Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Dre89]

I find it funny that people complained about chaingrabs in Brawl, but now everyone wants 30% combos and kill confirms from grabs.

 

[C0rvus]

I think there is a distinct difference between the two.

Also >generalizing
But yeah, I'm sure everyone wants their main to be rewarded for getting grabs.

 

[Fatmanonice]

For Glory is the only way for most of this playerbase to compete - not everyone has the time/money to travel to tournaments that aren't in their area. So yeah, it means a bit more than most people think it does.

Dabuz - what matchups do you think are so bad for Ike that you would put him in the -2 spot? I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the placement, as he does have some bad matchups, but he also has a lot of solid matchups against a lot of strong characters. The character doesn't get a ton of results, but from what I can tell it's more from just not being played very often than anything else. Thoughts?

I think this should be emphasized too because I totally get it. During the Brawl years, interest burned out in my area by 2009 so I could only compete in online tournaments. The closest tournaments to me where nearly three hours away and, given I was in the later years of my undergrad studies, I didn't have the incentive, time or money to travel. That said, it is true that For Glory is the only competitive outlet that a lot of people have so this is another reason why I don't think it's a good habit to bash them (unless they deserve it because god knows there are a lot of cocky, racist pug nuts on there).

I'm not Dabuz but, in my own experience, I think Mario is a really bad match up for Ike. FLUDD is cringe worthy good in this match up and Mario's typical fare seems to pimp slap Ike pretty hard. It's not a match up that comes up very often but I think Ike vs Pikachu is bad too especially if they have QAC down pat and, another rarity, I think Megaman vs Ike is a huge headache too. Mario's the only one I feel like most people would agree with me on though. On paper, I think Diddy would be atrocious too but I'll admit that I've never seen the match up play out before.

 

[Nekoo]

~ Roy fan waiting for a buff since 2001 ~

I hope your plan work Dabuz. Mr Soccer Guy Samurai forgot him when he designed Super saiyen with big sword Marth and buffed Marth/Long hair marth and muscular marth... he still forget fire marth.

And I personally think that people should stop trashtalking weakspot on move. Whenever it's Marth or Roy.

They have a lot of use. Especially for Roy.Falling up-air weakspot is a kill confirm with up-tilt. And I objectively perfer Roy/Marth/Marth with long hair b-air where the weakspot can lead to a lot of setup thanks for the fact that they turn around.

I know it's nice to do a lot of damage but if you forgot the utility then "GANONDORF IS DABEST. REVERSE B-neutral ohko."

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Mario is a losing MU for Ike, but not by that much. FLUDD you can actually completely get around if you space correctly: there's a sweetspot where Aether still snaps to the ledge but FLUDD can never hit it. Its the damage wracking from Utilt really that's the issue. Mario gets a lot of milage out of it and that dumb Usmash.

Ike has a slightly winning MU against Pikachu (not that ESAM will admit it). Ryo would have beaten ESAM back in EVO if he had held down during Aether, another Ike got nearly that close to beating ESAM before as well. He does nooooot want to be QAing too much: QA makes pikachu's hurtbox act really wonky, doubly so against massive disjoints. Main problem for Pika however is that he takes forever and a day to KO Ike.

MegaMan is pretty even. Its a lot of baiting back and forth on both ends Ike can swat out pellets which means MegaMan is trying to bait out pre-emptive swats. Which means Ike is trying to fake out MegaMan. And then its Ike's good range + KOing vs MegaMan's high damage wracking ability in a race to see who can KO who first. Scatt and Ryo just played recently. Scatt won, but it wasn't a blow out or anything. Would like to see the MU with both players used to it.

Diddy is one of our worst MUs. Still doable, but that banana is mad annoying.

 

[Shady Shaymin]

Is it just me or is anyone else kinda confused by ZSS's design? Her mobility and frame data gave me the impression early on that she was meant to be played rushdown, but her meh dash attack and generally meh approach options in the neutral suggested otherwise. Once the meta really settled during the "sheik days" in late 2015, the community seemed to have decided that she was a bait and punish character, as she got major rewards off of reads in exchange for a lacking neutral. I understood the punish part, but not so much bait, because unlike characters like Cloud, Fox, or even Bayonetta to an extent, ZSS didn't really have ways to force approaches, couldn't turtle due to poor OOS options (no rising aerials, although boost kick at higher percents worked) and actually struggled a bit vs zoning. So for a while I accepted her design as something of a "break the neutral, play safe in footsies, and go crazy when your opponent makes a mistake" type of design. Now that her rewards off of grab are worse, and her best approach option in Nair is slightly nerfed, I'm even more confused by the character and her gameplan. I know she's almost certainly still top 10 and has solid results, but I'd like to know a little more about the bigger picture of her as a fighter rather than individual strengths she has that I happen to know, like Nair being safe on block and jab being frame 2.

