Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Megamang]

Oh gosh, something works out well for Diddy Kong? Who woulda thunk it.


Literally everything fell into place with that guy. It seems like being a newcomer, or close to it, is a good thing, because you aren't weighed down by flaws that won't change because 'character feel'.

His kit is just SO cohesive. fair walls, AC, picks up banana, his glide toss is the perfect distance, his tilts are all monsterous and his smashes are solid because he confirms into them so easily, his aerials are better than some swordies.. And now he escapes Bayo stuff better than many top tiers.

Of course, Bayo might have some banana tricks up her sleeve that hurts him in the future.

I think the future of bayonetta is going to be more horizontal focused combos. I know I have more trouble with bayos that get me offstage and gimp than those that go for the (now ineffectual in many cases) ceiling combos.

Also, this cost me ladder points so im sad: If her smashes have item priority... THEN HOW ARE THEY HITTING ME WHEN IM SURROUNDED BY LEAVES WITH HITBOXES?! ***.

 

[ARISTOS]

DaPuffster's Brawler 2122 MU spread. Thought this might be interesting

 

[sedrf]

*customs brawler
Just noting this before anybody says something silly

 

[Y2Kay]

DaPuffster's Brawler 2122 MU spread. Thought this might be interesting

This is the most bizzarre MU chart I have ever seen.

Is this mini brawler or guest size?

 

[Plain Yogurt]

I'd imagine it's mini. Heli-kick is good, but I can't see him bodying all those characters that badly without the air speed from the smaller size letting him fair chain them into the blast zone.

 

[Megamang]

I can't see brawler doing that well vs Greninja, and I really can't see him +2 vs Megaman. Is this because Dapuffster chains these characters offstage and gimps them? Doesn't he suck at killing otherwise? even customs, if you learn what his moves actually do you can survive him really well IME. I mean brawler is as much a mystery to me as most, but to me that chart seems like its from months ago.

 

[Lavani]

Also, this cost me ladder points so im sad: If her smashes have item priority... THEN HOW ARE THEY HITTING ME WHEN IM SURROUNDED BY LEAVES WITH HITBOXES?! ***.

A leaf clanking it just means the leaf can't be hit by it. You have to clank it directly to not get hit yourself.

If Mario nairs, he'd clank and be safe from Bayo fsmash. If Rosalina nairs (facing forward), Luma would clank and be safe while Rosa gets punched in the face.

 

[RaptorTEC]

Remember when you tried to change the subject to something more interesting? That was a good idea.

So about Yoshi ... I think he's a really good and underrated character. There was a time when Yoshi-bashing was really fashionable in here, it kind of became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now that people actually start to get the hang of how to play the character his results actually start to show that there's more to the character than "FG scrubs think he's good because wifi!" - a more accurate statement would be "Yoshi community thinks he's mediocre because they're scrubs!"

Raptor, who has better results than most Yoshi players, is more optimistic about the character than the average Yoshi player.
Yikarur and The Wall who arguably have even better results are even more optimistic about the character thab Raptor is.

Coincidence? Unlikely, just another example that shows how results trump theory when it comes down to it.

Actually back then a lot of the Yoshis were just trying to get the point across that Yoshi wasn't top 5/8 like many were saying. I am probably one of the more optimistic ones but can still admit he's not a top 8 character and I have the best results imo. I feel like results have always been there for Yoshis but people have always ignored them. He has decent results but nothing that says he's a top tier character.

 

[Megamang]

A leaf clanking it just means the leaf can't be hit by it. You have to clank it directly to not get hit yourself.

If Mario nairs, he'd clank and be safe from Bayo fsmash. If Rosalina nairs (facing forward), Luma would clank and be safe while Rosa gets punched in the face.

Oh, duh. I can't believe I didn't think of that. I got confused because the pellets can clank out the smashes, but that must be the buster hitbox that keeps Mega safe. I thought perhaps 'item priority' meant it canceled out the whole thing ala most items getting hit and going away, it just would look dumb if the hands disappeared.

