Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Smooth Criminal]

LBB isn't that great of a KO option. Kind of an easy read, doesn't kill 'til higher percentages (like, far higher than stuff like Limit Cross-Slash), and it's easily negated.

Dash attack is good and viable as an option, but it's not what you should be aiming for to seal the deal. Cloud has slightly better tools than this. Easily exploitable and punishable.

Uair is probably the best option of these, mainly because despite the slight nerfs it still doesn't give a **** about anything in, around, or above Cloud.

Still, trust in Limit Cross-Slash.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Fatmanonice]

Cloud? Limit blade beam kills, dair can kill in three different ways, fair can kill in two different ways, bair kills, nair easily kills offstage, and, of course, limit cross slash but these are just the low risk kill options. He still has dash attack, his smash attacks, and finishing touch too. He's not exactly lacking anything in reliable kill options. He ain't no Duck Hunt.

 

[Shaya]

Doesn't cloud have KO options from a read like Dash attack, Uair and limit blade beam?

All of those are not exactly killing early. High rage, high heights up air is doing it. Poor DI on sweetspot dash attack can do it earlier than you expect to. Limit Blade Beam is something difficult to trap with but you're primarily looking at that KOing people off stage (at least that's the rare usage I go for it for), certain tech situations would allow it but if you're in limit chances are you can be in their face with limit cross slash in the same amount of time.

Dash Attack is one of Cloud's best moves though, so perhaps it's staled too much for me to ever see it killing below 150%. Although there are radical instances of seeing it KO around 120.

 

[Ninety]

Did Finishing Touch stop being a thing outside of Doubles? Or did people like, just start to prefer LCS in all cases?

 

[ARISTOS]

Tbh Limit Cross Slash is so good it makes the other options completely inferior. LBB won't kill until well into the 130% range and can really only be used to trap landings and offstage shenanigans, FT can no longer set up kills thanks to the nerf of the aerial version, and Climhazard doesn't kill, and in situations where you can Climhazard you can also CS.

Cloud has kill options but IMO outside of LCS and Dash attack catching landings none of them are too spectacular. Most important thing is to stay grounded so you can't be sniped by an errant Uair.

 

[ARGHETH]

Did Finishing Touch stop being a thing outside of Doubles? Or did people like, just start to prefer LCS in all cases?

Pretty much. LCS is better in most cases except for really low % kills.

 

[Shaya]

Basically.
It has high start up, relatively high cool down. It KO's noticeably later than it did before, essentially outside the ranges of what his sour spot auto canceled moves can achieve.

Still can be set up into in such a way on an air dodge read but like.... why risk it?

It's probably better this way anyway. Having a move comparable to KO punch on a much easier to achieve set up wasn't exactly fair/balanced.
But it's still quite strong in doubles use but not so much that it's completely centralising.

Good balance job imo.

And just as I didn't say it before, Up Air is still getting you KOs, including landing up air into double jump up air. But Back/Down Air are comboing out of those set ups as well and are killing earlier.

If I'm near full rage and I can hit someone with double jump (height reference) up air for a KO before 120% I'm completely chuffed with myself. It still feels really good despite it being like the 4th/5th best KO move he has.

 

[Megamang]

Between its ability to just out button you, its long lasting duration, and its massive hitbox (a real killer on ledge and platform situations) its hard to see LCS outclassed by something so much slower and easier to stop, just for a relatively small power increase. If you are in a close game, with rage, LCS will usually be enough to kill. Its just a matter of creatively landing it, which is still much easier than Finishing Touch.

Then it was nerfed. And the power gap grew even more negligible.

