Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Emblem Lord]

I got a question for you guys.

Do you think that ZSS players are a dying breed? I've been seeing less and less of her lately. I don't know if I'm just overreacting though.

When were zss players NOT members of a rare and elusive species?

Strong ones are not common and they never were.

 

[Davis-Lightheart]

I've got a question: How much do you guys think bracket luck and player dexterity will matter in comparisons to character results and theory?

Since the top and high tiers are so close together, and there are so many of them, it seems like a lot of bracket luck in meeting bad MUs would have an impact in delaying solid tier placements.

 

[Deleted member]

What.... Shulk in that section. Shulk has been gaining a lot of support recently from low-mid levels of play, and players like Nicko, Tremendo,DarkWolf, Arty something and Dragonbrain. If anything Zelda and Dorf should be there instead of Shulk. There are even more Shulks coming out and getting results.

Putting Zelda there would even be incorrect.

Purple Guy (Ed) continues to get rather high placements (sometimes even top 16 or top 8) here in Florida using mostly or solo Zelda where people do know the MU. He was also one of the most notable Sheikelda players in Brawl.

ven and Zolda are PR'd in Vegas and Wisconsin respectively. Fairess in Kuwait also does well with her from what I can tell. The character's top level results are rather poor, but she has at least something.

Nicko deserves credit for his work with Shulk though. Being PR'd 13th place in the toughest Smash region in the world (SoCal) is no easy feat. He has a Cloud but only uses it for Fox and Sonic.

 

[MistressRemilia]

What.... Shulk in that section. Shulk has been gaining a lot of support recently from low-mid levels of play, and players like Nicko, Tremendo,DarkWolf, Arty something and Dragonbrain. If anything Zelda and Dorf should be there instead of Shulk. There are even more Shulks coming out and getting results.

Results of Shulk are still pretty mediocre quite frankly.
Tremendo's usually missing Top 8, even if not by a lot.
Nicko's PR'd in SoCal with the character and almost won vs K9 i think, that's the best of Shulk.
Ik of Darkwolf, Dragonbrain & Arty but i don't know what their accomplishments are, enlighten me if you do.
I forgot to mention in HM Zelda & Ganon, only in HM because they've done a bit, esp recently Zelda with Fairess & Purple Guy, and Ganon with Rice winning a Norcal tour with Ganon & Pon being okay in ***. I guess you're right tho.
My original post was kind of an overstatement btw, don't take it as far as like " This character has literally 0 players " because that's not exactly true, just that i'd say these characters don't have as much accomplishments & meaningful results as the rest of the cast, including charas that could be around their viability.

 

[C0rvus]

Shoutouts to Bowser Jr. for having no presence whatsoever as of late. Now people are putting him into bottom tier on their lists too. Good grief, the kid's on life support. People regularly forget he's even in the game lol

 

[juddy96]

What.... Shulk in that section. Shulk has been gaining a lot of support recently from low-mid levels of play, and players like Nicko, Tremendo,DarkWolf, Arty something and Dragonbrain. If anything Zelda and Dorf should be there instead of Shulk. There are even more Shulks coming out and getting results.

Canada's Shulks will really be showing up at GOML: Darkwolf (PR'd in Montreal), Jerm (PR'd in Ottawa), Artryuu (also PR'd in Ottawa), and brolinvids (PR'd in New Brunswick). Hopefully they can put in some good performances.

 

[ARISTOS]

This has been bothering me since the first time i saw you post something like this

Tournament results or friendly results, by definition, ARE NOT EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE

Spoiler: Definition

dictionary.com

1.
derived from or guided by experience or experiment.
2.
depending upon experience or observation alone, without usingscientific method or theory, especially as in medicine.
3.
provable or verifiable by experience or experiment.

merriam-webster

1. originating in or based on observation or experience <empirical data>
   
   
2. relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory <an empirical basis for the theory>
   
   
3. capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment <empirical laws>

There are too many outside factors that can effect a characters results. This has been mentioned by various members including myself. Why this is so hard for people to understand is beyond me. Results as they are acquired will never trump theory as it is nearly impossible to test X character vs Y character while having a completely even playing field, whether it be human Vs human, A.I. vs A.I., or human vs A.I.