 

[G. Stache]

I find it funny that people complained about chaingrabs in Brawl, but now everyone wants 30% combos and kill confirms from grabs.

That may be because there's a difference between "Well, I just got grabbed and I'm about to die/take a good chunk of damage, but at least I can possibly DI and do something about it" and "Well, I just got grabbed. Wobble away, Ice Climbers!". The problem with your comparison is that it takes multiple conversions off grabs to get them to kill percentages while chain grabs require one, maybe two, conversions off neutral to take a stock away. You get grabbed by pre patch Luigi. Of course you're taking damage, but at least it's going to take him 3 or 4 more grabs to seal your stock (depending on rage and stuff). And even when you're sucked into one of Luigi's strings, there's still DI to help you get out of said combo...or at the very least make the combo a bit harder for Luigi to execute. Now you get grabbed by Ice Climbers (whether it be Melee or Brawl ICs) and that's it. Have fun watching your character slowly die. How about you go make yourself useful and get a sandwich or something? Because, unless that Ice Climber player messes up, then your character is getting messed up. Chain grabs are a league and a half cheesier than a very strong combo game off throws and there was a very valid reason to complain about them. Also, who's advocating for their main to have said '30% combos and kill confirms'? The only people I've really seen hint at that are the people who's mains genuinely deserve something along the lines of that (Like DDD and Falco). The rest seem fine with just minor tweaks with their characters, if that.

 

[Peppermint1201]

CaptainZack beating ESAM is up on YouTube:

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Seeing how good Marth has been doing I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up as a top 20 character, personally I could see him being around 17th. Just shave a few frames off of fairs landing lag and he's gucci

That list looks pretty decent to me.

Think Marth is kinda high there (and you can't have Marth that high w/o Lucina also being near there) but Pugwest is in a v. strong region so no complaints

Marth is leagues above Lucina, his tippers make him safer on shield and gives him more reward for doing everything a Lucina will do. Also, all of his aerials are KO moves, the same thing cant be said about her's

 

[Mazdamaxsti]

Random Kirby stuff? Pfft trust me I always make sure its more biased than random right guys?

In all seriousness I agree with Dabuz's list inside and out, I am surprised yet I completely understand Roy's placement.

 

[TurboLink]

Is it just me or is anyone else kinda confused by ZSS's design? Her mobility and frame data gave me the impression early on that she was meant to be played rushdown, but her meh dash attack and generally meh approach options in the neutral suggested otherwise. Once the meta really settled during the "sheik days" in late 2015, the community seemed to have decided that she was a bait and punish character, as she got major rewards off of reads in exchange for a lacking neutral. I understood the punish part, but not so much bait, because unlike characters like Cloud, Fox, or even Bayonetta to an extent, ZSS didn't really have ways to force approaches, couldn't turtle due to poor OOS options (no rising aerials, although boost kick at higher percents worked) and actually struggled a bit vs zoning. So for a while I accepted her design as something of a "break the neutral, play safe in footsies, and go crazy when your opponent makes a mistake" type of design. Now that her rewards off of grab are worse, and her best approach option in Nair is slightly nerfed, I'm even more confused by the character and her gameplan. I know she's almost certainly still top 10 and has solid results, but I'd like to know a little more about the bigger picture of her as a fighter rather than individual strengths she has that I happen to know, like Nair being safe on block and jab being frame 2.

Her jab is frame 1, not frame 2.

(Click Link. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°))

 

[wedl!!]

the introduction of Cloud/Bayo/Corrin makes peach sorta not solo viable IMO, although her potential to be solo viable was always somewhat questionable

Corrin is an iron fortress, especially against a character who hates swords. Corrin's low mobility and meh OOS don't really matter if Peach isn't really going to get close to her. Peach's meh landing options are really tested here. DFS goes from 10 to 11. Peach can handle her disadvantage well and exploit up-b, which is her main saving grace in this MU (her shield frame traps are not to e underestimated, although Corrin's meaty hitboxes often make quick work of the princess).

Cloud is similar, but imagine it with more Uair and more neutral dominance and more broken kill moves and less susceptibility to gimps(all Peach really has to reliably gimp him is z-dropped turnips, and against a good, properly DIng/recovering Cloud you'll be hard-pressed to hit him out of up-b often)

Bayonetta just up-bs/divekicks all of Peach's stuff and kills her at like 60%. Fun stuff.

sheik nerfs help her a bit (not dying at like 100 from a grab is awesome) but that matchup is still sorta bad

Let's not talk about Diddy/Peach.

There's other questionable matchups she has (, ,,,) although those matchups are not that common. Despite this Peach has good matchups (read: 99% likely to be even/minor disadvantage at worst) with some of the good characters (namely Sonic and Pikachu, although there isn't much to support either other than ESAM being bad at the Peach matchup).