 

[Chalice]

Ftilt is a good kill option at the edge. I like covering ledge get up options with Nair while turned away from the stage since it starts and ends behind Cloud. I've gotten random kills on Middleweights at like 130% like Mario using it with rage. I also like doing perfect pivot Ftilt because it covers the same distance as dash attack and is better at the edge due to the angle it launches people at. Also it has less cooldown

 

[Charoite]

Cloud recovery problems are in the same realm as sheik killing problems, bayo startup problems, rosalina weight problems, they are a hassle but not "big weakness"

 

[Megamang]

Ftilt is a good kill option at the edge. I like covering ledge get up options with Nair while turned away from the stage since it starts and ends behind Cloud. I've gotten random kills on Middleweights at like 130% like Mario using it with rage. I also like doing perfect pivot Ftilt because it covers the same distance as dash attack and is better at the edge due to the angle it launches people at. Also it has less cooldown

Yea, and that is a fair application with the move. But, it means if they get their shield up, they are safe. If it was an absurdly safe poke, they'd still be pressured at the ledge. Considering Cloud's kit, that wouldn't be fair. Its just a decent tilt on a really really strong character, and thats fine.

I'm just saying, characters that can have super powerful aerials and ground moves exist, and they are all heavies, with all the associated problems.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Cloud recovery problems are in the same realm as sheik killing problems, bayo startup problems, rosalina weight problems, they are a hassle but not "big weakness"

Bayo has a lot of issues other than startup. Mobility, weight, bad projectile, kill power outside of some bull**** ABK -> WT -> Uair at 50 that you can almost guarantee is going to be cut out in the next patch, recovery that's easily exploitable by disjointed characters (why aren't people taking advantage of this?)

Megamang I'm a bit surprised you didn't list Ike's dtilt as one of the good pokes

 

[KamikazePotato]

Cloud could have Limit Cross Slash entirely gutted and he would still be an amazing character. It might knock him out of top tier, but that's perfectly fair (and no character 'deserves' to stay in top tier, that's not how balance works). No one with frame data that good deserves what is probably the best kill move in the entire game.

 

[Thinkaman]

LCS is probably the single move that most warrants nerfing in Smash 4--though that doesn't say much, tbqh. I think Cloud could be a fine character with just LCS KBG nerfs and nothing else.

(Contrast with Bayo, who rather warrants more subtle SDI ratio and landing lag tweaks across several moves.)

I don't know if any other nerfs could have merit in the environment as we currently see it, though I'd like to see Rosa BKG cleaned up. (And let's be honest, a slap on the wrist to her uair would likely do the game more good than harm.)

But yeah, LCS is really, really good. Yeah, he can't readily confirm into it, but who cares? Never-mind that it's largely safe to throw out (which is fine!), the real power here is the massive restriction on what the opponent can and cannot do because Cloud is suddenly packing a frame-10 deathbringer as decently-ranged ground/aerial punish option.

 

[Megamang]

And when he is holding it, it gives him better mobility. Though that does make it so when you miss entirely, there is a significant punishment.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Cloud is about a hundred times more honest a character than Lucario. Lucario is the embodiment of dishonest jank. I love playing him but there's no way around admitting that he has to be one of the worst designed characters ever. I honestly think that without Aura he would easily be the worst character in the game. But then you reach 140% at one point and kill your opponent with bair at 60% and suddenly you win with a character that at lower percent you struggle to even succesfully land a full jab combo with.

It's interesting to see this big a discrepancy between how Japan and SWF view the Lucario vs Cloud matchup. I'm more inclined to believe that the truth is somewhere in the middle with Cloud slightly having the edge but not as bad as some people in here like to claim. Against Lucario it's not so much a matter of raw KO power but about how consistently your character can close out stocks at a certain point - Aura just multiplies everything, including staying power. There are many situations where it's easier to kill Lucario at 90% than at 130% or higher because the higher his percent - until he hits his aura caps - the better he can fight back and wall his opponents out. The more a character struggles to finish off stocks with a certain consistency the worse a time he's gonna have against Lucario. That may be old news but a lot of people still are a bit misinformed here because they think the power curve of Lucario rises consistently with percent but that's not the case. It's more like an exponential function [maths again!] where Lucario is essentially useless from 0-40%, underwhelming from 40-80%, solid from 80%-100%, scary from 100%-120% and completely ridiculous from 120% until the point he hits his aura cap. That means that there's a window of a good 100% where Lucario is a rock-solid low tier character, about 30% where he's like high-mid before he goes super saiyan for the last 20% until he hits his rage cap. For the most part fighting Lucario is about preventing him from reaching dangerous percents and killing him before that - a lot of characters can actually afford to take signifcant risks in the process because Lucario's punishment is nearly non-existent.