So what is the difference between 'item priority' and 'low priority'? Interesting that they added these things to allow more flexible balancing of the cast; Corrin fsmash would be dumb af if it was a regular disjoint, right?

 

[FullMoon]

On another note I was testing the thing that was mentioned that actually mashing pummels doesn't unstale stuff unless you let the animation finish and I think Greninja's pummel is laggy enough that it actually does unstale stuff if you mash it.

I spammed shurikens on the CPU until it occasionally deal 1% to it and grabbed them once and began pummeling, after about 7 or 8 pummels the shuriken was doing 3% again. I tried staling the shuriken and grabbed again and only did 1 pummel to see if the results were the same and after it the shuriken was doing 1/2% so mashing pummel definitely worked.

I also tried to do the same with Robin who has a similarly laggy pummel and had similar results so I guess there is a benefit to having laggy pummels like they do.

 

[Y2Kay]

If this MU chart is accurate mini brawler is the craziest character on the roster.

He apparently thrashes a lot of characters in the cast but loses badly to decent handful too. How does this character become so polarized?

It's hilarious how he beats sheik and fox but then loses to lil Mac and Jiggs

 

[Lavani]

So what is the difference between 'item priority' and 'low priority'? Interesting that they added these things to allow more flexible balancing of the cast; Corrin fsmash would be dumb af if it was a regular disjoint, right?

'Item' or 'projectile' priority results in the move being clankable by aerials. You can't clank something like Mario usmash with an, but you can clank fireballs, Luma, Corrin fsmash, etc.

'Low' priority means the hit can be clanked by attacks even if they aren't within 9% of the move. Corrin's fsmash tipper can be clanked by the 1% hits of Samus' Screw Attack, for example. I think most/all moves with this type of priority are also item/projectile type moves (Bayo smashes, Corrin spear arm stuff, Corrin neutralB projectile, certain attacks involving pikmin).

 

[ARISTOS]

Dapuffster's explanation (BTW this is Guest Brawler, not Mini size)

If anyone is curious as to why things are the way they are.

Mii Brawler wins matchups if he can grab you at the ledge and kill you with his infamous d-throw to up b at 50%.

His losing matchups are characters with better Close Quater Combat games (Luigi, Ryu, Mario) and characters that are good at not getting grabbed (Toon Link, Peach, Jigglypuff)

If a character has neither of these attributes, he will just body you with his early kill combo. Not much you can do about it.

 

[Megamang]

I don't think Megaman/Greninja are easy to grab, and I'd wager greninja can Shadow Sneak out of the combo somewhere along the line. Hell, he canSS out of a lot of throws.

 

[my_T]

So ness is generally considered high tier while losing to characters like mario, sheik, cloud, sonic, GnW, villager, rosa, MK, corrin, pits, marth, ZSS, luigi. Most of these are -1 at worst for ness while the rosa, sheik, sonic, and villy match-up are -2 at best.

Villager also has a decent amount of losing match-ups; rosa, sheik, GnW, links, MK, palutena, cloud, bayo, MM, maybe a few more.

How on earth is ness and villy considered high tier but MK is a mid tier now?

My thoughts on MK:

He's has very few losing match-ups; less than 10 more than 5. Most of them being -1.

He also has a decent but not great neutral; his best tools in neutral arent really safe outside of dtilt and he doesn't have anything to force approaches or keep people out.

He has a very good disadvantage state. Multiple jumps, disjoint, frame 4 dair, and a really good recovery

His advantage state is average at best but it's definitely not bad; on stage he doesn't get alot of reward but offstage it's the complete opposite.

His kill options/power are still pretty good. Up B OoS, Fsmash which requires a read but is also safe, offstage gimps which he he is very good at, Usmash has decent kill power but not safe. Correct me if im wrong but doesn't dash attack and down grab combo into shuttle loop for a kill below 100%?

