Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Swamp Sensei]

We are starting to ignore Pikachu's positives...

I understand people think he's overrated but I think some people are taking that too far.

 

[Das Koopa]

ZeRo released the second part of his "Best Players of Each Character" video.

- Regi
- Sol
- Scizor
- Ven
- ZeRo
- Ray Kalm
- Hyuga
- Jonny Westside
- Nairo
- Earth

All of these are pretty much on point, though I wish Purple Guy at least got an honorable mention for Zelda.

I knew he'd pick Scizor after that incident with Izaw lol (Scizor's probably better anyway)

But yeah this isn't disagreeable at all otherwise.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Pika discussion is a good thing IMO.

Pika had so much good theory, amazing results, and was widely perceived to be top 5 a year ago, and now the discussion is all about why these things aren't true/the amazing results don't happen anymore. Pika is a great debate ground for which pros and which cons matter most, especially since the same arguments and conclusions can sometimes be applied to other characters..

Not to mention Pikachu hasn't really had any direct nerfs and every nerf to the top tiers makes him even more viable. The only thing holding him back from being top 5 is his lack of representation and that results are like heroin to Smashboards

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

I knew he'd pick Scizor after that incident with Izaw lol (Scizor's probably better anyway)

But yeah this isn't disagreeable at all otherwise.

He actually did not pick Scizor because of bias. He asked many link mains who is better, and they answered scizor because of better results.

Source: im in his Discord

 

[Shaya]

The thing with Illuminose is that he verbose but he doesn't actually respond to anything, he uses buzz words he probably doesn't understand in sentences in a way that don't seem wrong, but they aren't really arguing anything. Like I've brought up numerous times; theory and theory crafting is great, but a hyper majority of people SUCK at it beyond disbelief.
I'd rather not reply seriously to them, because when I do, they don't actually respond to me, they just cherry pick a few sentences to get mad at to 'prove' everyone is sheeple/toxic.

Pikachu discussion is like the scorn of this thread.
I can guess as to why. ESAM is a hero to people. And Pikachu is notoriously difficult to deal with on wifi or at lower levels of play.
"All my frustrations against dealing with his small size, the difficulty reacting* I have against QA that the precision available to one playing offline or with experience would negate significantly goes way over my head"
"I find Pikachu very difficult to play against and I have someone out there, an authority I can use to assert that it's not me being bad or not perceiving the way wifi skews game play and match ups, but in fact Pikachu is a godlike character"
"and nothing, not even the toxic sheeple of the Competitive Impressions Thread can ever convince me otherwise as both my experiences against Pikachu and the words of ESAM match perfectly together, it's like fate and destiny and ****".
"This has never made any more sense to me!"

*P.S. Not exclaiming that QA is super reliable to react to in every scenario, but the movements a pika makes before they QA are muddled and can't be called out in any extra input delay.

Now when I've said Pikachu is possibly mid tier, I obviously mean a pretty solid one.
He's still better than majority of the cast.
And I think I've made sure nearly every time the conversation has come up to concede that it's very possible he's a lot better.

Let's take a quick gander at how I would roughly justify this:

The normal distribution (something something maths) is a cool thing, a lot of things naturally tend to follow normal distributions and they're primarily used for probability factors.
The middle of the pack, or the most common (1 standard deviation) is 68%~ of the sample. In context of smash4 this is close to 40 characters. And roughly 14% (8~ characters) on each side are a second standard deviation.
Now I'm not saying the balance in this game perfectly represents a normal distribution (although it will likely lead towards it if balance patches were to continue), but when I think of high/top tier I'm thinking roughly 10ish characters (3rd deviation/top/bottom equating to around 3 characters) and those who are roughly similar in power level, but by chance (*cough*) Pikachu doesn't fall into that by my view. He's noticeably more towards that upper portion of 40ish characters in capabilities.

---

Now otherwise, I read a relatively solid response/pro-pika post a few weeks back (maybe longer) that I mostly agreed with until they came around to "pikachu's amazing landing options, such as down air" as apart of the "theory as to why pikachu is top tier [edit] is better than mid tier"
Unfortunately for theory crafters who aren't using real theory [as per usual] that's blatantly incorrect

P.S., those two landing attacks (bair/dair) assume frame synching. -26 and -19 is totally safe landing options.
The anecdotes prove it. THEY'RE DIFFICULT TO PUNISH ON WIFI.
"That's my theory".
Yeah, Pikachu becoming a pancake during 20+ frames of lag is truly grating, shame no one has a down tilt

Anyway, the last "theory" (maybe I should stop using this word because of how debauched it has become) post I made as to why else Pikachu has issues beyond the commonly heard "no kill confirms, light weight, blah blah". Not as hard facts as pikachu having close to the worst spread of landing lag in the game and in contrast to other commonly considered high tier characters an extremely out of place (read: not great) auto cancel spread (y'know, with Sheik's sub -5s including +0, ditto to Sonic, Fox, Mario, Cloud, Ryu, Falcon, etc etc etc)

Not having any horizontal range in his aerials, nor a good anti air tool from the ground (ftilt isn't rewarding, and up tilt does get played around/outranged) or any safe landing (non-ac'd) aerials and hence and otherwise average spread of out of dash options (up smash and dash attack [underrated move imo] aren't safe and his grab reward isn't exemplary, and a low tier dash to shield sitting at 14 frames) is a very difficult character to succeed with in this meta game / general game balance. I can't think of a character who has comparable horizontal/range weaknesses as pronounced as Pika. These are not insignificant!
...
I genuinely think he's kinda struggling to be above high mid tier. But it's possible he can be better than that..