 

[Megamang]

Yea, I feel like I just watched ESAM learning the Peach MU in reverse. Like, he was doing Corrin stuff to her, and he was killing her... then it was back to ESAM having a Peach problem.

Peach is cited always as having a high skill ceiling... What are some of the things that would come about with a very highly skilled peach? Float Canceling improving movement (but not top speed)? Complex Zdrop strings on shield?

Because I don't think Peach is a secret high or top tier. She can be doing whatever in her zone, and she is really scary when she gets in, but her zone is slow. Mobility is important, and I think it gets more and more important as the meta goes on. Its why ive got my cards on Greninja making top 15, even if it takes a year or so more.

Like, compare Peach to Corrin.. low mobility characters need a LOT to keep up with speed demons running around, doing 50%+ in advantage from a grab, and having superior projectiles.

 

[Cereal Bawks]

Ike: Ryuga and Ryo both have a secondary corrin for some of Ike's matchups and that says a lot to me

Wouldn't that make him a character that needs a secondary, not a counterpick character?

 

[Trifroze]

Is it just me or is anyone else kinda confused by ZSS's design? Her mobility and frame data gave me the impression early on that she was meant to be played rushdown, but her meh dash attack and generally meh approach options in the neutral suggested otherwise. Once the meta really settled during the "sheik days" in late 2015, the community seemed to have decided that she was a bait and punish character, as she got major rewards off of reads in exchange for a lacking neutral. I understood the punish part, but not so much bait, because unlike characters like Cloud, Fox, or even Bayonetta to an extent, ZSS didn't really have ways to force approaches, couldn't turtle due to poor OOS options (no rising aerials, although boost kick at higher percents worked) and actually struggled a bit vs zoning. So for a while I accepted her design as something of a "break the neutral, play safe in footsies, and go crazy when your opponent makes a mistake" type of design. Now that her rewards off of grab are worse, and her best approach option in Nair is slightly nerfed, I'm even more confused by the character and her gameplan. I know she's almost certainly still top 10 and has solid results, but I'd like to know a little more about the bigger picture of her as a fighter rather than individual strengths she has that I happen to know, like Nair being safe on block and jab being frame 2.

ZSS is a mix up based character that can do both zoning and pressure fairly effectively and safely using disjoints and her long limbs, but she can also bait and punish well enough when she needs to. Her real strength are the juggles, landing traps and ledgetraps that she gets from winning these exchanges, and the fact that she has a relatively easy reset back to neutral if she doesn't, although her light weight still causes highly damaging true combos and heavy hits to hurt a lot.

In neutral ZSS can be played in two kind of distinct ways; if the opponent is a brawler who has CQC good enough to beat hers, chances are they have range or mobility weaknesses to balance it out and thus can be kept away by ZSS with moves like zair, nair, bair, ftilt and paralyzer (DK, Luigi, Falcon for example), and if they're zoners who can outzone ZSS efficiently chances are she can get close with relative ease due to her good shorthop + overall mobility and then punish or pressure them with nair to jab 50:50s, dash grab, dash attack and just general jumping around their shield with aerials (ROB, Samus, Mega Man for instance). Sometimes both zoning and pressure are equally viable like versus Mewtwo or Rosalina, and sometimes neither really works to your advantage like versus Diddy and Sheik.

Up b out of shield is an amazing thing and so is spotdodge into up b or utilt. This sort of bait and punish might be a little bit underexplored with ZSS because of how everyone has gotten bodied by nair and uair combos so much that she hasn't needed to do anything like this. With that said, her f13 dash to shield is below average but luckily her shorthop gets her above most grounded hitboxes and projectiles pretty quickly. What comes to actual disadvantage for her, it's a relatively free reset to neutral due to her mobility, flip jump and super long range tether recovery.

Yet still, she can be mentally draining to play versus characters that have a comparatively effortless gameplans with highly damaging true combos and huge (or lingering) hitboxes and who take several more hits to die compared to Zero Suit's light weight and thin linear hitboxes that generally last for 2 frames each.

Once ZSS gets a decent hit in she naturally goes for juggles with uair, up b and usmash and landing traps with her disjointed grab, dsmash and sometimes dash attack. Combined with her mobility on the ground and in the air, this is the area of play where she actually shines even after her reward was reduced. What comes to offstage pressure, the one thing she really has going for her is how deep she can go and still flip jump back to the stage and meteor you or your ledgesnap in the process. As for actual ledgetraps, if the opponent has a recovery that autosnaps and hits above the ledge it's a problem for ZSS because then she can't pressure with ledgetrumps or down smash at all really.

(I'm aware I listed individual options, strengths and weaknesses, but they are there purely for context; to explain why she works the way she does in different gamestates)

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Wouldn't that make him a character that needs a secondary, not a counterpick character?