A good example of this would be Zeros performance in the diddy vs sheik match-up. Zeros has beaten every notable sheik player he has come across in tournament with his diddy. No other diddy player comes close to Zeros performance in the diddy vs sheik match-up. On one hand I could argue that diddy beats sheik because of Zeros performance. On the other hand I could argue that diddy loses to sheik because she wins more against other diddy mains. Zeros skill level alone may play a major role in this outcome. It's the equivalent of tampering with the evidence at a crime scene.

results are still important but theory is just as important if not more so

Tournament results are not empirical evidence, but rather observable data. Unfortunately, it's the best we have.

However, this isn't a problem as long as we are aware of preexisting conditions that can alter our data outside of the concept we want to measure (who is da bes character).

- Who showed up, and who didn't
- Outside life factors (school, work, etc.)
- Who they met in bracket, and who they didn't
- etc, and so on

On a one off, these factors cloud our knowledge. But as we collect our data and our sample size gets larger, we can begin to see trends, and more importantly, what theory holds and what doesn't.

More often than not, our theory is blinded by several factors:
- Our own experiences and what we believe to be true
- Forgetting or overlooking key factors in the relationship
- Overestimating certain tools
- How do these tools interact with players
- etc, and so on

When the real world data we have counteracts our observed theory/models, our models are wrong and it's time to go back to the drawing board; either to readjust the model or to scrap it altogether. We should begin to question why we're getting the results we are and what factors may be at play.

This isn't just for Smash either, in a lot of social research professions you find people clinging to held beliefs even as the research claims differently.

 

[ShadowGuy1]

Putting Zelda there would even be incorrect.

Purple Guy (Ed) continues to get rather high placements (sometimes even top 16 or top 8) here in Florida using mostly or solo Zelda where people do know the MU. He was also one of the most notable Sheikelda players in Brawl.

ven and Zolda are PR'd in Vegas and Wisconsin respectively. Fairess in Kuwait also does well with her from what I can tell. The character's top level results are rather poor, but she has at least something.

Nicko deserves credit for his work with Shulk though. Being PR'd 13th place in the toughest Smash region in the world (SoCal) is no easy feat. He has a Cloud but only uses it for Fox and Sonic.

I forgot about all these Zelda players lol. And that is why Nicko should not be underated. Socal is a tough area, and I hear Shulk has a good MU vs Cloud, but I am pretty sure that is false

 

[Hero_2_All]

I'm just gonna throw my own two cents on the overrating, and the underrating of Corrin. First thing to address is that Corrin has no SOLO mains at the very top level of play. By top lvl I mean top 32 at a Major tourney level of play. On the other hand her results at a regional lvl are great, and most notably Texas having 2 of its top players as Corrin solo mains (Cosmos, and Hakkii ). Now I've seen allot of talk about her being a scrub stomper, but to say state lvl Pr'ed players are scrubs is a little much don't you think? The biggest reason for why there is no top lvl representation for Corrin is that there is no reason for top lvl players to drop their already top tier mains for Corrin. I think people need to realize that Corrin is probably good, but not amazing enough as to were top lvl players will drop their current main for them. Corrin is not cloud or Bayonetta in that regard. Honestly a top lvl Solo main Corrin is likely to come is from one of these top lvl state players, not the already established hierarchy. For that I'm honestly curious to see how well Cosmos will do at CEO 2016. Now based off this info, and line of thought, Corrin is fine were she is on the tiers imho. She is kinda like falcon atm, both perform great at a regional lvl of play, but at a national lvl fall off. Falcon falls off due to his mistakes being more exploitable at the highest lvl, and Corrin simply doesn't have anyone playing her as a solo main up their. Corrin may prove herself a top tier, but honestly that will take time. A character's meta and player base is not made in a handful of months (exceptions being cloud, and bayo... because they are just that good).

 

[AnEventHorizon]

Nicko deserves credit for his work with Shulk though. Being PR'd 13th place in the toughest Smash region in the world (SoCal) is no easy feat. He has a Cloud but only uses it for Fox and Sonic.

He seems to use Cloud quite often actually. He went Solo Cloud for all of 2GGT: The False Awakens, and went Cloud right after losing a game to K9's Sheik in winner's semis two weeks ago as well as after dropping two games to ConCon's Luigi. etc,etc. The biggest problem is that some people might be thinking he goes Solo Shulk more than he really does, because all the youtube videos he's in are often just listed as Nicko (Shulk) instead of Nicko (Shulk,Cloud) as they should be.