Now I find it funny that my "theory" that says Pikachu's dash options are poor (it's hard to argue they aren't, IMO) vs the guy I'm referring to who stipulates "pikachu has a good fox trot" as apart of the general theory/actualisation of Pikachu's amazing strengths paints a picture to me about howgenerally delusional pro-pika supporters can be [the ones that at least come into this thread to cause havoc through vitriol].
"Keep cherry picking strengths and ignoring weaknesses" - Pika motto since October 2014

Going by his FRAME DATA AND BASE STATS in contrast to other "good characters", it's out of place if you don't consider Pikachu's unique-ish strengths of size/etc being heavily limiting balance factors to his kit. If he had "normal" feather weight stats with his hurtbox/animation design, he would likely truly be busted.
But just because he is light and "mobile" (Roy has similar limits to his great mobility too, to compare similar set ups), doesn't mean you should assume he has things as good as sheik, fox, mario, etc.
The numbers can be shown to not be the case for this.

Anyway, let's never talk about Pikachu ever again.

 

[**Gilgamesh**]

D1 commented on stream on Mr. R Vs DkWill, and said that Mr.R SD'ed and apparently did not know Donkey Kong could break shields with Side-B and got his shield broken as well (He was actually in the lead with with 70%ish stock lead). Context in a set is very important or it can skew perceptions; not any single one of you mentioned this when discussing DK vs Sheik etc.. but used that BAD set as an example to support DK. Carry on...

 

[sedrf]

He shaya is their any mid or high tiers that are a few tweeks in buffs or just rep to become top tier.

 

[Shaya]

He shaya is their any mid or high tiers that are a few tweeks in buffs or just rep to become top tier.

I'd "guess" approximately 34-68% of the cast

 

[Megamang]

Pikachu's cited 'great landing options' probably takes Quick Attack into account. Then, he can either punish you for going to where he is, or he can zip away.

Unfortunately, many of the best characters are really good at covering that kind of thing, and don't mind if he just retreats to corner stage because tjolt isn't imminently threatening. Especially since any character getting their BnB damage dealer is probably pretty happy vs Pika, if your char can kill early it can probably end pikachu really early.


Take greninja for example. Landing traps are reduced by quick attack, but there is the additional possibility of a simple QA read (not nearly as hard as you'd think, because Pikachu has obvious targets for canceling) leading to a finishing smash. Additionally, the moves like dtilt that set up into usmash aren't escapable by Quick Attack unless the damage range is way too high, so it doesn't really save the immediate threat of disadvantage leading to a kill. Pika has to play the same AD or attack gameplan, but aerials aren't great for challenging (though f3 nair is nice!) but he is... just killable. Its not rare to get an early kill on pika, especially with rage.

On the other hand, he can steal games at any point with a string leading to a gimp. In that way he has a powerful advantage stage, but some characters don't care. which is rough for the little guy.

 

[Rizen]

I'll reinforce 2 points brought up: Scizor is the best Link and Link beats DK slightly. IMO.

 

[sedrf]

I think maybe people are discouraged by the label of mid tier because awhile ago and the later addition of where is someway the majority of the casts middle and lower class maens the character is "invalidated". Going against them was hard and generally unpleasant. So when people say ,or where just simply mid tier ,people think of a pre patch heavy where going against any of the top 5 is the equivalent of stabbing yourself with a fork. And people haven't got over the apex/ceo era of the 3 goddesses+diddy. Really there is a lot of new variety due to buffs and the defanging of the two who held the lower class in an anaconda fashion. The nerfs of other problem children like also helped too.

All in all developing something that is actually not as good due to the perceived power creep from a long time ago and personal biases.

 

[Aaron1997]

I've Always thought Pacman was at least +1 on DK, Will and HIKARU seem to agree with me. The best Player in my scene mains DK and he's always been forced to switch to Lucas or not go dk at all

 

[Ninety]

We are starting to ignore Pikachu's positives...

I understand people think he's overrated but I think some people are taking that too far.

His recovery tools are pretty lousy. They're worse versions of Fox's, which is not a good thing. Being a fastfaller makes him combo-prone as well.

Yeah I can see why you'd think that Swamp Sensei

 

[Y2Kay]

Yeah I can see why you'd think that Swamp Sensei

Heavy Lobster was talking about Falco . . . . .

 

[ARGHETH]

Yeah I can see why you'd think that Swamp Sensei

...
...
Uhh, dude?
Pikachu isn't even a fast-faller.

 

[A10theHero]

Hi, miss me?