To add onto this: Ryo secondaries every FE character and half of low tier for kicks. Always gives the FE DLC character some attention for the first month or so.

There was a large tournament result posted in here I think last week where it showed that Ryo had gotten top 8 using only Ike. He's starting to revert back to normal. Ryuga I thought had dropped Ike for Cloud ages ago.

None of Ike's MUs are bad enough that he needs a secondary strictly speaking. Nothing worse than 40-60. He has enough where its a good idea, but its not needed. Brought this up before: Ryo got top 8 at MLG going strictly Ike and Ike has gotten buffed both directly and indirectly with bad MUs being nerfed since then.

 

[NairWizard]

This. This is why I don't like it when people dump on For Glory players. Chances are, you're not that great either, and if you don't even go to local tournaments, you can kindly STFU instead of bashing random people who just play these modes for fun. Nobody cares about your combo videos where you beat 9 year olds who think Bowser Bomb is the best move in the game. The most popular people who stream For Glory like Alpharad, Lythero, Acestarthe3rd, and StylesX2 don't do well in tournaments and I don't think a lot of their fans realize this. It's the equivalent of high school baseball players bragging about being able to trash tee ball players, knowing full well if they went up against MLB players, they'd get their *** handed to them in a popcorn bucket, drizzled with extra butter and the salt of their tears. Case in point, stay humble and try to help instead of hurt the people who are actually trying to get better.

I think that there's a significant misunderstanding here. No one is (nor should be) outright bashing FG players, and I for one appreciate the rich variety of experiences FG's accessibility brings to the table.

When people speak out against FG experiences in this topic, they are opposing the mentality of "I play a lot of FG so I know something about matchups played at a tournament level." It's totally fine to play FG and come in and use what you've learned to apply it to analysis of high-level matches, but it's absolutely not okay to come in and say something like, "I think Lucario beats Sheik because I haven't had any trouble with Sheiks on FG."

The players that you meet on FG and the environment itself (lag, of any variety, even the smallest amount) makes it an astoundingly different battleground from actual tournament settings. The difference is night and day. A parallel example would be For Fun mode (4 player FFA, items on) as compared to For Glory. The difference between For Fun and For Glory is about as sizable as the difference between For Glory and a high-stakes tournament set. Very few For Glory players would accept For Fun experiences as valid indicators of the For Glory meta, and for the same reasons tournament players are averse to accepting For Glory experiences as valid indicators of the tournament meta.

A lot of people read this topic, from random lurkers who come here to learn, all the way to Dabuz/Trela; we should (and do!) set higher standards for posting here. Using For Glory as evidence for claims should almost never be acceptable here.

 

[PK Gaming]

Time for class bye guys go back to discussing Greninja for the 50th time, how Rosalina loses to MK and she's overrated, why Bayo isn't dominating the meta, cloud being too good, random kirby stuff, Ryu dropping, and all that stuff you always discuss. Just an FYI, I lurk here a lot.

For what it's worth, I appreciate you clarifying your claims. Means a lot, actually.

Don't hesitate to drop on by and discuss with us like today. Should be fun.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

I think that there's a significant misunderstanding here. No one is (nor should be) outright bashing FG players, and I for one appreciate the rich variety of experiences FG's accessibility brings to the table.

When people speak out against FG experiences in this topic, they are opposing the mentality of "I play a lot of FG so I know something about matchups played at a tournament level." It's totally fine to play FG and come in and use what you've learned to apply it to analysis of high-level matches, but it's absolutely not okay to come in and say something like, "I think Lucario beats Sheik because I haven't had any trouble with Sheiks on FG."

The players that you meet on FG and the environment itself (lag, of any variety, even the smallest amount) makes it an astoundingly different battleground from actual tournament settings. The difference is night and day. A parallel example would be For Fun mode (4 player FFA, items on) as compared to For Glory. The difference between For Fun and For Glory is about as sizable as the difference between For Glory and a high-stakes tournament set. Very few For Glory players would accept For Fun experiences as valid indicators of the For Glory meta, and for the same reasons tournament players are averse to accepting For Glory experiences as valid indicators of the tournament meta.

A lot of people read this topic, from random lurkers who come here to learn, all the way to Dabuz/Trela; we should (and do!) set higher standards for posting here. Using For Glory as evidence for claims should almost never be acceptable here.

The main problem really is when the person use their own experiences as their reference. You can only really do that when you're actually playing in tournaments.

 

[Megamang]

This general group of posters, while it has shifted a few members, has been around since pre tier list CCI threads. I figured the group, discussion, and general direction would change when it became a tier list thread, and that we might find another sanctuary. I have read every page since the first CCI, so I don't plan on stopping anytime, and I love when this thread is going fast (unless its talking about possible buffs/nerfs/the old tier list).

