Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[FullMoon]

Larry Lurr > iStudying

iStudying had close sets with Florida's best but neither ESAM or MVD are on Lurr's level. Probably a 3-0 and a handshake, has iStudying faced any top level Foxes? I don't even know if any exist in Europe.

iStudy has fought Sodrek but I'm not quite sure how he matches up with other top Foxes.

 

[FallofBrawl]

UberMadman The best Sonic? Huh?! I don't doubt that Kels is probably the most technical but you're really overlooking Ken, Komirikiri, other top level Sonics.

Random Europe thought: Looking at France meta, they're super underrated, I think cyve, a top level German player, got 5th last time he visited. They need to travel more.

 

[Eugene Wang]

Are there any projects that try to take tourney match results to create matchup charts? I'd really like to see something better than the globs of theory various players have spit out.

 

[SaltyKracka]

Bad news for the lot of you expecting a major balance overhaul: it seems Bayonetta is the only character receiving changes in 1.1.6. On the one hand, Bayo nerfs pretty much confirmed, but on the other hand, Jigglypuff is going to rot in obscurity forever it seems.

If this is true, and all signs point to it being so, it's official.

The devs are idiots.

 

[Yonder]

Edit: Ninja'ed, Bayo nerfs from the patch incoming.


I wanted bit more of a meta game shaker of true, but if people think Mewtwo needs nerfs...maybe it's for the best. I'm ok with just Bayo nerfs.

 

[|RK|]

Honestly, Kirby doesn't really beat a smart Zero Suit Samus any more than Sonic does. Once again, Kirby's theory in the MU is based on the fact that he crouches under most of her neutral tools, but he still gets punished hard for mistakes and dies early for them, while struggling to approach and failing to be threatening at range. However, Sonic has the tools to approach ZSS if the Sonic player is smart and mixes up their approach, meaning not being reliant on spindash. The matchup is one of Sonic's worst high tier matchups and one of Kirby's better high tier matchups, but... it's Sonic as opposed to Kirby, so the matchup is still similar between the two of them.

Watch this set between SuperGirlKels and Nairo. She goes Kirby the first two games because she believes the Sonic/ZSS matchup to be worse than the Kirby/ZSS matchup, and sure enough she does decent game 1, even though she loses. However, by game 2 Nairo has adapted to fighting Kirby in neutral and bodies her, causing her to switch back to Sonic, and she does comparably if not slightly better than how she does game 1. After the fact, Nairo himself even stated that he believes Sonic to be a harder matchup for ZSS than Kirby.

Eh. IIRC MikeKirby took Nairo to last hit. Sadly, there's no recording, but if we're gonna compare ZSS to Kirby at its peak...

EDIT: Kels isn't even a top 5 Sonic to my knowledge, much less the best.

 

[C0rvus]

Could be far worse. I actually love where the game is in 1.1.5, so I'm okay with it being the case. Hopefully they gut Bayonetta gently, she's pretty cool and unique.

I wanted some Cloud nerfs, but whatever.

 

[DblCrest]

UberMadman
But on a more serious note I'm sure the Kirbies or even ZSSsssss can pitch in there's probably more to the match up than just Kirby crouching.

Edit : Welp

Spoiler: Yes

 

[Shady Shaymin]

If this is true, and all signs point to it being so, it's official.

The devs are idiots.

This is why i despise our community

 

[FallofBrawl]

Yeah, the character that's been dominating FG, midlevel, and high level play since she's been released with the most oppressive and easy buttons; the character that's been carrying players we've never seen before into multiple top 8's, the character that the community made a trending topic on Twitter because of her subsequent ban in Spain has been nerfed.

Yea, the devs are officially idiots

 

[|RK|]

The Kirby crouch meme needs to die. XD

Seriously. Kirby's crouch is helpful, but it is not the only reason he works in matchups.

 

[Deleted member 269706]

Bad news for the lot of you expecting a major balance overhaul: it seems Bayonetta is the only character receiving changes in 1.1.6. On the one hand, Bayo nerfs pretty much confirmed, but on the other hand, Jigglypuff is going to rot in obscurity forever it seems.

Perhaps it would be fair to reason that this is going to be the final patch. Should Bayonetta be nerfed, I believe the game is going to be in the most balanced state it's ever been and the devs can finally be done with it. No point in buffing other characters if it could cause competitive problems which would require changes later on. It would seem as though we're all doomed to learn how to adapt at this point, even you Bayo mains. No more wishing for buffs or nerfs my children, it's time to git gud.

 

[Airpoizon]

So, ZSS will rein at the top. Was hoping to buff some other characters that desperately need it *cough* Puff *cough* but it seems we just gotta do our best to raise our characters standings.