The thing with Illuminose is that he verbose but he doesn't actually respond to anything, he uses buzz words he probably doesn't understand in sentences in a way that don't seem wrong, but they aren't really arguing anything. Like I've brought up numerous times; theory and theory crafting is great, but a hyper majority of people SUCK at it beyond disbelief.
I'd rather not reply seriously to them, because when I do, they don't actually respond to me, they just cherry pick a few sentences to get mad at to 'prove' everyone is sheeple/toxic.

I hope I didn't do this then, Sir Shaya.
I put a lot of thought into what I wrote~

Pikachu discussion is like the scorn of this thread.
I can guess as to why. ESAM is a hero to people. And Pikachu is notoriously difficult to deal with on wifi/for glory.
"All my frustrations against dealing with his small size, the less reactive ability* I have against QA that the precision available to one playing offline would negate significantly goes way over my head"
"I find Pikachu very difficult to play against and I have someone out there, an authority I can use to assert that it's not me being bad or not perceiving the way wifi skews game play and match ups, but in fact Pikachu is a godlike character"
"and nothing, not even the toxic sheeple of the Competitive Impressions Thread can ever convince me otherwise as both my experiences against Pikachu and the words of ESAM match perfectly together, it's like fate and destiny and ****".
"This has never made any more sense to me!"

*P.S. Not exclaiming that QA is super reliable to react to in every scenario, but the movements a pika makes before they QA are muddled and can't be called out in any extra input delay.

To be honest, I don't feel like this is a fair depiction. You're saying that Pikachu is difficult to deal with online, but not mentioning that he's difficult to play as well. Pikachu might be able to go unpunished in lag, but so can you. Everything is slower on wifi. Not just for the person playing against Pikachu.
QA is not nearly as effective as it is offline either--it becomes much more sloppy and imprecise. And to QA effectively, you have to be precise. For example, I was in an online tourney recently, and in loser's finals, I lost two matches due to lag changing the timing for the second input of QA, causing me to fall to an untimely death (). It also interrupted a fair string that would've won me one of those matches too. >.>
In short, Pikachu's not the same online and offline, just like anybody else. People might miss punishes on Pikachu in lag, but the opposite is true too. What you're saying is wifi skews MUs in Pikachu's favor when that likely isn't the case. Pikachu is adversely affected too, possibly even more so because he's not a good c-stick warrior.
Going by this logic too, we could say the same thing for every character in the cast especially since a lot of top players have...interesting opinions.

Now when I've said Pikachu is possibly mid tier, I obviously mean a pretty solid one.
He's still better than majority of the cast.
And I think I've made sure nearly every time the conversation has come up to concede that it's very possible he's a lot better.

Let's take a quick gander at how I would roughly justify this:


The normal distribution (something something maths) is a cool thing, a lot of things naturally tend to follow normal distributions and they're primarily used for probability factors.
The middle of the pack, or the most common (1 standard deviation) is 68%~ of the sample. In context of smash4 this is close to 40 characters. And roughly 14% (8~ characters) on each side are a second standard deviation.
Now I'm not saying the balance in this game perfectly represents a normal distribution (although it will likely lead towards it if balance patches were to continue), but when I think of high/top tier I'm thinking roughly 10ish characters (3rd deviation/top/bottom equating to around 3 characters) and those who are roughly similar in power level, but by chance (*cough*) Pikachu doesn't fall into that by my view. He's noticeably more towards that upper portion of 40ish characters in capabilities.

This is an interesting interpretation.

Now otherwise, I read a relatively solid response/pro-pika post a few weeks back (maybe longer) that I mostly agreed with until they came around to "pikachu's amazing landing options, such as down air" as apart of the "theory as to why pikachu is top tier".
Unfortunately for theory crafters who aren't using real theory [as per usual] that's blatantly incorrect

P.S., those two landing attacks (bair/dair) assume frame synching. -26 and -19 is totally safe landing options.
The anecdotes prove it. THEY'RE DIFFICULT TO PUNISH ON WIFI.
"That's my theory".
Yeah, Pikachu becoming a pancake during 20+ frames of lag is truly grating, shame no one has a down tilt

I can't speak for that person (unless it was me, in which case, what was I thinking lol), but I can only see down air being good if you want to trade aerials, but even then, the first hitbox comes out at F14, so it's kinda slow. But I do agree that Pikachu can still land pretty well mostly because of Quick Attack. Having the ability to change where you land based on where you input is pretty good, especially in a stage with platforms. (However, again, lag reduces this effectiveness. I don't think it's fair to bring that up since every character might appear safer in lag.) Other than that, Skull Bash also has a use (for once) in this regard, though it is kinda linear when mixing up landings. It's only "good" when you're high up.