But yes, since the tier list went live, I'd say the viewership has probably increased dramatically. This thread is just a general oversight on the meta, but it is powerful and interesting. It is really nice when we see something we have been saying get validated, even though it often isn't.

Dunno where I'm going with this, just thought it was really cool we've managed to keep the general community together, and talking about (usually) fresh topics for probably over a year now. Sm4sh certainly has had its shifts and changes, and I'm glad we aren't sticking with the status quo; in my opinion each patch has been purely good, with only a few questionable changes that probably have online / FG reasons (DDD nerfs wut).


<3 you all

 

[BSP]

I think that there's a significant misunderstanding here. No one is (nor should be) outright bashing FG players, and I for one appreciate the rich variety of experiences FG's accessibility brings to the table.

When people speak out against FG experiences in this topic, they are opposing the mentality of "I play a lot of FG so I know something about matchups played at a tournament level." It's totally fine to play FG and come in and use what you've learned to apply it to analysis of high-level matches, but it's absolutely not okay to come in and say something like, "I think Lucario beats Sheik because I haven't had any trouble with Sheiks on FG."

The players that you meet on FG and the environment itself (lag, of any variety, even the smallest amount) makes it an astoundingly different battleground from actual tournament settings. The difference is night and day. A parallel example would be For Fun mode (4 player FFA, items on) as compared to For Glory. The difference between For Fun and For Glory is about as sizable as the difference between For Glory and a high-stakes tournament set. Very few For Glory players would accept For Fun experiences as valid indicators of the For Glory meta, and for the same reasons tournament players are averse to accepting For Glory experiences as valid indicators of the tournament meta.

A lot of people read this topic, from random lurkers who come here to learn, all the way to Dabuz/Trela; we should (and do!) set higher standards for posting here. Using For Glory as evidence for claims should almost never be acceptable here.

What if you run into someone like Ito, Hakii, or NAKAT on FG?

To add some substance to this post, I have to agree with what Dabuz said about Pac-Man when it comes to using him competitively. Unless you really want the variety of fruit, don't mind not having a grab, like playing control, and/or love going for setups that look cool but all have counter play built in, I can't give a reason to use the guy seriously. He's one buff away from being a serious contender, but until that happens he's stuck preying on MU inexperience and struggling to make basic stuff work once the opponent knows what's up.

Ok, I will say it is nice to completely neuter some characters' options via the trampoline and hydrant, but unfortunately they're not a huge pain for everyone.

 

[KamikazePotato]

The difference between For Fun and For Glory is about as sizable as the difference between For Glory and a high-stakes tournament set.

While I agree with the sentiment, I think this is fairly hyperbolic. For Glory has many issues (lag being the biggest one, lower overall player skill being another) but it still gives people a decent framework to work off of. People on For Glory are always playing to improve their skills, and there are likely some FG-only people that are secretly very good at the game. Is it a tournament setting? No, but that doesn't mean it invalidates everyone's opinions. Obviously the most accurate opinions will come from high-tier players competing in a professional tournament, but that's an extremely small sample size. I don't see anything wrong with people bringing their For Glory experiences to the table as long as they don't treat it like gospel and shove it down everyone's throats.

With that said, you're correct in that the FG landscape is very different. I'm not even a particularly good player and lag still drives me up the wall. I can't imagine what it would be like trying to play, say, a tournament-level Sheik in FG.

 

[sedrf]

In more intresting/simple news :
Anti or #THE Anti made a ranking of the top 10 characters in the game:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

What makes this list interesting is it makes me bring up two points:
Are people putting too much stock on bayonetta?
Now that both anti and dabuz feel that m2 is not only strong but top tier how will everybody deal with this "new" character.

 

[Nysyr]

In more intresting/simple news :
Anti or #THE Anti made a ranking of the top 10 characters in the game:

What makes this list interesting is it makes me bring up two points:
Are people putting too much stock on bayonetta?
Now that both anti and dabuz feel that m2 is not only strong but top tier how will everybody deal with this "new" character.

I'd say give it one more patch. I have a bad feeling for M2 that NAir or Disable may get slapped before all is said and done.

 

[Yonder]

In more intresting/simple news :
Anti or #THE Anti made a ranking of the top 10 characters in the game:

What makes this list interesting is it makes me bring up two points:
Are people putting too much stock on bayonetta?
Now that both anti and dabuz feel that m2 is not only strong but top tier how will everybody deal with this "new" character.