 

[FullMoon]

I rather doubt Ness loses all of those MUs

 

[ARISTOS]

I rather doubt Ness loses all of those MUs

Even if he did, there are key differences between Ness and MK. Ness has an explosive advantage state and can quickly turn things around; he's never quite out of the game. MK has low dmg per hit and relies heavily on Shuttle Loop/offstage game to get kills. This means that even in poor MUs, it's much harder to count Ness out.

 

[Radical Larry]

DaPuffster's Brawler 2122 MU spread. Thought this might be interesting

So what DaPuffster's saying is that Brawler with 2122 is the best character in the game?
Gr8 b8 m8.

 

[Trifroze]

Ness' late game (when both characters are at high percents) is relatively effortless and scary against a lot of characters if he just runs around camping in shield and fishes for backthrows and his strong rising aerials like nair, bair and uair. I think he possibly goes even with ZSS for instance just because of this, who lacks rising aerials of her own and can't go for grabs in a high percent scenario. She has to go for nonsense like empty hop in front of Ness into spotdodge to bait out his grab and then up b him, or hit him with any poke or falling aerial from max distance and try to land a kill move as he's trying to reset back to neutral. Yet, as soon as Ness reads any jump or bait of hers she's dead. Luckily many characters including ZSS can often get and maintain a percent lead against Ness so he pretty much has to chase you which is much worse for him, even if he needs less damage to kill his opponent than his opponent needs to kill him.

 

[Djent]

Speaking of , Hex plays Prince Ramen to get into top 8 winners side at Versus. Watch it now!

EDIT: 0-2. Prince Ramen is really good.

 

[sedrf]

whell brawler has abunch of -2,_3 but keep being hyperbolic

 

[my_T]

FullMoon here is what i typed up on the mario and GnW match-ups. If you want details on the others i'll be happy to provide them.

Mario's Usmash, cape, and fludd are huge threats in neutral against ness. Usmash discourages aerial approaches/defenses. Fludd can control space. Cape renders PK fire and thunder useless in neutral. Mario also has much better CQC. Recovering against mario is terrible. He can harass you with fire balls if you recover low, fludd is very threatening if you recover high, cape is threatening at every angle. Edge-guarding mario is a lot more risky because of cape. you will likely have to go off stage with him and use ness's aerials. Also, mario is on the heavy side so ness' kill power isn't that big a deal in this match-up unless ness has a good deal of rage

Ness' pros. Psi magnet stops fireball approaches/zoning making neutral play a little more manageable. Ness wins the aerial battle because of his disjoints, range, damage output, and marios lack thereof.

In conclusion, mario's not a hard counter by any means but he definitely wins the match-up.

G & W- Dthrow combos/combos in general stop working very early because of G & W's weight. G & W's ground game is much better than ness'. Ness also has a hard time landing against G & W because of his armored, low end-lag (1 frame safer than marios), killing Usmash. So yeah, no falling uair and bair for you . Damn near impossible to edge-guard G & W because his aerials can contest with ness', G & W can go really deep where as ness can't, and the invulnerability on G & W's up-b. Recovering to the stage with ness is damn near the complete opposite because G & W can edge-guard deep horizontally/vertically, and he can bucket PK thunder (possibly giving him an oil panic ). Then you've bucket. This move is really good in this match-up. PK thunder and fire are useless in this match-up because of bucket. So that means no PK fire to space or punish landings. Even on hit G & W can bucket enough pillars of fire to get an oil panic almost instantly. Also no juggling/edge-guarding with PK thunder (one of the best things about ness IMO). Oil panic kills dumb early and he can combo into it out of a grab and can hold onto it in between stocks.

As for ness' pros. Ness's neutral is meh but so is G & W's. G & W still has a better neutral in this particular match-up though; but G & W won't be running over ness in neutral like some of ness' other bad match-ups. Ness will get more reward when he wins neutral because of his high damage output and G & W's weight. G & W most likely will not live past 110 and can die at about 80 by the edge.

in conclusion, this match-up isn't horrible by any means but there's no way ness isn't losing this match-up considering all the pros G & W has going for him.