Characters that really give Lucario the business in that regard are ZSS, Fox and Mewtwo because they have the ability to remove Lucario's stocks consistently between 90%-110% at a time where Lucario is still somewhat defenseless [against characters of their caliber, mind you].

I'm still trying to learn more about the character but I think it's a good thing more people aren't playing him. I don't think a lot of people would enjoy it and I suspect his matchups are a lot more polarizing than most "pro-player" matchup spreads suggest.

LCS is probably the single move that most warrants nerfing in Smash 4--though that doesn't say much, tbqh.

I think that title belongs to Bayonetta's up B.

 

[Fex13]

cloud is no top tier.people need to stop with that nonsense and learn how to shield.
besides that, if it wasnt for LCS, clouds kill options are very very limited against good players. what else does he have that is reliable? Fsmash? lol

 

[BunbUn129]

These are the only nerfs that are needed, and after that, Sakurai won't have to neuter anything:

Cloud:
-Limit CS KBG reduced, ending lag increased by several frames
-Dair doesn't auto-cancel right after the hitbox ends, active frames reduced by 5

Bayonetta:
-Witch Time actually scales with the damage of the countered attack; Bat Within is removed here to make it more punishable.
-Witch Twist frame 4 -> frame 7
-Witch Twist and ABK have smaller hitboxes
-Bayonetta cannot reuse ABK after getting hit, making her feasibly edge-guardable along with the above point
-Each hit of fair has increased ending lag, unless immediately doing all three hits
-Of course, the design exceptions to Witch Twist and ABK (ignoring weight and gravity, disabling DI) should be fixed.

And if we want to go into buffs (regarding the more dysfunctional characters):

Roy:
-Hitstun on down throw increased / ending lag decreased
-Fair start-up frame 10 -> frame 7
-Air acceleration increased

Falco:
-Dashing speed 1.47 -> 1.7
-Jab properly links together

King Dedede:
-Air speed increased (why the nerf?!)
-Back throw sends more horizontally and with better KB
-Down throw has lower KBG
-Gordo reflect damage 2% -> 6%
-F tilt ending lag reduced / range increased
-Jab start-up decreased
-Basically undo the nerfs

Jigglypuff:
-Bair start-up slightly decreased, duration increased
-Down throw has lower BKB
-Dair landing lag reduced
-Roof blast KO's disabled on Rest
-Fair start-up frame 8 -> 6
-Uair start-up frame 9 -> 6

Duck hunt:
-Finally fix his smashes so they connect
-Make his up b a bit faster and/or travel farther

I may be missing some but eh. Just fix all that and the game doesn't need to be touched again IMO.

F Fex13 Cloud "is no top tier?" Have you not been keeping up with the meta? There is no way that a character who combines good frame data, absurd range and active frames, a charging mechanic, and great mobility all in one package is not top tier; his only two weaknesses, which aren't very exploitable in practice, are his grab game and recovery. His lack of extensive grab follow-ups is remedied by that fact that he gains so much off of positional advantage thanks to Limit Break, and his recovery is only a problem against characters who have the adequate tools to first get through his neutral game and then properly threaten him offstage. On the results front, he has m2k, Tweek, and Komorikiri, and he has surpassed Mario as the most popular pick in tournament play. Those are the traits and results of a top-tier character.

"Learn how to shield?" Cloud doesn't have to approach you to begin with when he can sit back and charge Limit with 0 commitment. A good or even decent Cloud player will space you out with nair, fair, and bair, and you often won't be able to punish them when they're spaced properly. And, like I said above, Cloud's lack of actual throw follow-ups doesn't matter because all he really wants and needs is positional advantage. Fox has been top 10 for a long time and he doesn't get much guaranteed off of his grab.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

I think that title belongs to Bayonetta's up B.

literally all they have to do is tone down the hitboxes so a few more characters can actually go out and edgeguard her, her recover is like Luigi's right now but with massive hitboxes.
I also think she should be doing a lot less damage per hit, nobody should be doing as much as Ryu that easily

cloud is no top tier.people need to stop with that nonsense and learn how to shield.
besides that, if it wasnt for LCS, clouds kill options are very very limited against good players. what else does he have that is reliable? Fsmash? lol

The problem is how insanely safe he is on shield. His kit is extremely good
He also has a lot of kill options that are completely safe, bair, fair, dair, upair, upsmash, his entire kit is amazing. Stop with the bad b8

 

[DunnoBro]

Yea just hold shield against the character with 80% of his moves safe on shield and let him charge his win condition.