I think people are jumping the shark a bit on Mewtwo, I think he is high tier now but top is a major stretch. As seen by Aba's last performance at a tourney with Mewtwo, losing to a Greninja, Villager, and Duck Hunt (the latter two theorized to be advantageous for Mewtwo) matchup inexperience might have played a bigger factor than we thought. I sure as heck don't know how to fight a good Duck Hunt. I want to see Aba dominate another tourney, even if just a few locals, before I call Mewtwo top. One major is extremely impressive and enough to elevate a character a whole tier from mid to high, but two tiers...eh...give me a few more wins first.

I'd say give it one more patch. I have a bad feeling for M2 that NAir or Disable may get slapped before all is said and done.

*sigh* oh Arceus, and this could happen too. Which would really suck as Mewtwo is well balanced. Nair is extremely, extremely good now. I would argue it almost makes Mewtwo's average dair irrelevant, it can either stage spike or drag people down low enough for a footstool gimp on most of the cast unless your recovery is Villager tier...but no top tiers have recoveries on that level sides Bayonetta.

 

[Airpoizon]

Lol how does Dabuz think Roy is the worst character in the game, he's got faster speed then Marth with the power of Ike, and the reason people say he's bad is because of his lack of results alone. Yet people still have been doing things with Roy and placing well in locals and high in some tournaments like Sethlon at multiple Shockwaves. His U-Air has to be one of the best jugglers and combo starters like ever, you can do U-Air to D-Air and it's a Kill confirm at the ledge.

Oh yeah people think Roys bad because they compare his weak points to Marths strong points. They treat him as another Marth and believe he should do only things that Marth does.

 

[Yonder]

In more intresting/simple news :
Anti or #THE Anti made a ranking of the top 10 characters in the game:

What makes this list interesting is it makes me bring up two points:
Are people putting too much stock on bayonetta?
Now that both anti and dabuz feel that m2 is not only strong but top tier how will everybody deal with this "new" character.

Sorry I just noticed the order of these top tiers, if they are ordered...why the heck is Diddy so low? Aren't his results and strengths evident enough to be at least 5th? Does Zero have to bust out this incredible character again to show people just how good he still is?

 

[DanGR]

In more intresting/simple news :
Anti or #THE Anti made a ranking of the top 10 characters in the game:

What makes this list interesting is it makes me bring up two points:
Are people putting too much stock on bayonetta?
Now that both anti and dabuz feel that m2 is not only strong but top tier how will everybody deal with this "new" character.

With no accompanying explanations or... anything really this list is pretty meaningless.

 

[Luco]

Now I don't know what we're defining as 'good' or 'bad' at the game in this scene, but this post gives me the perfect opportunity to reveal I've been spying on all of you for my own personal gains, whipee!

With all due respect, I don't think many people inside the community are good at this game, lol.

This argument has been used a lot and it's been bugging me. So, I jumped over a thread or two to here (http://smashboards.com/threads/smash-4-power-rankings-directory-project.401710/ ) and namesearched... A lot... Of people in this thread, before coming to the realisation the BEST way to check PRs for you guys was to literally go down every single PR Ori_Bro had posted and find your names one by one (help me ;_; ). Whenever I found a regular here, or else someone I was interested in, I noted their names in a little book of mine and kept going.

Why did I do this? Well, aside from the fact that PRs are a massive honour and people should be allowed to feel good about them, I think being on a PR says something about your competitive aspiration. For a lot of us here who have constantly been cited as 'those nerds who have nothing better to do with their time than sit at their computers and speculate REAL play', I wanted to put that rhetoric to bed now. I also want to say that for the people I didn't find, it usually doesn't mean much - those people who didn't end up on one of those PRs may still work just as hard but may be constrained due to not having a proper PR system around them to be a part of or not being able to access their scene easily. There's also obviously the people here who have different names on the boards from what they are on PR (I have no doubt this applies to a few people here), so I didn't find them ( NairWizard you can't hide forever!!)

I also did it for my own personal interest because, y'know, it's fun. And maybe creepy. But mostly fun.

I'm not going to post my findings here - it's pointless, and only serves to potentially cause a bigger problem than the one I want to alleviate (elitism and 'oh my god you're not on a PR your opinions have no merit' and stuff). If you're interested in that aspect, go down Ori's list yourself (you'll be surprised by the people you'll find there, and it'll probably give you the same appreciations of every smasher that it gave to me so well done).

I just think we need to stop being afraid of giving ourselves credit and simultaneously understanding that it's okay to not be "good" at the game and stop bashing FG players for enjoying the game their way. It's also okay to be a decent player and get it wrong, or to be anyone and get it wrong. If Radical Larry sticks around for a few years and becomes literally the best poster here I'll be the first to like every post he makes.

tl;dr If people are going to sit there and tell me 'we're all bad' then I'm going to refute them with actual evidence to the contrary, and there's plenty of it.