Anyway, the last "theory" (maybe I should stop using this word because of how debauched it has become) post I made as to why else Pikachu has issues beyond the commonly heard "no kill confirms, light weight, blah blah". Not as hard facts as pikachu having close to the worst spread of landing lag in the game and in contrast to other commonly considered high tier characters an extremely out of place (read: not great) auto cancel spread (y'know, with Sheik's sub -5s including +0, ditto to Sonic, Fox, Mario, Cloud, Ryu, Falcon, etc etc etc)

What makes a great autocancel spread, in your opinion? All aerials except bair can cancel out of a SH, so for the most part, this landing lag won't be a problem. Even then, dair and bair, the moves with the most landing lag, have some slight compensation. I agree though that they're not "amazing": If you see Pika Glider, just get ready to dtilt and try and avoid the shockwave of landing dair. It only lasts for two frames anyways.
Also, I looked at the landing lag spreads for a bunch of top/high tiers, calculated both the average and median landing lag and compared them to Pikachu's:

Spoiler

Ryu:
Average 12.8
Median 14
Zero Suit Samus (Without Zair/With Zair)
Average 15.2/14
Median 11/10.5
Mario:
Average 15.8
Median 12
Sheik:
Average 16.6
Median 12
Captain Falcon:
Average 16.8
Median 12
Rosalina & Luma
Average 17
Median 18
Cloud:
Average 17.6
Median 15
Villager
Average 18
Median 15
Meta Knight
Average 18
Median 18
Ness:
Average 19.4
Median 17
Fox:
Average 20
Median 22
Diddy
Average 20
Median 21
Sonic:
Average 26.2
Median 26
Pikachu:
Average 26.8
Median 24

Note: I would be very grateful if someone could check to make sure I did the math right!

This data shows that among these characters Pikachu has the lowest average and the second-to-lowest median landing lag. It makes it pretty clear that he has higher endlag compared to other characters. Nobody can deny this. However, I wouldn't call it "extremely" out of place. He has similar data to Sonic. He's not an outlier by any means. Even then, this ignores autocancels, which help Pikachu compensate for this a lot. Like I said, in most situations, he won't be experiencing this atrocious endlag.
Finally, I need clarification: When you said -5s and such, what were you referring to? Is it the initial autocancel windows? Or something else?

Now I find it funny that my "theory" that says Pikachu's dash options are poor (it's hard to argue they aren't, IMO) vs the guy I'm referring to who stipulates "pikachu has a good fox trot" as apart of the general theory/actualisation of Pikachu's amazing strengths paints a picture to me about howgenerally delusional pro-pika supporters can be [the ones that at least come into this thread to cause havoc through vitriol].

As a whole, I don't know how I'd rate Pikachu's dash options. It depends on what I guess. Like, Pikachu's initial dash animation is pretty long. Although he travels a nice distance, the time between dash and shield is longer than for most characters. His foxtrot is good for a jab lock after a prat fall or regular missed techs. The dash to shield time problem is there though in other situations. But also, Pikachu is tied for second best roll and spot dodge in the game. Those could actually be decent options out of dash. I guess meh and decent average out to average then? I dunno.

"Keep cherry picking strengths and ignoring weaknesses" - Pika motto since October 2014

My motto is to try to balance data and context. Both are really important, and it's hard to do much of anything without both.

Going by his FRAME DATA AND BASE STATS in contrast to other "good characters", it's out of place if you don't consider Pikachu's unique-ish strengths of size/etc being heavily limiting balance factors to his kit. If he had "normal" feather weight stats with his hurtbox/animation design, he would likely truly be busted.
But just because he is light and "mobile" (Roy has similar limits to his great mobility too, to compare similar set ups), doesn't mean you should assume he has things as good as sheik, fox, mario, etc.
The numbers can be shown to not be the case for this.

I added more Frame Data and Stats to this convo. Are you proud of me? :D
I still feel uncertain about where Pikachu should be ranked. When people ask me, I just tell them that he's in the upper half of the cast, lol. That's all I feel like I can say with certainty.

Anyway, let's never talk about Pikachu ever again.

Or at least not without me. And when I have a midterm the next day. And lots of homework to do. Sigh...the things I do for Rat.

 

[Djent]

I was ready to complain how we've stumbled on the Eternal Returning Pikachu again, but Shaya decided to head the issue off.

Anyway, I like Gaussian/normal distributions (and things that can be modeled by them), but I'm not sure to what extent Smash 4 can be. A fairly competent process of buffing low tiers and nerfing top tiers should, if anything, condense whatever power distribution existed already. So unless you think that the 1.0.0 power balance had an unusually large σ (or if DLC represents the reintroduction of true outliers), we're probably looking at something with a more condensed probability mass than an idealized Gaussian spread would have. Now, with such a large number of characters getting consistently good results, I'd argue that this is what we actually observe empirically.

 

[Megamang]

A thing about results re: the distributions

Bringing the actual power level a little closer also has a greater effect on the result aspect, since you have people more willing to repreasent the characters if the game is even (me, and im sure others) and skilled players of the other characters more able to break the mold of top tiers, so to speak.

 

[Ninety]

Heavy Lobster was talking about Falco . . . . .

Oh, you're totally right. Since it was sandwiched between all the Pikachu posts, I misread the quoted one. My mistake.

 

[Shaya]

He shaya is their any mid or high tiers that are a few tweeks in buffs or just rep to become top tier.