ARISTOS Ness's advantage state is very good but he struggles in other areas like neutral. Neutral is arguably the most important state of a character in a fighting game. His weakness in neutral is what makes match-ups like sonic and sheik so ****ing ****ty. I would argue that his weakness in neutral is the very thing that keeps him from being top tier. His disadvantage state is average at best; he's evasive in the air but punishing his landing is kinda easy because of how slow he falls. Using his second jump to escape bad situations is extremely risky because he falls even slower. There's also his bad recovery. Considering how bad his recovery is ness can lose a stock just as quickly as he can take them.

MK suffers in advantage while having a very good disadvantage state and a decent neutral. His disadvantage state is so good it's to the point where you pretty much have to kill him which is easier said than done with him having multiple jumps and a disjoint. His neutral is decent; somewhat predictable but his good mobility makes it manageable.

 

[ARISTOS]

Speaking of , Hex plays Prince Ramen to get into top 8 winners side at Versus. Watch it now!

EDIT: 0-2. Prince Ramen is really good.

Speaking of Prince Ramen and , Xaltis just beat him with her (in place of her )

EDIT: Seibrik on stream now, playing . Apparently hasn't played MK all night

 

[my_T]

Ness' late game (when both characters are at high percents) is relatively effortless and scary against a lot of characters if he just runs around camping in shield and fishes for backthrows and his strong rising aerials like nair, bair and uair. I think he possibly goes even with ZSS for instance just because of this, who lacks rising aerials of her own and can't go for grabs in a high percent scenario. She has to go for nonsense like empty hop in front of Ness into spotdodge to bait out his grab and then up b him, or hit him with any poke or falling aerial from max distance and try to land a kill move as he's trying to reset back to neutral. Yet, as soon as Ness reads any jump or bait of hers she's dead. Luckily many characters including ZSS can often get and maintain a percent lead against Ness so he pretty much has to chase you which is much worse for him, even if he needs less damage to kill his opponent than his opponent needs to kill him.

I agree with all but one thing. I still think it's slightly in ZSS favor because of her clear advantage against ness offstage. I would say that it's 55/45 in ZSS favor at best though because she doesn't have much of an answer to shields when she's at kill percents

 

[Trifroze]

I agree with all but one thing. I still think it's slightly in ZSS favor because of her clear advantage against ness offstage. I would say that it's 55/45 in ZSS favor at best though because she doesn't have much of an answer to shields when she's at kill percents

Could very well be, although 55:45 and 45:55 is still effectively even. Smash community just tends to shrink the overall matchup radius to 70:30 - 30:70 and nothing beyond that, so the difference between 50:50 and 45:55 seems considerable, and then everyone who puts up numbers beyond that must be crazy and is ignored immediately.

It's as if a bigger difference such as 80:20 means the former character has tools so much stronger that they should never lose, but that logic is completely backwards. It turns "here are reasons why the other character is very likely to win but isn't guaranteed to win every time because of these other reasons so the matchup is 80:20" into "the matchup is 80:20 so why should the other character ever win lol 80:20 must mean unwinnable so let's cap at 70:30".

?????????????????

The ratio is a consensus of the matchup with reasoning behind it, but instead for some reason the ratio is considered first and the reasons behind it are completely ignored. Whatever led to people thinking 80:20 is equivalent to unwinnable I don't know though, 80:20 is 80:20, not 100:0. It's as simple as that.

Some of the Japanese MU charts are the best where almost nothing is beyond 51:49 or 49:51. That's some pretty good balance Sakurai.

what the actual **** though this is a real problem in Smash (this post isn't directed at you who I quoted, just a general rant)

 

[Megamang]

I think ratios somewhat account for all levels of play. 'This person has to be X amount better to win'. So, if you are of equal skill, this person having better tools should never lose. Because the person with the 60:40 has 60% chance of winning each interaction (due frequently to option coverage. If your opponent can throw rockscissors and cover everything you have a chance of doing in a certain moment, then you have to predict their options reliably ie be better than them).