I think it's very incorrect to say he's PR'd 13th from his solo Shulk play (and thus accredit that much more viability to Shulk)

 

[juddy96]

Leo is confirmed for GOML 2016. https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/4jbwan/leo_is_going_to_be_at_goml_2016/

 

[Deleted member]

He seems to use Cloud quite often actually. He went Solo Cloud for all of 2GGT: The False Awakens, and went Cloud right after losing a game to K9's Sheik in winner's semis two weeks ago as well as after dropping two games to ConCon's Luigi. etc,etc. The biggest problem is that some people might be thinking he goes Solo Shulk more than he really does, because all the youtube videos he's in are often just listed as Nicko (Shulk) instead of Nicko (Shulk,Cloud) as they should be.

I think it's very incorrect to say he's PR'd 13th from his solo Shulk play (and thus accredit that much more viability to Shulk)

I never said it was accredited to his solo Shulk play.

Thanks for bringing up his Cloud usage though. When asked he said he only uses it in some of Shulk's more troublesome MUs and he mentioned those two characters specifically. Guess I was wrong.

 

[Y2Kay]

Leo is confirmed for GOML 2016. https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/4jbwan/leo_is_going_to_be_at_goml_2016/

I'm glad they made an exception for our man Leo.

It's time to put the "MK is mid tier" theory to the test

 

[Radical Larry]

Can somebody please explain to me what is so fundamentally wrong with Larrys list?
Of course, his mains + Pikachu are a bit high, Bayo a bit low an the Mii-tier seems strange but it doesn't look worse then the average topplayer/random smashboardsuser list.

Other aspects really look on point, like Diddy finally getting the spot he deserves (Fox too!), Puff finally getting her own tier, Robin one time not getting blatantly underrated just because he's she's Robin, or generally stretching high and mid tier really far (a bit too far, okay) like it should be in this game imo.

Spoiler: Some Explanations

Well, my mains happen to be Link, Ganondorf, Bowser, Samus, ROB, Falco, Cloud and King Dedede. Like Samus was to me in the past and now in the present, I think I gave King Dedede some horrible misconception. In my own list, he's going higher because I see a lot of potential.

As for the Mii Tier, honestly, I had nowhere else to place them, I don't know how they play, and I just decided to put them all on some odd tier. Like I said, some tiers were indeed malleable like Lower Middle Tier and below.

As for Bayonetta's placement, it's all but justifyable that she is place somewhat low only due to her being able to be countered and the fact that her results are not too fantastic to warrant significantly higher placement. It's better than me not putting her in top 10, of course.

Though people may bash the hypothetical tier list, I'm open for criticism; that's the thing too, I've always been open to it. If it's bad, I look for more results and potential in certain characters. That's why I put Dedede higher. I've been seeing so much potential playing as him.

Spoiler: Some Other Things

And I have to mention it.

The hilarious thing is, just by looking at my own list, you can actually see that Ganondorf is still in bottom 15, so people saying that he's in the "Upper Half" is a horrible statement. The Tier List was made specifically for hypothesis and some testing to see the tier layout. The misconception is that the tiers, due to the layout, is pretty bad, but it's actually not.

For one, the Lower High Tier is where exactly? That's right, the middle of the list.
Where is Ganondorf if people are saying "he's in the top half"? Bottom 15.
Why is Cloud not a top tier and why is he lower? Because he's in the same position as before.

Now irregardless of that, the tier list I made isn't necessarily a tier list that can be seen as completely optimistic. Yes, I hold optimistic views for almost all of the characters from Viable all the way to Extraordinary, but haven't people noticed that the tier list could be translated thanks to that? I put in Upper and Lower Top, High, Middle and then Low and Bottom. Now someone else could have put in Top, High, Upper, Middle, Low, Lower, Bottom and Jigglypuff, all due to the fact that the parenthesis text of tiers could be easily reworded that way.

It was just that the tier list's main titles, the one above the parenthetic titles, were the ones that were to be taken to heart. Yes, even the Mettaton Tier, and again, I had nothing else to put there so I decided to screw around with people to see if they noticed that. The fact of the matter is, is that my tier list's title layouts could be translated in a very easy manner and wouldn't take much time to do, too.