 

[MachoCheeze]

From thatsmash4modder's twitter:

Bayo's aerial downwards side-b has decreased damage (8 -> 6.5), decreased angle (0x50 -> 0x3C) and decreased hitbox size (6.5 -> 4.5).

Bayo's aerial upwards side-b has increased KBG (0x28/0x1E/0x64 -> 0x32/0x26/0x70)

EDIT:

More...

Bayo's third hit of fair has less KGB (0x52 -> 0x44) and a 3 frame later autocancel window / 3 frames more endlag.

Bayo's landing hitbox of downair has reduced KBG (0x8C -> 0x87).

Bayo's fair hit one has reduced damage (3.8 -> 3).

Bayo's dtilt has reduced hitbox size (3.5 -> 2.8)

 

[DblCrest]

Seriously. Kirby's crouch is helpful, but it is not the only reason he works in matchups.

I know but it's getting to a point where everyone assumes that's ALL there is to his match ups. It's like everyone thinking getting rid of Luma , getting Mac in the air or stealing Diddy's banana is all the match up is about.

 

[A_Kae]

I have dumps of Bayonetta's main script file from 1.1.5 and 1.1.6 attached to this post

 

[Ffamran]

From thatsmash4modder's twitter:

Converting hex for those of you who can't read it or willing to use a converter like this one: http://www.binaryhexconverter.com/hex-to-decimal-converter.

Bayo's aerial downwards side-b has decreased damage (8 -> 6.5), decreased angle (0x50 -> 0x3C) and decreased hitbox size (6.5 -> 4.5).

Hit angle went from 80 degrees to 60 degrees. So, a more horizontal angle.

Bayo's aerial upwards side-b has increased KBG (0x28/0x1E/0x64 -> 0x32/0x26/0x70)

Growth went from 40 / 30 / 100 to 50 / 38 / 112. It's going to send you further away maybe too far for her to followup at certain percents.

Edit: Shouldn't we be posting this in the 1.1.6 patch discussion thread?

Edit 2: Edit Harder: Thread's not open...

 

[FullMoon]

Boy they are hitting Bayo with the nerf bat hard

I wonder just how significant those changes are, it's hard to tell with just numbers.

 

[Das Koopa]

From thatsmash4modder's twitter:




EDIT:

More...

Does this effectively kill her ladder ko combos?

 

[SaltyKracka]

Yeah, the character that's been dominating FG, midlevel, and high level play since she's been released with the most oppressive and easy buttons; the character that's been carrying players we've never seen before into multiple top 8's, the character that the community made a trending topic on Twitter because of her subsequent ban in Spain has been nerfed.

Yea, the devs are officially idiots

Bayonetta nerfs are so braindead easy and obvious that I would have been more surprised if any patch hadn't included them.

That there aren't any of the million and one other changes that could be done to make this game better and more balanced is the basis of my calling the devs idiots.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Does this effectively kill her combos?

Only really Divekick 0-death stuff from what I can tell. Feels more like a bugfix for that than an actual balance patch.

 

[|RK|]

One more thing about Kirby vs ZSS. I just watched that match... Kels is trying to crouch pretty much the whole time in first match, and she dies for poor decisions like dair to land (habit I'm still trying to break), poor DI, poor roll habits, and generally bad air-to-air interactions. Kirby is a ground fighter, for the most part. His crouching is a part of the neutral, but not the whole thing. Kels became predictable very quickly because her game was effectively based on crouching. Bengals vs SmashG0D is a better example of the matchup, as from what I hear, SmashG0D threw out crouches only when it was very smart to do so. I would not use Kels vs Nairo as a way to judge the matchup.

 

[FullMoon]

The game is in a pretty good position already outside of Bayo being overtuned which is getting toned down.

I'm not surprised they decided to not do much. I mean sure they could've buffed the low tier characters but really now, calling the devs idiots just because they didn't buff Jigglypuff or Dedede or any other bottom tier character is kinda uncalled for.

 

[FallofBrawl]

Does this effectively kill her ladder ko combos?

Aerial side b upwards doesn't confirm as easily I would assume, her dive kick stuff is probably now impossible to follow through with an early death, chaining fair 1 will also be not as easy

Witch Twist is still pretty good so she still has combo starters, but her combo extension tools are pretty badly nerfed.

 

[Man Li Gi]

Converting hex for those of you who can't read it or willing to use a converter like this one: http://www.binaryhexconverter.com/hex-to-decimal-converter.

Hit angle went from 80 degrees to 60 degrees. So, a more horizontal angle.


Growth went from 40 / 30 / 100 to 50 / 38 / 112. It's going to send you further away maybe too far for her to followup at certain percents.

Edit: Shouldn't we be posting this in the 1.1.6 patch discussion thread?

Edit 2: Edit Harder: Thread's not open...

Wait you're back? I gotta say, was kinda missing those text walls. I'm surprised you're back after you went berserk a while back.