To answer properly, I think a lot of characters could have simple tweak buffs and suddenly be truly scary/front runner.
Do I think there is some secretly underrated character with strong rep would suddenly be top? Not really, that's not how I work/think. I'm happy to be proven wrong by sudden shock and horror, but as of yet there haven't really been many instances of this. I try not to think "definitely this/that" and tend to have semi-accurate ballpark feels on characters I've studied to some extent (i.e. Doc Mario isn't abysmal was something I was happy to press, then Nairo against ESAM happened and it was suddenly 'fact', I was suggesting that Mewtwo was a feasibly serious threat for a while and Aba picking him up was like "well, this is is inevitable" and bang Pound).

So in essence, a lot of middle-ish characters with a few tweaks could suddenly be gods.
Do I think there are some underrated characters yet to have top rep to really sell their strengths to the general populace? Sure, but I contemplate their shortfalls aren't fully known to me or are at least more difficult to overcome than I expect if they haven't happened yet in any observable manner.

If another string of buffs came to Marth, I would be contemplating a feasible top tier. His current strength now is solid. Ike mains are already starting to get upset when people are nonchalantly rating him below Marth. The end is nigh
But this has a lot to do with their design being a standard "top tier design". We know Marth can be top tier. And characters with similar kits can obviously also be be relatively simple to push towards top tier; "hello Mewtwo" (because tails are sometimes effectively swords).

Range, frame data, mobility -> causes fear, hence shield/other defensive options -> base abilities are fine/great at dealing with defensive options -> also naturally does great things out of shield due to range, mobility, frame data.

If Greninja's fair was sub 10 frame start up, it would be hard for me not to consider him a staple top tier-esque design (well, him gaining a horizontal rising aerial option that hits people on the ground, basically). If Lucario's tilts and aerials were slightly easier to poke with like he had in Brawl, he'd probably be etching towards top tier too; but I think Mewtwo was designated to take that niche from him.
But this style of design that is the basis of the strength of Sheik, Zero Suit, Diddy, etc etc are not the only styles that can be top tier but they really need a lot of padding in certain areas to compete (like let's say, throw in some super armor or invincibility [mario], have extremely strong frame advantages hence insane combo games/KO confirms [fox, ryu], or zonezonezone [Rosalina]).
Cloud is this design but noticeably lacks the forward facing pokes (like standardish fairs or down tilts); I'll get around to it at some point but I currently believe Cloud is a lot more honest than given credit for.

Either way I think the character with the most amount of yet to be seen potential: Corrin
Character with only a few tweaks would be making everyone cry indefinitely forever because it would be super-brawl-wario on crack: Wii Fit Trainer.
But Megaman with less lag on his aerials would be demonic as well. Heck the lists could go on indefinitely.

 

[Y2Kay]

To answer properly, I think a lot of characters could have simple tweak buffs and suddenly be truly scary/front runner.
Do I think there is some secretly underrated character with strong rep would suddenly be top? Not really, that's not how I work/think. I'm happy to be proven wrong by sudden shock and horror, but as of yet there haven't really been many instances of this. I try not to think "definitely this/that" and tend to have semi-accurate ballpark feels on characters I've studied to some extent (i.e. Doc Mario isn't abysmal was something I was happy to press, then Nairo against ESAM happened and it was suddenly 'fact', I was suggesting that Mewtwo was a feasibly serious threat for a while and Aba picking him up was like "well, this is is inevitable" and bang Pound).

So in essence, a lot of middle-ish characters with a few tweaks could suddenly be gods.
Do I think there are some underrated characters yet to have top rep to really sell their strengths to the general populace? Sure, but I contemplate their shortfalls aren't fully known to me or are at least more difficult to overcome than I expect if they haven't happened yet in any observable manner.

If another string of buffs came to Marth, I would be contemplating a feasible top tier. His current strength now is solid. Ike mains are already starting to get upset when people are nonchalantly rating him below Marth. The end is nigh
But this has a lot to do with their design being a standard "top tier design". We know Marth can be top tier. And characters with similar kits can obviously also be be relatively simple to push towards top tier; "hello Mewtwo" (because tails are sometimes effectively swords).

Range, frame data, mobility -> causes fear, hence shield/other defensive options -> base abilities are fine/great at dealing with defensive options -> also naturally does great things out of shield due to range, mobility, frame data.
A character like Mac overtly covers this, but only on the ground, and with a large amount counterplay [i.e. 'single button presses and I can lose/die syndrome'] that stops them from being clear high tiers.

If Greninja's fair was sub 10 frame start up, it would be hard for me not to consider him a staple top tier-esque design (well, him gaining a horizontal rising aerial option that hits people on the ground, basically). If Lucario's tilts and aerials were slightly easier to poke with like he had in Brawl, he'd probably be etching towards top tier too; but I think Mewtwo was designated to take that niche from him.
But this style of design that is the basis of the strength of Sheik, Zero Suit, Diddy, etc etc are not the only styles that can be top tier but they really need a lot of padding in certain areas to compete (like let's say, throw in some super armor or invincibility [mario], have extremely strong frame advantages hence insane combo games/KO confirms [fox, ryu], or zonezonezone [Rosalina]).
Cloud is this design but noticeably lacks the forward facing pokes (like standardish fairs or down tilts); I'll get around to it at some point but I currently believe Cloud is a lot more honest than given credit for.