IMO Cloud needs just a few things nerfed:

1: Mobility while in limit. It should be much easier to force him to use limit to recover, not to mention it's ACTUALLY impossible to space your aerials to beat his while he's in limit for a lot of characters. The best you can do is trade, but he'd likely win and get to recover for free if he didn't outright kill you.

2: Limit cross slash. Cloud's ledge coverage while he has limit is great and I like it, but since cross slash is SOOO strong when he actually uses it by the ledge with rage it tends to kill at like 70-100% Which I think is too soon for an easy on-reaction cover-all option. Blade beam is fine since it generally requires reads or the opponent to hit a button. Just 20% later would be fine.

3: His hurtbox. This is a weird one, but with his legs stuck out and his tiny waist it makes hitting him with certain moves really awkward even when he's in hitstun. This coupled with his mobility in limit makes comboing him really awkward.

I've seen duck hunt's frisbee go directly through his body while he was fsmashing. For a character like greninja to have an awkward hurtbox and air acceleration mechanic makes sense, but it just doesn't on cloud. It also doesn't even seem to be intended.

Overall he functions fine and while his vertical strings and starters are CRAZY it's really only while he's in limit that he becomes an issue. And it doesn't seem like they want to make getting limit a big chore for him, so they really need to nerf exactly how good he is while in limit then.

 

[Megamang]

Of course you can't just hold shield, but I do think that shielding against him, and DLC in general, is an important skill that is more emphasized in that MU than most. A powershield is one of the only ways you can out button their extreme safety, and grabs are nice because they are obvious *you are in an advantage now* button, even if they don't have combos (of course combos are way better)


Speaking of which, my Lucario improved dramatically when I learned his freakin grab was as fast as his jab (why f6 jab why) and started fair'ing from uthrow. Fair is one of my favorite moves in this game, 19 frame recovery after the hitbox is insanely good for beating airdodges in the air, though it is weak to trading until aura dog is somewhat charged.

Against little mac, I can bair to cause an airdodge, then fair him against the stage. I don't know why im talking about this, except that Lucario was brought up, and that I like playing him as a character.

I would bet that the Japanese scene's usual tendancy towards optimization leads to a pretty campy Lucario in that MU. Lucario can shield pretty much everything until he is forced to the ledge (which admittedly can happen quickly due to his recovery), while his grab actually combo's for more than Cloud's. (limit charge yadda yadda, his grab is doing more damage and also works better when Cloud is in limit, even causing deadly 50/50's since he actually doesn't have an immediate aerial). On the other hand... Aura Sphere starts being un-shieldable, and Luc has a deadly command grab when he gets your back to the ledge. And he is pretty damn resiliant off the top, if you can avoid dying to a ledge trap you'll live forever, uair isn't killing you for a while.


But I also agree that people are happy Lucario isn't a wide spread pick. It is a little silly when the initial minute of the match feels inconsequential to a few hits, but it does give Lucario a nice gameplan where he can look for tendencies for free, but has to switch his gameplan when the time comes or an early death spells doom.

 

[|RK|]

If Lucario were as widespread, I think he'd be getting the same complaints as Bayo. Sure, his kill options aren't present *all* the time. But when they're there...?

 

[Megamang]

They aren't as silly frame data wise, don't have huge hitboxes, don't work the whole game, and aren't giant purple **** you buttons. But yea, he is still annoying for the enemy, but hey, thats fighting games.