 

[Ffamran]

Bayo's third hit of fair has less KGB (0x52 -> 0x44) and a 3 frame later autocancel window / 3 frames more endlag.

Fair 3 growth went from 82 to 68. It's going to kill later which I don't see the point. In certain situations, Bay can still get you close enough to bop you through the blast zone while you're right next it. Also, the end lag increase would have made more sense for Fair 1. Oh well...

Bayo's landing hitbox of downair has reduced KBG (0x8C -> 0x87).

Landing Dair growth from 140 to 135. Going to kill later. Maybe 10% to 30% later. How do I figure this? Last hit of Falco's Nair and Fair have the same damage, angle, and base, but a difference in 10 growth. Fair kills like ~20% later if I remember correctly.

 

[Ninety]

Better get Donkey Kong on the scene lads because DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD

 

[Mario766]

D-Tilt range hurts one of her combo starters

dABK nerfs make it harder to land, does less damage, so you get sent lower, and sends you more horizontal.
upward ABK nerfs make it harder to combo with with percent.
F-Air 1 nerf would actually send you closer to her...but with nerfs to ABK it's harder to do much with it.
D-Air nerf doesn't matter, the move was barely used.
3rd hit of F-Air nerf doesn't matter, F-Air 1 is more important.

It hurts her ladder combo and her general combo game with ABK.

 

[SaltyKracka]

The game is in a pretty good position already outside of Bayo being overtuned which is getting toned down.

I'm not surprised they decided to not do much. I mean sure they could've buffed the low tier characters but really now, calling the devs idiots just because they didn't buff Jigglypuff or Dedede or any other bottom tier character is kinda uncalled for.

A year+ of doing nothing for bottom tier characters is still a year. Whether they be lazy or idiots, this game could still be much better than it is, and the fault of that lies on them.

 

[UberMadman]

I know but it's getting to a point where everyone assumes that's ALL there is to his match ups. It's like everyone thinking ridding of Luma , getting Mac in the air or stealing Diddy's banana is all the match up is about.

Keep in mind I was not saying that Kirby's crouch was the only aspect of his MU vs. ZSS, it's just why a lot of people seem to think that he has a good matchup versus her, but when you analyze all the other aspects of the matchup, she still comes out on top. Not as dominantly as most of her other matchups, but not weakly enough tot eh point where I would recommend Kirby as a counterpick choice.

UberMadman The best Sonic? Huh?! I don't doubt that Kels is probably the most technical but you're really overlooking Ken, Komirikiri, other top level Sonics.

Random Europe thought: Looking at France meta, they're super underrated, I think cyve, a top level German player, got 5th last time he visited. They need to travel more.

I didn't overlook them, but I really do think Kels is a contender. If you were to press me right now I'd say that Komorikiri is the best Sonic, but over the past month or so Kels has really given a lot of other Sonics a run for their money and I feel she will continue to do so in the future. She is definitely, in my opinion, top 5 in the world at the character. Anyway, my point was just she's not a random, and her performance vs. Nairo should really highlight that fact.

 

[Gunla]

Converting hex for those of you who can't read it or willing to use a converter like this one: http://www.binaryhexconverter.com/hex-to-decimal-converter.

Hit angle went from 80 degrees to 60 degrees. So, a more horizontal angle.


Growth went from 40 / 30 / 100 to 50 / 38 / 112. It's going to send you further away maybe too far for her to followup at certain percents.

Edit: Shouldn't we be posting this in the 1.1.6 patch discussion thread?

Edit 2: Edit Harder: Thread's not open...

We're working on it.

Gonna have a single thread for discussion/notes.

 

[FullMoon]

A year+ of doing nothing for bottom tier characters is still a year. Whether they be lazy or idiots, this game could still be much better than it is, and the fault of that lies on them.

You can apply "It could be better" to pretty much anything. This game is never going to be perfectly balanced and the devs can only attempt to make the balance as best as they can and considered how varied tournament results have been, I think they've done a pretty damn good job so far.

 

[[BROF]]

I know that every single patch since Bayo/Corrin people have been saying that this one might be the last one, but the fact that they literally did nothing but fix Bayonetta is giving me a pretty strong gut feeling that 1.1.6 might be the last one we'll see.

 

[shrooby]

Go here to continue the witch hunt:

http://smashboards.com/threads/1-1-6-patch-notes-patch-discussion.436806/

 

[Teshie U]

60MB for some angles and damage changes?

 

[Deleted member 269706]

A year+ of doing nothing for bottom tier characters is still a year. Whether they be lazy or idiots, this game could still be much better than it is, and the fault of that lies on them.