Either way I think the character with the most amount of yet to be seen potential: Corrin
Character with only a few tweaks would be making everyone cry indefinitely forever because it would be super-brawl-wario on crack: Wii Fit Trainer.
But Megaman with less lag on his aerials would be demonic as well. Heck the lists could go on indefinitely.

That Greninja fair story sounds pretty cool, but imagine if Greninja's nair came out on like frame 5? The foot stool combos would be a lot more easier to do then! Please give me that buff, sakurai!

 

[Shaya]

I was ready to complain how we've stumbled on the Eternal Returning Pikachu again, but Shaya decided to head the issue off.

Anyway, I like Gaussian/normal distributions (and things that can be modeled by them), but I'm not sure to what extent Smash 4 can be. A fairly competent process of buffing low tiers and nerfing top tiers should, if anything, condense whatever power distribution existed already. So unless you think that the 1.0.0 power balance had an unusually large σ (or if DLC represents the reintroduction of true outliers), we're probably looking at something with a more condensed probability mass than an idealized Gaussian spread would have. Now, with such a large number of characters getting consistently good results, I'd argue that this is what we actually observe empirically.

I'm no mathematician, it's actually my weakest area of study. Ughh, I suck at maths.
But I do use the idea for formulating a tier list; knowing that this game may not be able to be modeled by it, but it'll likely approach it. And we kinda are if we think about it. I at least expect a 'middle tier' of 2/3rds of the cast and that's where a lot of discourse is headed.

But yeah, at this stage, we see no one (and there aren't enough characters for it to be) that would constitute the 99th percentile. Bayonetta maybe? Jigglypuff on the other end maybe?
But we won't know that any time soon for sure, although enough people believe Jiggs is a stand-alone notable 'worst character'.

 

[DungeonMaster]

What comes to Pikachu being hard to combo, his hurtbox is pretty bad in tumble because of his tail which causes a lot of attacks to connect easier than they would otherwise (this is the only reason Pikachu is one of the characters Falcon's dthrow to knee is guaranteed on at specific percents).

Oh man this information just made my life easier, it's tidbits like this that I come to these forums for. Aim for the damn tail. Who would have guessed?

 

[Browny]

I was ready to complain how we've stumbled on the Eternal Returning Pikachu again, but Shaya decided to head the issue off.

Anyway, I like Gaussian/normal distributions (and things that can be modeled by them), but I'm not sure to what extent Smash 4 can be. A fairly competent process of buffing low tiers and nerfing top tiers should, if anything, condense whatever power distribution existed already. So unless you think that the 1.0.0 power balance had an unusually large σ (or if DLC represents the reintroduction of true outliers), we're probably looking at something with a more condensed probability mass than an idealized Gaussian spread would have. Now, with such a large number of characters getting consistently good results, I'd argue that this is what we actually observe empirically.

Whoa math terminology overload.

Character bias is far too strong to have any hope of ordering characters with accurate mathematical methods. Unless you want a pure 100% results based tier list where you somehow had a way of measuring how much of a top players' success is due to their specific character, the character bias overpowers everything.

Remove just one top player from every top/high tier and have them switch main to a bottom/low tier respective and watch the tier list implode.

 

[sedrf]

Before you go to do mod or zss stuff.
Is healthy design/meta game wise?
Also how is cloud more honest than expected, as a cloud player I would like to know?

 

[Das Koopa]

I'll hazard a guess at the rest of ZeRo's picks

Spoiler

: TLTC
: Pugwest
: Ryo
: Jerm
: Dandy Penguin
: MikeKirby
: Leo
: Big_D
: Larry Lurr
: Keitaro
: ESAM
: Bloodcross
: Day
: RDR7
: iStudying
: 8BitMan
: FOW
: Fatality
: Ranai
: Myran
: John Numbers
: Darkwolf
: 2manycooks
: lol i dunno
: Tea
: Scatt
: Komorikiri
: Abadango
: i dunno lol
: i dunno lol
: Trela
: Komorikiri
: 9B
: Dapuffster
: i dunno lol
: Chibo

 

[Browny]

Motsunabe or however you spell it for best Lucario.

 

[Y2Kay]

Motsunabe or however you spell it for best Lucario.

yeah you spelled it right. and yeah, he's best lucario right now.

 

[Megamang]

Jiggly is actually a character I would put into that mid tier list of 'a few buffs and she could be terrifying', even though without those buffs I do believe she is one of the worst characters. But, she is just shy of having a great advantage. Mobility buffs would fit her design paradigm, and would make rest super terrifying if an airdodge rest could beat roll back, and if she could place pound a little more.

Hell, imagine if they buff Pound so she could use it freely without it stopping her, just like her other aerials. She'd be just a fast character who can pick an aerial that decimates your shield, or other good options. Her nair alone is great, and leads to knockdowns. Rest can be amazing, if you place it just right. And it can straight up beat out options with its instant start up.