---

Something Mewtwo and Lucario can do, the latter when they are in higher aura, is really force the issue on a damaged shield. When I was playing mewtwo, I'd love when I hit 2 fairs on shield and they disengage, because a full charged shadow ball would suddenly be a shield breaker, which forces them to either time a good dodge (and deal with m2 at the same time!), full hop, or try and time a perfect shield. At the top level, players can probably perfect shield it moderately consistently. (though its hard with a small shield, so avoidance might be a more optimal plan) This is a good mixup even at close range, and actually makes 'charge my charge shot' an incredible button once you have done some shield damage, as it presses the issue, especially at unreactable launch distances.

But, again, top level has perfect shielding. I wonder how long until a top player really nails down the perfect shield option selects, and starts getting optimal punishes out of their shield. The powershield noise is already nice "REACT NOW" PING, and its only going to get better when you 'feel' (and believe me, once you get good at reacting audibly and the muscle memory down, you will) you can get, say, megaman's ludicrously powerful utilt, OOS on something like a poorly executed Cloud Bair/Aggressive Dair.

 

[Asdioh]

I see a lot of people complain about the knockback of limit Cross Slash, but I rarely see people mention the only thing that truly irritates me about that move: the gosh-darn invincibility. I am NOT a fan of invincibility on moves except in very specific cases, and I think the frame 6-11 invincibility on a10 frame strong, safe move is clearly excessive. Invincibility on upBs like limit Climhazzard is something we're all used to by now, and the invincibility on limit Blade Beam is a lot more reasonable (though technically he doesn't need that either) but the invincibility on LCS just removes too much counterplay. The move shreds through shields, is safe on shield, beats spotdodges and can often catch other dodges at the startup of the invincibility, so the most viable counterplay to the move currently is to either hope Cloud foolishly wastes it, make a very risky rolldodge, or to hit him with a sub-6 frame attack. If it weren't for the invincibility, you'd want to hit him with a sub-10 frame attack, which opens up a lot more options for every character.

I think LCS is the only problematic thing about Cloud, and the invincibility specifically. Even if he doesn't get changed ever again, I think he wouldn't become excessively dominate, and will always remain a very strong pick that is still reasonably beatable.



As for Lucario, imagine going through a gauntlet of skilled Lucario players at a tournament. Even if you're good at the matchup, it could become frustrating, because it takes very few mistakes to lose a stock/game/set to one, and the outcome of matches against him can feel more "random" than it does against most characters.

I bet if Riot Games was in charge of balancing Lucario, they'd weaken the effects of Aura, and make it more of a proactive ability than a frustrating passive one... like make it so that he gains more power if he continuously hits the opponent without getting hit himself, and then getting hit would reset him back to normal

But, again, top level has perfect shielding. I wonder how long until a top player really nails down the perfect shield option selects, and starts getting optimal punishes out of their shield.

Powershielding is Kirby's only viable solution to a lot of problems, but man it is annoying trying to get the timing down for arcing/bouncy projectiles like Thunderjolt, Aura Sphere, and Shadowball.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

What character would you guys consider to be the most versatile and flexible?

 

[BunbUn129]

What character would you guys consider to be the most versatile and flexible?

Cloud. You can play very defensively by charging limit and spacing with aerials, or you could play very aggressively by abusing his large hitboxes and good frame data. What stands out the most here is that Cloud's defensive play "feeds" his offensive play, as the insane mobility specs granted by a fully charged Limit Break open up even more offensive options with improved combo ability, aerial cross-ups and of course, with more threatening KO moves.

 

[sedrf]

Sheik has a little bit of everything besides solid kill confirms/throws

 

[Tizio Random]

What character would you guys consider to be the most versatile and flexible?

I think there are more than one answer to that question but I'll go for .
I mean, you have two characters. You can play extremely defensive, also using GP against projectile based character, you can wall your opponent with giant hitboxes (like wall of bairs), you can go offensive, you can base your game based on lunar landed aerials that open up combos or you could just send out Luma to make traps, using him as a bait, desync him and even more. I think not even half of her options are explored as of now.

 

[Megamang]

Fox is good at pulling wins out in versatile ways.

Uair chain off the ceiling is always a risk, a stray bair leads to his surprisingly potent ledge trap game, bair outright kills, random kill confirms in his kit, weak nair u-smash can kill annoyingly early and efficiently, and he can do many of these things on/from a platform.