Spoiler

I still have your names down in my book though. I KNOW WHERE YOU'RE PR-ED! Ehuehuehuehuehuehuehue

 

[Y2Kay]

I think labeling that tier as counterpick characters was a bad choice of words. CP Characters are usually gimmicky and aren't good outside of specific scenarios (I am looking at you ). I feel that most of the characters there are fundamentally solid.

Maybe if Dabuz Sensei labeled tier 3 as something like secondary optional, then labeled tier 4 secondary required. I feel that low tiers are more counterpick material.

_____________________________​

Yeah looking back at it Greninja's results at the regional level aren't amazing but they're definitely there. Elexiao and Istudying are both PR'ed #3 in France. I can't find a German PR (Do you know of one @Yikarur ?) but Eddy has been getting good results with the frog as well.Techei has been making strides in VA, and P2P and Illusion have also had some good results with the frog as well.

Some has vanished into the shadows, and Venia has retired, but from the time they did play, they've also packed in some good results as well.

Match up ignorance or no, not many characters in the tier above greninja on Dabuz's tier list have a result as good as 2nd place at beast VI.

Sure, Greninja's Match ups are composed of some theory, but that's a lot of match up spreads in general. Besides possibly top tiers, not many characters have the luxury or player base to have good hard evidence to be certain of a match up ratio. And then when things like SD's and MU ignorance comes into play, it becomes even harder to make a Match up spread based on results. Frankly, we have to use theory to fill in the holes. This is a fine supplement till more results come in, as long as your theory is complex and unbiased.

But when Dabuz basically assumes Greninja's match up spread can't be viewed that highly becasue of his results, he loses me on the point. It basically is a results based tier list then.

I was kinda hoping that after BEAST people would look more into Greninja. Now it seems that after the taste of BEAST VI faded away on people's tongues, people seem to fall into the same pitfalls when it comes to Greninja. Not to sound pretentious though.

How I feel about Greninja compared to those above him, basically:

- these are fine to me

- I'm iffy on these guys

- this is pretty questionable

 

[FallofBrawl]

Diddy is just turning into another golden age. He doesn't have terrible matchups throughout the cast, he does well against Bayos running rampant, one of the greatest beneficiaries of last patch, and not a lot of reps that play characters good against him ((just not popular)(great exodia of Luigis after nerfs) on all levels, (Ray focusing on school) at top level)

 

[Browny]

People really need to lay off 'kill confirms' and focus on actually ending the opponents stock.

you can do U-Air to D-Air and it's a Kill confirm at the ledge.

Comboing a relatively hard to hit move, in a very specific location, into another hard to hit move (sweetspot) is about as useful a 'kill confirm' as his raw fsmash.

Look at Ness. He doesnt need any kill confirms. He just goes 'you die now' with a multitude of moves that you are eventually going to get hit by. Mewtwo doesn't need kill confirms either, he just straight up ends you all across the screen.

The ability to confirm a weak move into a kill move, the fabled 'kill confirm' is NOT an indication of how well a character can secure the KOs. What 100% matters is how reliably the character can actually land said weak move. Ryus utilt - TSRK is the definitive example of a good kill confirm off a weak move but plenty of characters can KO just as easily, just as hard without any combos into kills because ultimately, landing that utilt isn't the easiest thing in the world against a lot of characters like villager, diddy, zss etc while characters with 0 'kill confirms' just touch them and they die.

 

[Blobface]

Are people putting too much stock on bayonetta?

Well, in many situations her Risk Reward is immensely stacked in her favor in a way no character can quite match. The best punishes for whiffed/blocked Divekicks or Witch Twists is forcing her to lose stage control, but that's a very small punishment for such high reward, and she doesn't have massive flaws either. If Cloud is a #1 contender, Bayonetta definitely is.

She's not the META DEVOURING BLACK HOLE some make her out to be but I do think her being the best ATM is a likely possibility.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Lol how does Dabuz think Roy is the worst character in the game, he's got faster speed then Marth with the power of Ike, and the reason people say he's bad is because of his lack of results alone. Yet people still have been doing things with Roy and placing well in locals and high in some tournaments like Sethlon at multiple Shockwaves. His U-Air has to be one of the best jugglers and combo starters like ever, you can do U-Air to D-Air and it's a Kill confirm at the ledge.

Oh yeah people think Roys bad because they compare his weak points to Marths strong points. They treat him as another Marth and believe he should do only things that Marth does.

because Roy has almost no neutral and basically loses the stock once he loses the neutral, which isn't that hard
Roy has a bad concept. A swordie that lacks (imo) the biggest strength of having a disjoint, the ability to space. He also is pretty damn terrible at edgeguarding like other sword users

 

[C0rvus]

For the record, Dabuz doesn't think Roy is the worst character in the game. He said that tier was backwards and Jigglypuff is the worst character.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Lol how does Dabuz think Roy is the worst character in the game, he's got faster speed then Marth with the power of Ike, and the reason people say he's bad is because of his lack of results alone. Yet people still have been doing things with Roy and placing well in locals and high in some tournaments like Sethlon at multiple Shockwaves. His U-Air has to be one of the best jugglers and combo starters like ever, you can do U-Air to D-Air and it's a Kill confirm at the ledge.