But... every character kills her pretty easily, and she isn't quite mobile enough to be scary. Hard landing lag and meh ground game hurt too, and jumpsquat also ruins her burst hitbox ability. Any of those things being improved and we'd have a viable fighter imo.


EDIT: Anyone have good links to that Lucario? I can only find something from december '15.

 

[DanGR]

As I understand it, there's no reason Smash4's tier list should necessarily follow a normal distribution. Gaussian distributions describe the distribution of random [often-times naturally occuring] variables. Smash4's character variables (attributes) are far from random; they're intentionally manipulated by the developers- imperfectly so, at that.

 

[Shaya]

Before you go to do mod or zss stuff.
Is healthy design/meta game wise?
Also how is cloud more honest than expected, as a cloud player I would like to know?

I don't know for sure. I think she is way overly skewed towards easy execution low risk extreme reward game play that places the onus of dealing with her heavily on the opponent rather than it reflecting the player using them, a lot more than any other character currently in the cast. It existed for WiiU release Diddy.
"It's easier to use competent Bayonetta successfully than it is to combat competent Bayonetta effectively".
So I don't think that's healthy, no. But it isn't necessarily the end of the world either.

And as I hinted towards it's to do with the lack of immediate safe horizontal pokes.
He is overtly compensated for this lack of such tools by having an insanely good 8? edit: 11 frame dash to shield for a character with his range and mobility (in contrast to Marth/etc). Such a dash to shield replicates option spread/abilities as to what Marth would do with down tilt. There's more risks/shortfalls for both however you think about it.

But a way to put it would be that Cloud has blind spots. And his compensation for these blind spots are great (better than just about everyone else), but they still can be played around and put considerable pressure on Cloud to succeed. The overview of this that we're commonly seeing suggested is that Cloud struggles with shield.

Furthermore, after the up air damage nerf he no longer has an extremely borked KO move that is as easy to use as it is. His only safe to attempt KO moves are back air and down air unless he's in limit.
But Cloud being in limit places a big huge sign over his head that he's going to be aiming for cross slash and both you and the opponent know that. The cards are revealed to everyone on the table.
He currently causes a lot of free fear on the opponent when you play him and it's lovely how abusive this is, but Cloud is either nair confirming into cross slash or you did something very silly you shouldn't have and you had heaps of brain processing time to contemplate how to avoid it. He has guaranteed traps from it (in and around the ledge usually), but if he didn't he just straight up wouldn't be able to KO; and this is not unlike other character's "guaranteed traps".
As overtly strong as it is, he is being completely open with his preferred option spreads at any given time and has to work to KO you.

As an aside, Limit Cross Slash has a guaranteed shield drop power shield between the second last and last hits. This is just like perfect execution snake forward tilt in brawl.
Difficult to time but otherwise guaranteed 15ish frame punish.

 

[Pancracio17]

I beleive cloud frame 7 u air covers a good range in front of him, no? the lasting hitbox doesnt but early hitbox covers a huge area.

 

[NairWizard]

I took a break from smash and this topic and came back to find even more Pikachu discussion as the first thing I read. Thankfully it's been rather substantive this time around rather than people who know nothing about the character making empty claims as it normally is. My contribution here is going to be to correct some misconceptions and then offer a matchup chart based on my experiences.

I think if Shaya and others seem biased against Pikachu it's because they have to be to act as a corrective force to the massive amounts of unjustified hype regarding the character that sometimes makes its way around the theory table.

#1 is that Pikachu absolutely struggles with characters that have outrange him. How often do you see people talk about Mario's range like it's the worst thing in the world? You don't.

This is because Mario's effective range in the air is much higher than Pikachu's because Mario has better horizontal air speed.

But in general I agree that range is not really an issue for Pikachu. Sure, he would like more range, but it's not holding him back from winning tournaments. There's never a moment where I go, "oh, if only my f-air reached a little further, I'd have been able to win this set." His KO power, on the other hand, is really bad. It's even worse than you probably think it is, relative to the cast.

1) Pikachu has 0 kill confirms off of tilt-speed moves. These are characters with easy/useful kill confirms of some kind or just generally good setups (or a strong kill throw):



2) Pikachu doesn't have a single aerial that kills. These are characters who aren't in the first group but have usable aerials that kill at reasonable percents or are easy to set up into:
(I am counting Bouncing Fish as an aerial, yes)

3) Pikachu's smashes are middling for randomly throwing out, d-smash and up-smash are awful and f-smash is good but difficult to condition someone to fall into. These are characters who may have some trouble getting an aerial kill (either due to mobility or range) but have more widely applicable smashes or setups, or just stock cap throws:


4) These are characters in a similar predicament:


Of these, Shulk has killing aerials in certain arts, Bowser Jr has better ledge traps with up-smash (and b-air kills I think?), Pacman has aerial key or fruit setups, DHD has some setups and a stock cap throw. And let's not forget that Yoshi (who might have Pikachu-level KO problems) and the vast majority of characters on all of these lists are heavier than Pikachu, often by a good bit.

