risk that unlocking the weight might just make life worse for characters who aren't as advantageous for it, and if nothing else this seems to make DI more of a linear process.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Bayo/Rosa getting nerfed isnt making Ganon's matchup with Sonic any better, lets remember that.

No, but the Wizkick buff definitely helps somewhat. Also Sonic was never as bad as Bayo is, as while neutral is awful and requires way too much guesswork for way too little reward, he doesn't really kill Ganon that efficiently, so you at least have time to see if you can pull it out with skillful reads/dumb luck. Bayo can camp you out with Bullet Climax, run away with Divekick, throw you offstage and use Nair's magic hit box to gimp, Witch Time your attacks while exploiting your poor grab game/iffy Flame choke followups, or just pull off an old-fashioned ceiling death combo. Sonic is really lame, Bayo is really lame while also being insanely terrifying.

 

[LancerStaff]

I love how that LancerStaff is convinced that if witch twist et al actually corresponded with weight values, then she wouldn't work as a character. My friend, THAT is what we call bad design.

Ensuring a character works as intended is bad design now?

See, looking at characters like Bayonetta is what convinces me that that Sakurai doesn't really care about 1v1 balance. By making Bayo work in FFAs she became one of the best 1v1 characters. Witch Time is a great example of a move that's way stronger in 1v1s simply because they want it to be balanced for FFAs.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Ensuring a character works as intended is bad design now?

See, looking at characters like Bayonetta is what convinces me that that Sakurai doesn't really care about 1v1 balance. By making Bayo work in FFAs she became one of the best 1v1 characters. Witch Time is a great example of a move that's way stronger in 1v1s simply because they want it to be balanced for FFAs.

would dispute your assertion that Sakurai doesn't care about 1v1 balance. Bayo is only borked because of how new she is and that the dev team hasn't quite gotten around to fully fixing her. Also Witch Time was substantially nerfed in the last patch.

 

[NotLiquid]

I've actually come around a little bit on the idea of a potential Bayonetta nerf being negating damage/KB the longer they're inside a combo string.

If you're going to turn her into a MvC3 character you might as well go all the way. It'd probably take the longest amount of time to fix of course because that'd require a whole new set of parameters and values that I don't think Smash has a proper reference for (mostly because most of the way Bayonetta combos aren't necessarily treated per the way training mode counts true combos), but that way you can let Bayonetta keep having her tools while making them less guaranteed to kill. Players might be opted to shorten their combos if they want to create more of a distance after they've finished their string.

Ensuring a character works as intended is bad design now?

See, looking at characters like Bayonetta is what convinces me that that Sakurai doesn't really care about 1v1 balance. By making Bayo work in FFAs she became one of the best 1v1 characters. Witch Time is a great example of a move that's way stronger in 1v1s simply because they want it to be balanced for FFAs.

Of course, there's this too. Bayonetta is one of those characters that, for the most of the part, is somewhat impractical in a FFA situation. It makes you wonder just how much of all the balancing changes throughout Smash history have been done for the sake of FFA rather than 1v1. Maybe that's the real reason it took so long to fix Sheik.

 

[BunbUn129]

Ensuring a character works as intended is bad design now?

See, looking at characters like Bayonetta is what convinces me that that Sakurai doesn't really care about 1v1 balance. By making Bayo work in FFAs she became one of the best 1v1 characters. Witch Time is a great example of a move that's way stronger in 1v1s simply because they want it to be balanced for FFAs.

and to an extent have always been bad in FFA's and they were nerfed.

The only character who's god-like in both FFA's and 1v1 is .

 

[ligersandtigons]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JG5U1RKGPww

Mewtwo "infinite", what do you all think? It's basically an loop of the nair to footstool fast fall disable Aba pulled off at Pound.

honestly, would anyone care if footstools were removed from the game?

 

[sedrf]

i would because they look kinda neat

 

[NotLiquid]

honestly, would anyone care if footstools were removed from the game?

Hey man I'm banking on footstools (or should I say TOADstools) to create the resurgence of the Peach meta, babyyyyyy