Nothing sucks more than getting fair dragged onto a platform, getting uair'ed, landing on another platform, and getting nair-usmashed. That exact thing isn't common, but its what I mean by versatility, Fox's kit flows really well into eachother, and you have lots of options how to proceed in a situation, since none of your buttons are overtly the best to press (except friggin utilt is godlike in so many situations. In a way its better than usmash to catch landings, and can kill confirm anyways.)


I agree that Rosalina and Luma have a unique way to play. As does Lucario. Robin is different and zoney, corrin has lots of buttons to press at any moment.

Megaman can be a wall, like Scatt, or an aggressive trapping character trying to land a zdropped or regular B-thrown metal blade in the midst of battle, setting up into his mini-TSRK.

 

[BunbUn129]

Pre-patch Meta Knight could reliably win in a multitude of ways, and even now to a lesser extent. (I don't know why I didn't say this in my previous post).

Here you had a character who could choose between neutral-heavy gameplay, arguably the best KO combo in the game that could be set-up in more than one way, your typical KO set-ups at higher percents, KO moves that were reliable in themselves from a frame 8 up smash, safe f smash, and Shuttle Loop, along with two stock-cap throws, and deadly offstage and ledge-coverage options. It's only in retrospective that you can truly understand how versatile MK was--and still is.

The fact that you had Abadango taking wins with ladders, Tyrant often opting for edge-guards and up smashes, and Leo doing it all shows how much fire-power this character had across his gameplay.

Edit: happy page 300!

 

[Rizen]

What character would you guys consider to be the most versatile and flexible?

Off the top of my head

 

[Baby_Sneak]

When I mean versatile, I mean non-linear play style. Luigi isn't versatile, bowser isn't versatile, and little Mac isn't really versatile

 

[TurboLink]

Mario? Sheik?

 

[Megamang]

Ryu is an interesting combination of linear in many ways (no air accel changes, sure fire kill confirms all leading to one move) but has versatility in how his players approach his gameplan (abuse aerials? Tricky FA(DC) play? Grounded Warrior? A combination [which will be super scary in the future])

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Mario? Sheik?

I would say sheik is what I'm kinda thinking of in my head. You can play her almost however you want. Another person I can think of would be diddy. Diddy can zone (banana on floor + popgun), rushdown, runaway, and anything else. Ross is pretty versatile, but not as much because she really can't zone a whole bunch (she turtles. Zoning forcing your opponent to approach you. She really can't do that).

 

[bc1910]

Very few of the top characters have exceptional grab combos now. Throw combos are still important and even weaker ones can be good, but they have not been a necessity to be top tier for several months. Most of the good ones have been nerfed.

Cloud, Fox and Bayo get almost nothing from throws, though Bayo can get a shaky 50/50 with Uthrow into Witch Twist that is DI-able and usually doesn't work anyway. Sheik lost her exceptional 50/50 and whilst her throw combos are good at low percents, they're not exceptional except against fast fallers who can be regrabbed. I think Rosa gets Uthrow Utilt and Uthrow Uair? But nothing insanely dangerous. Sonic's Uthrow Uair is good but easy to DI, forcing Uthrow Fair which doesn't do much damage.

ZSS and Mario are the only ones left with exceptional grab combos I'd say. And even ZSS' have been toned down a lot with nerfs to Dthrow, Uair and Up B. I guess Diddy's are pretty powerful as well, but still nowhere near where they were.

S4 has come a long way from being "Dthrow Uair: The Game" like people thought at the start.

 

[Thinkaman]

I think that title belongs to Bayonetta's up B.

The thing about Bayonetta, and we're really just getting into semantics of the word "warranted", is that her dirty deeds involve all of upB1, upB2, sideB-up, sideB-down, uair, and arguably fair to all behave as they do.

You can have a trial, but you can imagine all these suspects yelling and pointing at each other.

The point is that there is a "trial" to be had, and no single move is the culprit. For example you could go nerf grounded upB1 into oblivion, and a significant percentage of Bayo's naughty stuff would still exist.


Meanwhile, there isn't really a trial to be had for Cloud; his problematic behavior is less egregious, but the culprit is super obvious.