But yea, smash in general feels like it does some forced bell curves in MU analysis. The game has great depth of skill, such that you don't often see people who are exactly equal. Even in a developed meta like melee the difference between top 100 and top 5 are very apparent.

 

[Routa]

There are quite a many Brawler mains who disagree with Dapuffster's MU spread. For example Cloud and Little Mac are generally viewed as extremely hard for Brawler due to Brawler being so bad in neutral.

 

[Kofu]

Note about the Ness/Game & Watch MU, the safest way to gimp him is to jump next to him and push him with Up-B's windbox. If you mistime Oil Panic you get PKT2'd which is very bad.

 

[Jamurai]

Not to keep bringing the discussion back to MK, but just wanted to clarify a couple of things. I said I wouldn't be surprised if MK was 15 or even 20 spots lower this patch, but my actual opinion is one of "who knows" basically. Not calling it cause I don't see how anyone seriously can currently.

As for his main strengths, which someone asked about: excellent ground game, high kill power, scary offstage presence, disadvantage state. The latter is very good thanks to his 6 jumps + teleport, great recovery and frame 4 Dair, but his fast faller + lightweight status spoils this somewhat. For example, he gets mashed by stuff like Robin's Checkmate and Falcon's Dthrow > knee.

 

[BunbUn129]

Also apparently G&W's d throw -> uair is guaranteed on MK for the largest percent window among the cast.

MK lacks a frame-3 combo-breaker aerial so that hurts him a bit.

 

[Yikarur]

The Brawler Chart and his reasoning are bull****.
So narrow and simple-minded. I wouldn't really pay attention to it. It's wrong on so many levels.

 

[Megamang]

Yea, being the lightest and the fastfalliest isn't a great place to be. Lack of safe spacing aerials also plays into getting grabbed a lot, as does committing to dash options.


On the other hand, fair spacing is supposed to be stronger now. Is it? Tyrant is the only MK I have watched recently (though that says a lot as well) and he was doing ridiculous stuff, and I don't think I saw any fairs at all. I'd imagine the habit formed of avoiding that aerial if one was going to be landing at all for a lot of MK mains.

 

[Smog Frog]

i've decided to compare and to see if the "fact" that has worse frame data than a "brawler"(i chose because that's who he's compared to the most) and here's what i found:
they have similar landing lag numbers, has 12/30/12/9/21 for nair, fair, bair, uair and dair while has 11/13/16/14/23, respectively. has slightly better landing lag.

they have similar startup numbers on their aerials. has 7/14/10/6/16 for nair, fair, bair, uair and dair while has 6/10/8/5/16 respectively. is better on startup across the board except for dair.

comparing grounded non-smash attacks:
has a f3 jab with a faf of 18(going through with the whole thing is faf 33), f7 dash attack with a faf of 38, f9 ftilt w/ faf 32, f17 utilt w/ faf 40, and f11 dtilt w/ faf 35.


has an f5 jab with a faf of 23, f13 dash attack w/ faf 50, f8 ftilt w/ a faf of 32, f6 utilt w/ faf 39, and f7 dtilt w/ faf 22.

is slightly better on all fronts except dash attack and jab, though the differences in where he is better are insignificant, except for dtilt.

comparing smash attacks:
is f19 on fsmash with a faf of 60, f22 on usmash w/ a faf of 52, and f19 on dsmash w/ a faf of 49.
is f14 on fsmash with a faf of 55, f12 on usmash w/ a faf of 59 and f6 on dsmash w/ a faf of 63.

is better on startup but worse on endlag.

overall: isnt better or worse than on frame data. hitboxes are a different matter entirely, but on frame data he doesn't seem to have a significant disadvantage on "brawlers".

 

[G. Stache]

The Brawler Chart and his reasoning are bull****.
So narrow and simple-minded. I wouldn't really pay attention to it. It's wrong on so many levels.

