Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Dream Cancel]

People know their main best which means they know both their strengths and weaknesses in detail. Consequentially that can lead to either overrating or underrating said character because it's the one you know the most about for better or for worse.

With pre-patch Bayonetta for instance a lot of people could think she was a perfect character by seeing her do her silly ladder combos in tournament frequently, but the people who actually main her would know her weakspots better than anyone else and have to struggle with said weakspots might see her in a less "positive" light. Not the best example probably but I think it conveys what I'm trying to say anyway.

The closest thing that I could find to help you with your description is a suggested corollary to the Dunning-Kruger effect. It's basically what you said; Skilled players may underestimate their skill relative to others. And, in the context of character choice in Smash, skilled players may underrate their main relative to other characters. Of course, this doesn't cover any sort of overrating of mains, but we could look at how the confidence of players affects the perceptions of their main(s). You may see this in action if you ask a strong tournament player's opinion of their main(s).

 

[Strong-Arm]

The patch is out now guys

 

[Big-Cat]

Now I really want to know if Smash had a training mode like in The King of Fighters and Street Fighter would there be less of a reliance on theory and guesswork? Before anything else, there's nothing wrong with theory or guesswork. It's just in Smash's case, because of how training mode works meaning we can't easily test stuff by ourselves -- people are busy, they have their own lives, so it's difficult to lab with someone 24/7 not to mention that since people aren't machines, they're going to get tired and might understand directions incorrectly --, theory is used more often and sometimes, too much. Moving on, complacency and laziness will always get in the way, but there would be a tool that would always be there to prove and disprove anything. Someone could show, I don't know, hypothetical situation that Fox can whiff punish all of Mario's moves and has the ability to immediately counter out of all of Mario's combos and setups with even more damaging combos and setups meaning Fox always has the edge in damage rather than going, "Fox wrecks Mario because his moves do this and he can do this right after Mario's combos". Maybe if that tool existed, people wouldn't be as... loud when it came to certain things. Granted, that doesn't mean that it would allow everyone to counter certain setups, but just give them knowledge on how to deal with them more easily -- there's a reason why some setups are called confirms and combos and not links or strings.

The only thing I want in training mode is a record feature.

 

[Jaxas]

The only thing I want in training mode is a record feature.

I'm honestly pretty curious as to how difficult it would be to get rudimentary upgrades to training mode with the modding capabilities we have now; that would go a LONG ways.

Hell, even simple things like not disabling rage/staling would be handy. (Speaking of which, does anyone know what the difficulty would be to add hitbox visuals? I know there were some Brawl PSAs that did that using the Super Scope's charge shot as the visual somehow...)

But yeah, training mode... needs some work.

 

[FullMoon]

The only thing I was mildly concerned about regarding this patch was whether they could've done a stealth fix on SSHC

They didn't so all is good.

 

[LancerStaff]

Speaking of which, does anyone know what the difficulty would be to add hitbox visuals? I know there were some Brawl PSAs that did that using the Super Scope's charge shot as the visual somehow...

Not hard. Been done on 3DS already, though with the shield graphic instead because Super Scope shots are oblong now. Haven't seen it on Wii U though...

 

[Man Li Gi]

The only thing I want in training mode is a record feature.

While their at it, add the options remove stage hazards or cause stage freeze.

 

[Trifroze]

My opinion is that Sheik/Diddy are #1 and #2 post-patch assuming Bayo's the only one getting slammed. They work best off fundamentals, have the strongest neutrals, have the best projectiles, have the best results besides Bayo, etc.

In partial response to Trifroze

: I think the fact that Marss and Nairo are capable of winning as hard as they do in high-level settings is ultimately a reflection of what the character is capable of played at the highest level. Because of this, I don't even think that ZSS's otherwise lackluster results mean much, again reminiscent of where Prince Abu is a galaxy's distance from HBox.

Again, though, it depends partly how you define "Overrated". ZSS, and Sheik are, as far I know, the only characters to solo-win true majors.

IMO, ZSS is just really hard to play effectively so a lot of people either don't pick her up or don't do fantastically with her because they aren't as good at the character as Marss/Nairo.

(Some much needed) ZSS counterplay has developed and two unfavorable patches have happened since ZSS has won a major, so it can be argued that results so far back are irrelevant in the present.

Another problem, like I mentioned, is that there are likely many characters who are capable of the top level results of the likes of ZSS, Rosalina and Mewtwo, they just don't happen to have the right players to showcase what the characters can really do. Granted, they've all at least proven to have what it takes, which is a lot more than you can say for around 15 other characters who might or might not have that.