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

I'm in the shulk discord, where Nicko comes sometimes. It's true that he plays both cloud and shulk, but when I asked what MUs he uses cloud for and he said fox and sonic. He also mentioned that he doesn't struggle against Diddy Kong while playing as shulk. It's true that Nicko pulls out cloud against bad Mus and some situations where he is down some games, but he has been using shulk more recently.
Just take a look what he did to a Diddy Kong 1 week ago: http://oddshot.tv/shot/fadgames-2016050631059628

About darkwolf, he is 8th on the Montreal PR.
This is the same region that Ally, holy, venom, and superGirlKels are.
Shulks national results are weak as of now, but we will see what happens at GOML. You will see darkwolf, Paradigm, brolinvids, artyuu, Pitzer( from MDVA), and Jerm.

 

[Djent]

Here's a tryhard friendly between ESAM and Dabuz :

Perception around these parts seems to be that this matchup is even or slightly in Oli's favor. However, ESAM and Dabuz both insist that Pikachu has the advantage. While tourney results have suggested Pika might have a problem, watching this set makes it understandable why they think so. Oli was actually struggling to kill Pika considerably, while also getting his landings and recoveries massacred. ESAM was basically in control the whole time. This is just one example, and it's one where both players are still trying to learn the matchup, but I was still impressed.

 

[Yonder]

Battle of BC is today. It's about 120 entrants and will probably have big D. I just heard about it yesterday, but ill try to get results for it.

 

[ShadowGuy1]

Now, I want to talk about . I have seen people who say is like Top 5, but others place him 5-6. I just want to see what others think about him as I feel he has a good mu chart, good results, and good theory.

 

[Vyrnx]

As far as Samus goes, I have been really surprised how much perception of her has shifted. A little over a year ago, every thread I went into I would argue with people that Samus wasn't bottom 3/5. Now the majority of people, even new users in the Community Voted Tier List who I used to consider notorious for putting Samus dead last, are putting Samus as mid tier.

At this point, I have no clue where Samus should land. Her viability doesn't hinge on certain character archetypes, for instance. Rushdown, swordies, and zoners don't strictly beat Samus just because of their playstyles. This is because Samus does respectably well in CQC and long range (specifically preventing others from playing long range), and does very well at mid range. Her position in the game hinges more on odd characteristics like opponent hurtbox size or whether they have items that clank with CS.

It's really cliche and everyone has heard it before, but a player has to put a lot of time into Samus to be able to accurately place her or understand her. This is because Samus is a character with depth, and Samus is a character that new players will make bad decisions with because they view her moveset incorrectly or are used to doing something with another character. It isn't even necessarily whether or not the player is new to Samus, it's if they can understand what is good and what isn't. Many new Samus players use SH fair. Many older Samus players also use SH fair because they never broke the habit. Esam uses it all the time. Even JWest uses it. Other Samus players look at down b and think, "Wow, that move is good for landing," and use down b every time they are in the air and die every time. JWest loses stocks to Sheik players because he always uses down b, then gets uaired by Sheik. These are just two examples, but players who consistently do this will probably have their opinion affected by thinking, "Samus has a bad neutral," and, "Samus can't land." There's also the issue of players not knowing how to shad, so they roll and never bother learning shad.

Samus has a ton of room to grow. Her tech chase setups are known, but extremely unexplored. All we know at this point is stuff like fuzzy percent ranges for moves that setup tech chases, but not which characters can jump at which percents, etc. The other thing is that Samus' tech chase setup moves mostly come from midrange, and many Samus players still do not play midrange, and her midrange game in general is hard to master. If Samus' various tools like her midrange game, tech chase CS, and zair combos are fully optimized, I could see her going far. Samus' advantage state is already ridiculous, but it could be improved even more.

This is sort of random, but god I love Samus' up b. Fast oos, covers so many ledge options, does massive shield damage, has some invincibility, isn't too easy to contest off stage, and kills. It lets Samus camp platforms since up b oos kills so early from high up, and when opponents mess up a combo, Samus can catch them in the air with up b and kill them early. Prevents shield bullying, and covers the air above Samus at unreactable speeds since it jumps from the ground to full height so fast.