He's not just bad at killing, he's like bottom 5 at killing. When you are just barely better than Duck Hunt at killing because you can land a surprise smash or edgeguard, you know you've got it pretty rough.

To be fair to Pikachu, he can condition into KOs better than the other characters in #4. But he's not anything like Mario or Luigi in this regard, and even they have at least one option in the air that will end a stock if the opponent gets to obnoxious %s.

And Pikachu is notoriously difficult to deal with on wifi/for glory.

Actually I think that playing as Pikachu online is more difficult than the reverse due to landing lag issues.


Anyway my thoughts:

the reason I say "mid tier" is because he doesn't beat relevant characters and because Mario is almost impossible just because of how well-suited Mario is to the MU

 

[san.]

I don't know for sure. I think she is way overly skewed towards easy execution low risk extreme reward game play that places the onus of dealing with her heavily on the opponent rather than it reflecting the player using them, a lot more than any other character currently in the cast. It existed for WiiU release Diddy.
"It's easier to use Bayonetta successfully than it is to combat Bayonetta effectively".
So I don't think that's healthy, no. But it isn't necessarily the end of the world either.

And as I hinted towards it's to do with the lack of immediate safe horizontal pokes.
He is overtly compensated for this lack of such tools by having an insanely good 8 frame dash to shield. An 8 frame dash to shield replicates option spread/abilities as to what Marth would do with down tilt. There's more risks/shortfalls for both however you think about it.

Hate to be the nitpicker, but if this is correct, Cloud's dash->shield is the average 10 frames (ignore the +1): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...O18BmHhvIBMzZLWBpLFyNsi14c/edit#gid=550638974

The kicker is that Cloud has to compensate for the holes in his attacks with nair, but nair has a smaller hitbox than what the visual implies (though it's made up with the amount of disjoint).

 

[Shaya]

I love nitpickers, actually. So thanks, I hate errors~
Whoever originally said to me Cloud has the same dash to shield as Sheik though, I usually rely on dantarion data dumps for this info :<

Anyway reworded
"He is overtly compensated for this lack of such tools by having an insanely good 8? edit: 11 frame dash to shield for a character with his range and mobility (in contrast to Marth/etc). Such a dash to shield replicates option spread/abilities as to what Marth would do with down tilt. There's more risks/shortfalls for both however you think about it."

However, Nair is -everything- to Cloud for applying pressure, and is also his technically most demanding move to be successful and safe with. I probably only love to play Cloud because of neutral air lol; it does basically everything just like Marth's nair in brawl .
Full hop rising nair does make things a lot easier/cheesier, but people will overcome that with time.

 

[Routa]

: Dapuffster

Dapuffster retired from Sm4sh tho. The best Brawler tittle might belong to Yikarur.

Tbh no one has any idea who is the best Swordfighter. According to reddit it could be Trela (never a serious Swordspider user). In the other hand it could be Nyani, but she has been inactive. So who are we left with? Colgate? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When it comes to Gunner... Well Chibo takes the cake when it comes to results. But skill wise San might have a better Gunner tho. Too bad he lacks results. He suffers from Ike main problems.

 

[C0rvus]

Djent's kill moves groups were missing Meta Knight. He has 2 pretty good killing aerials, a low commitment fsmash, a decently strong and fast up smash, some kill confirms into Shuttle Loop, and a stock cap up throw. So I'd say he's pretty good at killing

Character is in a weird spot right now. It's hard to name the best MK player, because of how much the patch affected his meta. Some players whose style relied heavily on the up air combo are suffering, and results are hard to quantify atm. I struggle to consider Abadango the best MK because of this, but time will tell.

 

[ぱみゅ]

If Trela won't count for Swordspider (which he shouldn't), the only player left is Nyani, and she doesn't even use it for every MU.

btw, Pikachu's Nair is a great killmove except it lacks range, particularly in the sweetspot (that is near-Lightning Kick level difficult to land), but I've seen it being used for punishing airdodge reads and to abuse QACs (when applies).
But other than that Piakchu does rely on reads to kill.





BTW, Raziek and Dath's MU spread for Robin: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...qn1mTDYhkf_E/edit?pref=2&pli=1#gid=1189498893

 

[ARISTOS]

If Trela won't count for Swordspider (which he shouldn't), the only player left is Nyani, and she doesn't even use it for every MU.

btw, Pikachu's Nair is a great killmove except it lacks range, particularly in the sweetspot (that is near-Lightning Kick level difficult to land), but I've seen it being used for punishing airdodge reads and to abuse QACs (when applies).
But other than that Piakchu does rely on reads to kill.





BTW, Raziek and Dath's MU spread for Robin: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...qn1mTDYhkf_E/edit?pref=2&pli=1#gid=1189498893

Those MU's look like nonsense

 

[ARGHETH]

BTW, Raziek and Dath's MU spread for Robin: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...qn1mTDYhkf_E/edit?pref=2&pli=1#gid=1189498893

Visual Reference:

Note: 55:45 = +1, 60:40 = +2, etc.