Oh yeah people think Roys bad because they compare his weak points to Marths strong points. They treat him as another Marth and believe he should do only things that Marth does.

He's got less killing power than Ike (its not even particularly close, Marth at this point is killing more consistently and sooner than Roy), his faster movement speed is negated by the fact he has less range than Marth with the tipper position meaning he's got to get even closer when he actually wants to try to kill. He is quite possibly the single easiest character to juggle in the game due to his weight + fall speed combination along with one of the worse recoveries in the game and no combo breakers.

His juggling game is... okay. When characters like Falcon, Sheik etc all exist in this game, Roy's pales in comparison. By a fair bit. Middle of the cast somewhere. Most if not all of his kill combos are DIable. Which is a big deal in a game where a lot of the cast have non-DIable kill combos or at least 50/50s. This wouldn't be a problem if he had an easy reliable one button kill move... but he doesn't. Sword characters don't get to have that unless they have really slow frame data (Ike) or they are Cloud and get to be silly. He has nothing like Mario's Usmash, Ness's Bthrow, Rosalina's Uair, etc. So he can't combo reliably into a kill and he can't reliable just toss out a move to get a kill. He also ain't gimping because he's petrified of going off stage.

Local results don't matter for much. Not unless they are particularly stacked. So he has a handful... like every other character. Even Jigglypuff has cracked top 8 at tournaments with noticeable players in them. More importantly, Roy flat out vanishes one the tournament is larger than a local. The only reason we've even briefly seen him lately outside of locals is because people are experimenting with options against Bayonetta. And it failed. Same with the experiment against Ryu using Roy. Freaking Samus had more results than him before the last patch at tournaments larger than locals.

He's not bottom 5, probably not bottom 10... but he's not far from it if he isn't. He has a sword character's lessor frame data without the benefits. Just his fanbase repeating how they were in Melee.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

I think labeling that tier as counterpick characters was a bad choice of words. CP Characters are usually gimmicky and aren't good outside of specific scenarios (I am looking at you ). I feel that most of the characters there are fundamentally solid.

Maybe if Dabuz Sensei labeled tier 3 as something like secondary optional, then labeled tier 4 secondary required. I feel that low tiers are more counterpick material.

_____________________________​

Something like this?
Sorry for the double post btw

 

[ARISTOS]

Main problem with is that you're working hard for generally pretty even MUs with most of the cast members- there aren't too many losing MUs ([) but for the effort you could also just play a easier character.

Still, she pulls decent results in tough regions and has done ok at big tournaments.

She has prob never been solo viable bc Sheik ate her for breakfast before. The nerfs to are very helpful as well (I don't think Sheik/Peach is that bad anymore, but that's coming from my own experience so it doesn't matter that much).

Because I don't think Peach is a secret high or top tier. She can be doing whatever in her zone, and she is really scary when she gets in, but her zone is slow. Mobility is important, and I think it gets more and more important as the meta goes on. Its why ive got my cards on Greninja making top 15, even if it takes a year or so more.

Once she gets in, it gets very hard to start setting up a zone again. The characters who do best are able to consistently keep her at midrange where she can't get to play her game, usually due to larger horizontal hitboxes that she struggles to deal with.

Seeing how good Marth has been doing I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up as a top 20 character, personally I could see him being around 17th. Just shave a few frames off of fairs landing lag and he's gucci


Marth is leagues above Lucina, his tippers make him safer on shield and gives him more reward for doing everything a Lucina will do. Also, all of his aerials are KO moves, the same thing cant be said about her's

Lucina is outclassed, yes; I think you are overestimating the difference between the two.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

because Roy has almost no neutral and basically loses the stock once he loses the neutral, which isn't that hard
Roy has a bad concept. A swordie that lacks (imo) the biggest strength of having a disjoint, the ability to space. He also is pretty damn terrible at edgeguarding like other sword users

Roy is actually pretty good at edge guarding. He has a low FAF fair and Bair, with the sweetspots killing around 110 offstage and the sourspots putting the opponent in a really bad position, a D-Tilt that semi-spikes, a solid counter, and a disjointed Dash attack that reaches far offstage and can kill opponents recovering horizontally. Obviously not as good as Marth's, but its still pretty good.

Not seeing how he has no neutral. He got some pretty good tools such as Jab, D-Tilt, Fair, and Nair, which are all fairly safe on shield and can covert into several other moves for big damage. I think you are over exaggerating his disadvantageous state as well.

 

[PK Gaming]

Sweet, delicious, righteous irony