I think most people pretty much know Samus' main issues. I would say Samus' initial poor reception was a result of her flaws being much more visible than her strengths. It's much easier for someone to see that she has a bad grab and struggles with small characters than it is to see that she has a good, say, falling uair. After a while people started looking for reasons to justify her being bottom tier and made up stuff like CS being a bad move or her recovery being one of the worst in the game, perceptions that still have to be broken occasionally.

In the end, what makes Samus' situation so unclear is how much her flaws really hold her back. Samus has a good moveset, adaptability, mobility (with her aerial acceleration, jumpsquat, and burst options, in addition to decent speed stats), damage racking, kill power, ledge options, and weight, among other things, but a poor grab, roll, jab (depending on percent range), hurtbox size, landing options, and issues with small opponents.

Samus is a character with many strong advantages, but some issues, so it comes down to, "Are her weaknesses great enough relative to her strengths to hold her back significantly?" The answer will vary a lot based on who is answering. But something to keep in mind is, is the person answering that question someone who knows Samus? In Mr. R's case, for instance, I highly doubt it. Results right now say no, her strengths outweigh her weaknesses, many players say that. But in the long run, we don't really know how detrimental Samus' weaknesses are, and that makes her position very unclear.

 

[Jams.]

Surprised no one mentioned on the list of characters that have practically no results. IDK why so many people think this character could be mid tier, he commits too hard to his options (except jab, which is why jab is a godlike move) while having too poor of a negative state and not strong enough of an advantageous state to make risk/reward balance out.

Battle of BC is today. It's about 120 entrants and will probably have big D. I just heard about it yesterday, but ill try to get results for it.

Anti will also be in attendance, right?

 

[ARISTOS]

Here's a tryhard friendly between ESAM and Dabuz :

Perception around these parts seems to be that this matchup is even or slightly in Oli's favor. However, ESAM and Dabuz both insist that Pikachu has the advantage. While tourney results have suggested Pika might have a problem, watching this set makes it understandable why they think so. Oli was actually struggling to kill Pika considerably, while also getting his landings and recoveries massacred. ESAM was basically in control the whole time. This is just one example, and it's one where both players are still trying to learn the matchup, but I was still impressed.

That MU looks incredibly painful.

Is it possible we may be seeing a movement towards more campy Pikachu's? I've always seen people try to play the character as rushdown, but this seems like it might be more successful. The caveat though is that Pika has really low dmg per hit so leads can be erased quickly.

 

[Trifroze]

EDIT: Historically, all of the characters that have been overtuned in one area and undertuned in another area have had the overtuned designs nerfed. What if the opposite happened? What if they just made ZSS's neutral even worse and made her pokes and approaches even less safe, while keeping her ladder combo just as deadly?

Strong neutral always carries further than strong advantage (unless advantage is disproportionately stronger of course). If neutral was nerfed considerably and advantage stayed the same, the character would get a lot worse while people would also start complaining more. They would see the character lose harder than before all match and then make a comeback which is "not supposed to happen".

Her reward and neutral were both nerfed though.

 

[Ninety]

I'm in the shulk discord, where Nicko comes sometimes. It's true that he plays both cloud and shulk, but when I asked what MUs he uses cloud for and he said fox and sonic. He also mentioned that he doesn't struggle against Diddy Kong while playing as shulk. It's true that Nicko pulls out cloud against bad Mus and some situations where he is down some games, but he has been using shulk more recently.
Just take a look what he did to a Diddy Kong 1 week ago: http://oddshot.tv/shot/fadgames-2016050631059628

About darkwolf, he is 8th on the Montreal PR.
This is the same region that Ally, holy, venom, and superGirlKels are.
Shulks national results are weak as of now, but we will see what happens at GOML. You will see darkwolf, Paradigm, brolinvids, artyuu, Pitzer( from MDVA), and Jerm.

Does Jerm dual main? I know I've seen him in results threads under Robin.

 

[Aaron1997]

Does Jerm dual main? I know I've seen him in results threads under Robin.

This is not the same Jerm. The jerm that plays Robin is in Texas

 

[meticulousboy]

As far as Samus goes, I have been really surprised how much perception of her has shifted. A little over a year ago, every thread I went into I would argue with people that Samus wasn't bottom 3/5. Now the majority of people, even new users in the Community Voted Tier List who I used to consider notorious for putting Samus dead last, are putting Samus as mid tier.