You have every right to your opinion, but you have to remember that this game isn't designed to be competitive. We should be glad we got any patches to begin with. Now take Bowser or Ganon for instance. How could you make him competitively viable and yet also fair in a casual FFA environment? Ask yourself the same question with Sheik and Jiggs. I'm also quite lost by your introduction sentence. Just take a look at what they did for Mewtwo, Ike, Kirby, Samus, Marth/Lucina, Zard, Ganon, and the many others I didn't mention.

 

[[BROF]]

60MB for some angles and damage changes?

Yeah, I'm pretty confused.
And what in Soccereye's name could those unholy 300 something MB for the 3DS one be for?

 

[Jona Bon Boa]

I know that every single patch since Bayo/Corrin people have been saying that this one might be the last one, but the fact that they literally did nothing but fix Bayonetta is giving me a pretty strong gut feeling that 1.1.6 might be the last one we'll see.

Eh. Wouldn't believe that until the devs/Nintendo say it themselves. And we've had patches that have changed only one or two things in the past before.

 

[Trifroze]

So ZSS without a heavy use of grab = high tier Zamus? Is she going to end up around the same level of viability as her Brawl incarnation? Because I'd like to remind everyone that Brawl ZSS was capable of winning Apex. It does feel like ZSS results have dropped off even more than usual and Nairo's the only real one continuing to do work with her.

Not trying to make an argument here, more just fishing for the views of people who actually main her.

I think judging by (intelligently filtered) results there's a case to be made for ZSS being heavily overrated, and probably always has been. Her results are well below the other characters she's always grouped with, and more than half of them are by Nairo and Marss. If you removed those two players she'd have mid tier results even at the top level (which is already the case for her on high and mid level). You can take any other character who's considered top/very high tier, remove 2 players and still maintain great results.

Importantly though, most of the results from Cloud, Bayonetta, Fox, Rosalina, Mario and Mewtwo are with secondaries or with those characters being the secondaries, often to other characters from this same group, so a lot of them are shared results. Diddy, Sheik, Sonic, Ryu and ZSS are looking less popular as secondaries, yet Diddy and Sheik are still doing super well and the other three are keeping up.

Still not personally willing to accept that ZSS is a lower high tier with the punish game, safety and mobility that she has. You just have to master mix ups in neutral and be on point with your punishes. Can't just SHFF nair/zair and dash grab over a over, and for the sake of everything that's good, you can't miss OoS up b punishes, grab follow ups or choke when you land a down smash.

From playing this character for almost 10 months now, playing a non predictable neutral and utilizing your movement options well, reacting to people hitting your shield with OoS up b while also knowing when not to trigger it, landing those flip kicks and down smashes on your opponent's recovery when you have the chance, and constantly being aware of what's the best punish and where your opponent is going to DI after your down throws and nairs amounts to a very difficult character to play optimally.

I do think ZSS has great tools in the end, and her only real weakness, but a considerable one, is her lack of burst despite having good mobility. Her offensive bubble is smaller than it seems when dash attack is unrewarding and unsafe, usmash is unrewarding and unsafe, up b is rewarding but very unsafe, and rising aerials don't hit grounded characters. Dash grab is the only viable unreactable option she can hit a grounded character with without being stationary.

Yet her grab and the follow ups from it were nerfed. It hurts considerably by emphasizing her weakness further, but I think it was the right call, just nair really didn't need to be touched like it was and not enough compensation was given in return to all the damage nerfs. Dash grab still demands respect because 20-30% of damage is a lot for a move that hits from one third of a stage across outside of your reaction, even if she takes similar damage upon whiffing it. The risk/reward ratio most of the time is still in the ZSS player's favor, and that's simply because they're the ones who choose when they use that move and when they don't.

People learning to deal with ZSS and the nerfs hit roughly at the same timeframe, and all this happened to a character that never was overpowering to begin with. Anyone questioning this is free to look at any medium to large sample results. Not just whatever Nairo attended.

It's hard to say where I'd put ZSS now when I don't have nearly the same experience on other characters and their weaknesses, but she's far from unviable. Probably around 10th, likely on the better side of it, but she's definitely not in the top cluster anymore.

 

[Ffamran]

D-Tilt range hurts one of her combo starters

It's not even that disjointed or far reaching. 3.5 to 2.8 is a 0.7 difference. From Furil's hitbox visualization.

Spoiler: DTILT

Of all the Dtilt ranges to reduce, hers and not Falco's. Y'all realize his is stupidly disjointed, right? It's deceptive. Unfair. You see Bay's freaking leg sweep around, but Falco? Thin tail feathers. It's got an attack trail, but the disjoint is placed after the attack trail. It's frankly, disgusting to players. People complain about Captain Falcon and Ganondorf's disjoint on their Side Smashes, but those are frame 19 with 38 recovery frames and 21 with 34 recovery frames moves, respectively. Falco's is frame 7 with 19 recovery frames.