Also, tbqh, as much as I'd like to encourage the (all too rare) mentality of balancing an overpowered character by emphasizing their weaknesses, I'm baffled at this concept that the issue with Cloud's neutral dominance is just that his recovery isn't bad enough.

It seems really disconnected to imagine someone like Wario getting shut out by Cloud, and thinking "Yeah, but if his recovery was just a little bit worse, I'd totally have this." Even the most severe nerfs to the vulnerability of Cloud's recovery would only really affect those characters already capable of effecting edgeguard situations.

LCS's excessive kill power, on the other hand, is a legitimate fear factor (not unlike fart, aura, or KO Punch) that turns Cloud's neutral dominance up to 11. Threats this important cast a huge shadow that influence every stock, even those where they themselves don't land the KO.

 

[TTTTTsd]

The thing about Bayonetta, and we're really just getting into semantics of the word "warranted", is that her dirty deeds involve all of upB1, upB2, sideB-up, sideB-down, uair, and arguably fair to all behave as they do.

You can have a trial, but you can imagine all these suspects yelling and pointing at each other.

The point is that there is a "trial" to be had, and no single move is the culprit. For example you could go nerf grounded upB1 into oblivion, and a significant percentage of Bayo's naughty stuff would still exist.


Meanwhile, there isn't really a trial to be had for Cloud; his problematic behavior is less egregious, but the culprit is super obvious.

Also, tbqh, as much as I'd like to encourage the (all too rare) mentality of balancing an overpowered character by emphasizing their weaknesses, I'm baffled at this concept that the issue with Cloud's neutral dominance is just that his recovery isn't bad enough.

It seems really disconnected to imagine someone like Wario getting shut out by Cloud, and thinking "Yeah, but if his recovery was just a little bit worse, I'd totally have this." Even the most severe nerfs to the vulnerability of Cloud's recovery would only really affect those characters already capable of effecting edgeguard situations.

LCS's excessive kill power, on the other hand, is a legitimate fear factor (not unlike fart, aura, or KO Punch) that turns Cloud's neutral dominance up to 11. Threats this important cast a huge shadow that influence every stock, even those where they themselves don't land the KO.

I'm coming back in to challenge this, but only this, because I feel like it's important and it's something I doubt anyone else would say.

You can nerf the reward of LCS all you want but that won't stop it from being incredibly stupid in neutral, incredibly free, and incredibly oppressive. Nobody talks about the actual reason, though killing early with really favorable stage position is quite nice I guess.

Why would you neuter the reward instead of gutting what actually is absurd about the move: Its cooldown. Rather, its LACK THEREOF. I ran a comparison, from the time the hitboxes end to the FAF, it has less recovery frames than Mario USmash. You can throw this move out and only a handful of chars can whiff punish it in most circumstances where using it is a good idea. Note that this doesn't include throwing it out stupidly, but you can sometimes get away with that too! Why is gutting the reward of something like this the first thing on the mind instead of gutting the obnoxious safety it has? Compare it to Waft which is also REALLY safe but Waft has the long charge timer and it's not manual in the same way Cloud's is. That last paragraph about how the threat makes the neutral hard? That just described Ryu TSRK and by extension Ryu in some ways. The big difference is Ryu's TSRK has a clean hit, has confirms into it (from sub Frame 7 moves, even!!!), but also cannot just be thrown out because it has significant recovery frames. This kind of thing is worth thinking about, they already tried to cut the KBG of LCS and while it was a small change I think it demonstrates the point pretty well.

Also no the most severe nerfs for his recovery could easily make him free to literally anyone in this game if they really wanted to. Climhazzard's descending hit no longer grabs ledges and the startup of Climhazzard no longer enables a ledgesnap. If we're talking severe nerfs to his recovery than both of these would easily make him free to dropdown Bair from literally the entire cast because he'd be defaulted to going low and not getting the automatic snap. Do I think this is a good idea? No, not really. But they could damn well do it if they really felt like it.

That's all I have to say on this matter.

 

[HeavyLobster]

I'm coming back in to challenge this, but only this, because I feel like it's important and it's something I doubt anyone else would say.