At this point, I have no clue where Samus should land. Her viability doesn't hinge on certain character archetypes, for instance. Rushdown, swordies, and zoners don't strictly beat Samus just because of their playstyles. This is because Samus does respectably well in CQC and long range (specifically preventing others from playing long range), and does very well at mid range. Her position in the game hinges more on odd characteristics like opponent hurtbox size or whether they have items that clank with CS.

It's really cliche and everyone has heard it before, but a player has to put a lot of time into Samus to be able to accurately place her or understand her. This is because Samus is a character with depth, and Samus is a character that new players will make bad decisions with because they view her moveset incorrectly or are used to doing something with another character. It isn't even necessarily whether or not the player is new to Samus, it's if they can understand what is good and what isn't. Many new Samus players use SH fair. Many older Samus players also use SH fair because they never broke the habit. Esam uses it all the time. Even JWest uses it. Other Samus players look at down b and think, "Wow, that move is good for landing," and use down b every time they are in the air and die every time. JWest loses stocks to Sheik players because he always uses down b, then gets uaired by Sheik. These are just two examples, but players who consistently do this will probably have their opinion affected by thinking, "Samus has a bad neutral," and, "Samus can't land." There's also the issue of players not knowing how to shad, so they roll and never bother learning shad.

Samus has a ton of room to grow. Her tech chase setups are known, but extremely unexplored. All we know at this point is stuff like fuzzy percent ranges for moves that setup tech chases, but not which characters can jump at which percents, etc. The other thing is that Samus' tech chase setup moves mostly come from midrange, and many Samus players still do not play midrange, and her midrange game in general is hard to master. If Samus' various tools like her midrange game, tech chase CS, and zair combos are fully optimized, I could see her going far. Samus' advantage state is already ridiculous, but it could be improved even more.

This is sort of random, but god I love Samus' up b. Fast oos, covers so many ledge options, does massive shield damage, has some invincibility, isn't too easy to contest off stage, and kills. It lets Samus camp platforms since up b oos kills so early from high up, and when opponents mess up a combo, Samus can catch them in the air with up b and kill them early. Prevents shield bullying, and covers the air above Samus at unreactable speeds since it jumps from the ground to full height so fast.

I think most people pretty much know Samus' main issues. I would say Samus' initial poor reception was a result of her flaws being much more visible than her strengths. It's much easier for someone to see that she has a bad grab and struggles with small characters than it is to see that she has a good, say, falling uair. After a while people started looking for reasons to justify her being bottom tier and made up stuff like CS being a bad move or her recovery being one of the worst in the game, perceptions that still have to be broken occasionally.

In the end, what makes Samus' situation so unclear is how much her flaws really hold her back. Samus has a good moveset, adaptability, mobility (with her aerial acceleration, jumpsquat, and burst options, in addition to decent speed stats), damage racking, kill power, ledge options, and weight, among other things, but a poor grab, roll, jab (depending on percent range), hurtbox size, landing options, and issues with small opponents.

Samus is a character with many strong advantages, but some issues, so it comes down to, "Are her weaknesses great enough relative to her strengths to hold her back significantly?" The answer will vary a lot based on who is answering. But something to keep in mind is, is the person answering that question someone who knows Samus? In Mr. R's case, for instance, I highly doubt it. Results right now say no, her strengths outweigh her weaknesses, many players say that. But in the long run, we don't really know how detrimental Samus' weaknesses are, and that makes her position very unclear.

Great argument. I also would like to add that aside from some Samus players' using Down B too often in an attempt to land safely and other negative attributes about Samus, one must figure out what good can come out of a negative attribute. Suppose an opponent is shielding after doing normal ledge getup. If Samus uses a Bomb followed by a fully charged Charge Shot on that shield, it will break. Things like these should not make her as bottom tier as before.

 

[RaptorTEC]

They have improved at least in terms of quantity I'd say and I consider that somewhat important. Even if Yoshi's results haven't improved by much, between them being at least a tad better now and people having always been ignorant towards them I think it's fairly easy to see where the argument is coming from that people have been sleeping on him for a while now. It's been a good while since people actually mentioned him as a top 10 character. A lot of the time he hasn't even been in consideration for top 20 and that's just not right. Yoshi's clearly better than that.