Well, would you terribly mind explaining Brawler's MUs then? Only if you have time of course, but I'm sure a lot of people here don't have a clue about the character itself (myself included). An accurate MU chart/rundown of brawler would do us all a big favor.

 

[BunbUn129]

Yea, being the lightest and the fastfalliest isn't a great place to be. Lack of safe spacing aerials also plays into getting grabbed a lot, as does committing to dash options.


On the other hand, fair spacing is supposed to be stronger now. Is it? Tyrant is the only MK I have watched recently (though that says a lot as well) and he was doing ridiculous stuff, and I don't think I saw any fairs at all. I'd imagine the habit formed of avoiding that aerial if one was going to be landing at all for a lot of MK mains.

MK's fair is unsafe on whiff and especially against the faster characters. It's unsafe on block unless spaced precisely. However, even when spaced properly on shield, MK often has to resort to defensive options to escape the opponent's retaliatory pressure. I think Rizen or Blobface or Heavy Lobster mentioned this: spacing on shield should be viewed among a set of interactions rather than one by itself. MK has limited offensive follow-ups on fair shield-pressure because: 1) jab's unique properties 2) d tilt being unsafe on hit at lower percents if it doesn't trip.

Fair spacing for MK is similar to ZSS's nair spacing: he has to complete most of his short-hop before he can swing, so characters have enough time to react and block or jump up and swat him out of the air if they have faster forward airs.

In my experience and watching Tyrant play, fair is more useful for covering MK's landing as a mix-up or as an option from the ledge.

It's overall a decent move now, compared to 1.1.4 fair, when there was basically no reason to use this move if you could connect his other aerials.

SH fair is pretty nice for conditioning for tomahawks.

I hope the devs follow-up on this fair buff (if 1.1.6 is a thing). I like the idea of taking away his wobble and giving him better neutral pokes.

But by far the best thing about the fair buff is that MK can have more fun with Luma.

Edit: Smog Frog you didn't mention Falcon has more favorable auto-cancel frames. Falcon's bair, uair, and nair AC in a SH, and bair AC's in a SHFF. Roy can't auto-cancel any of his aerials from a SH.

 

[Yikarur]

the whole concept "if it's easy to get a grab = advantagous MU if they are good at avoiding getting grabbed = disadvantage MU is really really superficial. This is an early 2015 opinion or something someone would say that doesn't know the character at all and just heard about "oh there is that jank upB".

I'm already playing this character from the very beginning and Mii's have been legal in germany from day 1. Everyone has adapted to the Match-up and you barely get grabs on the ledge, because if you play the MU optimally your goal is to play center stage all the time. The MU chart might be correct if neither player knows the Match-up lol.

Brawler is a good character overall. I think he struggles with sword characters, because they can keep Brawler out and if they succeed to get past combo kill% it's very hard for Brawler to get a kill.
Brawler is generally in an advantage if the opponent doesn't have much disjoints because Brawler is faster and really mobile and can out-space most characters with his mobility.

I don't have a match-up chart myself because I don't like creating match-up charts based on half-knowledge or narrow-minded paradigms were I just decide match-ups based on some attributes. I'm pretty convinced that Cloud is -2 and Dedede is +3 though Pre-Patch Sheik was -2 as well but I haven't faced post-patch sheik with Mii Brawler yet.

Btw Mini Brawler is one of the best characters in the game if not the best character right now. But it's sadly not legal

 

[Y2Kay]

I was fooling around with 2122 mini brawler and I was thinking to myself "Man am I glad this character's banned" lol

 

[Shady Shaymin]

Miis in sm4sh...what a whole bunch of nonsense. Part of the fun of smash is picking a main who you can identify with on some level, and growing a pokemon-esque bond with that main as you improve. Why give people generic, customizable avatars when this roster is all about finding your own avatar? Such a useless design choice in my opinion. On top of that, they're just more complicated customs-semantic bs for TO's and community members to headache over.

 

[wedl!!]

This isn't the place to debate rulesets.

Also #FreeMiis.

 

[BunbUn129]

Isn't that a red topic?