You can nerf the reward of LCS all you want but that won't stop it from being incredibly stupid in neutral, incredibly free, and incredibly oppressive. Nobody talks about the actual reason, though killing early with really favorable stage position is quite nice I guess.

Why would you neuter the reward instead of gutting what actually is absurd about the move: Its cooldown. Rather, its LACK THEREOF. I ran a comparison, from the time the hitboxes end to the FAF, it has less recovery frames than Mario USmash. You can throw this move out and only a handful of chars can whiff punish it in most circumstances where using it is a good idea. Note that this doesn't include throwing it out stupidly, but you can sometimes get away with that too! Why is gutting the reward of something like this the first thing on the mind instead of gutting the obnoxious safety it has? Compare it to Waft which is also REALLY safe but Waft has the long charge timer and it's not manual in the same way Cloud's is. That last paragraph about how the threat makes the neutral hard? That just described Ryu TSRK and by extension Ryu in some ways. The big difference is Ryu's TSRK has a clean hit, has confirms into it (from sub Frame 7 moves, even!!!), but also cannot just be thrown out because it has significant recovery frames. This kind of thing is worth thinking about, they already tried to cut the KBG of LCS and while it was a small change I think it demonstrates the point pretty well.

Also no the most severe nerfs for his recovery could easily make him free to literally anyone in this game if they really wanted to. Climhazzard's descending hit no longer grabs ledges and the startup of Climhazzard no longer enables a ledgesnap. If we're talking severe nerfs to his recovery than both of these would easily make him free to dropdown Bair from literally the entire cast because he'd be defaulted to going low and not getting the automatic snap. Do I think this is a good idea? No, not really. But they could damn well do it if they really felt like it.

That's all I have to say on this matter.

It doesn't need to be punishable due to the charge time required for it. Shielding this move and then resetting to neutral is a win. The biggest issues its low cooldown presents are for ledge/edgeguarding traps, not because you can throw it out safely. If you're not getting reward of some kind when you throw it out your punishment is no more limit.

 

[KamikazePotato]

Also, tbqh, as much as I'd like to encourage the (all too rare) mentality of balancing an overpowered character by emphasizing their weaknesses,

While I do like this mentality, I think in Smash 4 it wasn't the right choices in most cases because for a long time, a good number of the cast were too powerful because of weird janky mechanics. Sheik had the easy 50/50, Diddy had hoo-hah, Luigi (although he was never really overpowered) had silly grab combos, ect. Emphasizing the characters' weaknesses in cases like those would have them overall more balanced, but it also would have made them more frustrating to play, while not fixing what made them frustrating to fight.

And like you said, in cases like Cloud and Bayonetta, I don't think emphasizing their weaknesses is the right answer. Will anyone really be happy if Cloud's recovery is made worse as long as Limit is still overbearing? Will anyone be happy if Bayonetta's frame data is made worse if she still has combos that, at worst, rack up an absurd amount of damage on you? It would just make the matches play out in a more binary fashion, where you have a basic win condition you have to achieve (gimp Cloud, punish Bayonetta) and you either win hard or lose easily. In general, I think that for balancing the top tiers, toning down their strengths would be the best choice in most cases. You could nerf Sheik's fair and she would still feel like Sheik. You could nerf Mario's frame data and he would still feel like Mario.

I'll also say that the inverse is true. To balance weaker characters in Smash 4, in most cases you don't want to emphasize their strengths, but shore up their weaknesses. I'll use Ganondorf as an example because he's one I'm familiar with - Ganondorf's core concept is to be a slow, powerful, heavy bruiser. However, his weaknesses prevent him from achieving that concept effectively. Ganondorf is already strong - he kills so, so early - and buffing his strength even further would just make matches feel more random, binary, and frustrating, because it would all be about hoping Ganondorf doesn't land a few lucky hits (at present, it's already close to being like that). However, there is room to improve his weaknesses while still keeping the core concept. You can buff Ganondorfs running/aerial speed and frame data and still have him be a slow, powerful, heavy bruiser, because those aspects of him are currently undertuned even when considering his core concept as a character.