Our bad matchups getting nerfed is also a contributing factor. And no the people who claimed we were "sleeping" on Yoshi were, for the most part, the ones saying he was somehow a top 8 character with untapped potential. This was the issue that made a lot of Yoshi mains say he was being overrated. I have no doubt in my mind he's a top 15-20 character though. People putting him in the high 20's just think he has no results or are now going with the Yoshi sucks bandwagon. I've said from the start he's just a character that requires a lot of work and effort and with time he will eventually start getting more results. He could possibly be 10-15 in the future who knows

 

[Megamang]

So what is the deal with yoshi's jab usmash? Ive heard lots of different things and dont know whats correct; its either guaranteed or not guaranteed...

 

[Jona Bon Boa]

Surprised no one mentioned on the list of characters that have practically no results. IDK why so many people think this character could be mid tier, he commits too hard to his options (except jab, which is why jab is a godlike move) while having too poor of a negative state and not strong enough of an advantageous state to make risk/reward balance out.



Anti will also be in attendance, right?

what do you think they can do to buff zards negative and advantage states?

 

[arbustopachon]

Better air accel would do wonders to zard's advantage and disadvantage. Some extra air speed wouldn't hurt either.
He could also do with a couple of frames taken from his endlag. He has no aerial with a faf lower than 46 or a landing lag lower than 20.
Or they could just give him a ding dong and call it a day.

 

[Lavani]

Let's apply "cocaine logic" to it; if SSHC did not exist, would its addition be seen as a good or bad thing? I think it's pretty obvious it would be seen as a bug, at the very least, and IMO bugs need to be patched out regardless if they're a net gain or loss for the bugged character.

Well, it's a move themed on being sneaky, with substantial startup/endlag and strong-but-not-amazing reward on hit which will likely miss from the knockback momentum anyway. It may seem like an odd addition, but if there'd be a move to give that sort of quality to, Shadow Sneak is pretty much the best choice in terms of both balance and logic.

There were a lot of hitstun canceling specials back in 1.0.0. Most of these were patched out in 1.0.4, with SSHC getting tournament exposure right off the bat from aMSa (probably among others). Yet the only hitstun cancel that was patched after that point was Lucario's Extremespeed hitstun cancel in 1.0.6 (obscure and useless!). It was likely a bug initially, but I maintain it became a feature; there's no way the balance team doesn't know about it.

For the most part it only saves you from multihit upBs anyway, escaping something like a Greninja uair or Sheik ftilt is just going to get your Shadow Sneak punished even harder than just eating the move that hit you initially.

 

[Mario766]

Better air accel would do wonders to zard's advantage and disadvantage. Some extra air speed wouldn't hurt either.
He could also do with a couple of frames taken from his endlag. He has no aerial with a faf lower than 46 or a landing lag lower than 20.
Or they could just give him a ding dong and call it a day.

46 FAF?


That sounds like heaven.

Try 60.

 

[Jona Bon Boa]

Better air accel would do wonders to zard's advantage and disadvantage. Some extra air speed wouldn't hurt either.
He could also do with a couple of frames taken from his endlag. He has no aerial with a faf lower than 46 or a landing lag lower than 20.
Or they could just give him a ding dong and call it a day.

Techable flareblitz pls

 

[Ninety]

Techable flareblitz pls

Make Flame Choke untechable and we got a nice tradeoff.

 

[FullMoon]

Well, it's a move themed on being sneaky, with substantial startup/endlag and strong-but-not-amazing reward on hit which will likely miss from the knockback momentum anyway. It may seem like an odd addition, but if there'd be a move to give that sort of quality to, Shadow Sneak is pretty much the best choice in terms of both balance and logic.

There were a lot of hitstun canceling specials back in 1.0.0. Most of these were patched out in 1.0.4, with SSHC getting tournament exposure right off the bat from aMSa (probably among others). Yet the only hitstun cancel that was patched after that point was Lucario's Extremespeed hitstun cancel in 1.0.6 (obscure and useless!). It was likely a bug initially, but I maintain it became a feature; there's no way the balance team doesn't know about it.

For the most part it only saves you from multihit upBs anyway, escaping something like a Greninja uair or Sheik ftilt is just going to get your Shadow Sneak punished even harder than just eating the move that hit you initially.

I share a lot of the sentiment here but just out of curiosity I know Greninja, Lucario and Megaman had hitstun cancels but who else did?

 

[bc1910]

Diddy had a hitstun cancel with the peanut gun.

Also I wouldn't be sure that the devs know about SSHC. MK's ladder combo was around for months before Sakurai apparently found out about it and nerfed it. If they do know, they either don't know how to fix it or recognise that it's only useful in a handful of situations unlike, say, Mega Man's old cancel.

 

[Jams.]

what do you think they can do to buff zards negative and advantage states?

Basically what arbustopachon said. Giving him better air mobility would go a long way towards improving his juggling abilities, his follow-ups, and his ability to reset to neutral/the ledge without using high risk options like Rock Smash. I feel like it'd also fit thematically, since it doesn't make much sense for a flying type to be so sluggish in the air. Better traction would also help I think, since his solid OoS game is limited by his abnormally poor traction. This informative post by @rrrRandy basically expresses my thoughts about the character.

 

[NairWizard]

Diddy's case for #1 is predicated on his results, but the theory around him reinforces the results.

In theory and in practice, Diddy is just so consistent. If you look at all of the other top tiers, they have major consistency issues.

are light fastfallers who get true combo'd a lot and die to one good Rage read. Fox's recovery messes with him about as often as he gets an up-air string of death on someone, ZSS and Bayonetta rely on landing some key moves at certain percent ranges to kill, and ZSS further relies on grab reads from a 50-frames-of-lag grab or something.
has got his jank recovery.
has her huge hurtbox and she's so light. Ditto if you think he's up there as some lists seem to place him.
can struggle to kill unless he gets a well-timed spindash confirm.


Diddy, though, is not a fastfaller. He has two good, easy, quick kill confirms (banana and d-tilt) so sealing stocks is consistently easy for him. His hurtbox is small, his disadvantage is strong, and he is about midweight, which is just incredible and lets him use Rage just as much as the average opponent. Midweight is pretty much the ideal weight to be because you don't get combo'd as heavily as the heavyweights and you don't die as easily as the lightweights. His reward is not contingent on risky moves like ZSS grab. He dashgrabs or d-tilts you and you take ~15%. He banana tosses at you and you take ~15%. Every single time. Then you're at death % and you eat a d-tilt or banana to death. Every single time.

No character has a more consistent gameplan than Diddy Kong. Stock to stock to stock, he's just as good as he was on the previous stock. His options out of shield and dash are good, his rising and falling aerials are good, his mobility is good, his range is good, his damage output is good... he really just has no glaring flaws. He's not extreme enough to be oppressive like Rosalina or Fox, but the fact that he's not extreme is what makes him so consistent. He's just... good. Full stop.


Ultimately theory is just as useful as results, but you must get your theory right, which most people don't. (how often do you see people making strange claims such as that Captain Falcon's neutral isn't good?) Good theorists admit that they're wrong, adjust the theory based on an expanding meta and in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, analyze high-level matchup evidence (like Djent above did) to support their theory, and try to consider all relevant factors such as players of a character, regional bias, and meta development.

If you look at the theory properly, Diddy Kong is just as good as his results suggest.

 

[Charoite]

Diddy Kong is one of reason why i wait before claiming if a nerfed character is actually that gimped, players really overreact to nerfs :

 

[Das Koopa]

to be fair, Luigi went from argued Top 3-5 in some instances to somewhere in the 15-25 area, so his nerfs were actually pretty substantial

 

[Amadeus9]

I agree. It's pretty shocking actually.

As far as I'm concerned, as long as DA remains amazing and 50/50s into Shuttle Loop at death percent MK will never be below top 20. We're still talking about a character with some of the best kill confirms and hit confirms into long combos in the game.

And anyway, is his neutral really that bad? DA remains an excellent button, he has safe grounded pokes, his jumps let him mix up his landings and his grab game is good. His mobility is quite good too.

As far as I'm concerned MK has a phenomenal neutral lmao. Tons of really good boxing tools and one of the dumbest buttons in the game (dash attack). It's not sheik tier neutral for sure but its pretty damn good. Comparable to Mario imho