We all know what would happen if Nairo and Marss dropped ZSS, or if Abadango (and now apparently now 9B) dropped Mewtwo - the characters would fade into the "Pikachu obscurity", because they don't have great results across levels to retain any real relevance afterwards, only theory which always loses to results. Every regular here should know the spontaneous mob mentality centered around results; as soon as they change, the opinion changes, yet it's pretended that these opinions are solid and well founded. I'd personally like to stop pretending and at least try to see further ahead or a bigger picture than whatever the last week's big tournament implicates.

 

[Ffamran]

I'm honestly pretty curious as to how difficult it would be to get rudimentary upgrades to training mode with the modding capabilities we have now; that would go a LONG ways.

Hell, even simple things like not disabling rage/staling would be handy. (Speaking of which, does anyone know what the difficulty would be to add hitbox visuals? I know there were some Brawl PSAs that did that using the Super Scope's charge shot as the visual somehow...)

But yeah, training mode... needs some work.

I just realized something. Neither 20XX or PM's training modes have a record feature or the ability to enable to staling or whatever, right?

 

[Strong-Arm]

Rest in peace Bayonetta. This patch destroyed her.

 

[LancerStaff]

So to reiterate, the Bayo changes were the only ones. No confirmed changes otherwise and Kurogane says nothing in the update was changed since.

Somebody just needs to pin an exact number on Bayo's Dtilt FAF or whatever and we're done here.

 

[Mr. Johan]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

This....this makes attempting ladder combos on certain characters a death sentence, doesn't it?

Like, if Bayo attempts to ladder the likes of Mac, Peach, Mario, Doc, MK, Charizard, Zamus, etc., and they DI out below her, that puts her right in the line of fire for their UpBs and knock her straight out.


That's....intriguing.

 

[Sonicninja115]

I find it funny that Bayonetta's combos are still great at a low level. Unless you know SDI and DI charts, you are still going to get destroyed by her combos.

At the top level Bayo wasn't broken, Mid and low was the problem. Now, they just removed some of the mid level dominance and nerfed her top level capabilities somewhat more.

 

[Quantumpen]

Mewtwo can do it too with fair, SDI out downwards buffer djc fair. just confirmed. Kills pretty early if you're high up when the up-b catches.

I already knew this since I modded the changes in yesterday, but Bayo got gutted hard. Feels different when you're actually play matches and you can punish THEIR successful witch twist read with proper SDI (even online).

I think this may be too much. Only time will tell.

 

[LancerStaff]

Some characters can SDI down and punish her for landing the move at all? Um, wow. Went from OP to disfunctional overnight.

I don't think Bayo can do anything to anybody with the move if they're expecting it.

 

[SaltyKracka]

Bayo, Bayo
On what pedestal she perch'd
Formed all of ease and cheese
With a base of power
Unseen afore
Day-o, Day-o
Not feet of clay
Or a heart of brass were found
But the gods found the pedestal too high
And smote it down

And nothing of value was lost.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Mewtwo can do it too with fair, SDI out downwards buffer djc fair. just confirmed. Kills pretty early if you're high up when the up-b catches.

How many frames does buffered djc Fair take to connect?

Have that, and then we can compile all the moves that can punish her on hit for the KO using the frame data of everyone's double jumps and their fastest aerial/UpB.

I'd imagine the number of character exceptions would be small, r.i.p Pikachu Though maybe Thunder can hit her thanks to the newSDIing giving Pika that time needed to buffer it?

 

[Quantumpen]

How many frames does buffered djc Fair take to connect?

Have that, and then we can compile all the moves that can punish her on hit for the KO using the frame data of everyone's double jumps and their fastest aerial/UpB.

I'd imagine the number of character exceptions would be small, r.i.p Pikachu Though maybe Thunder can hit her thanks to the newSDIing giving Pika that time needed to buffer it?

Fair is frame 6, all double jumps are frame 1 IIRC. so 7 frames or better can punish (probably slower though.. fair is pretty fast and you don't really need to position much, you can use it immediately after double jumping)

 

[Trifroze]

I don't think there's anything hype about a character being reduced this much due to community outcry. All it means is that if, for whatever reason or just simple lack of knowledge, the community decides to start hating on a certain character really hard just because they become sick of seeing them (and thus everything that character does is now op or ResidentSleeper), there's a chance the developers will actually listen and nerf a character who didn't need nerfs.

Bayonetta needed them, but likely not this much. Remains to be seen if the character still works.

I hope to **** this is the last patch for the sake of everything good.

 

[jespoke]

If this really is the last patch i can see how they absolutely did not want to undershoot, even at the risk of overshooting a lot

 

[Jaxas]

Not hard. Been done on 3DS already, though with the shield graphic instead because Super Scope shots are oblong now. Haven't seen it on Wii U though...

Is it done in-game, or are you talking about the out-of-game (I'm pretty sure, anyways) recordings that @Furil has done?

Because WOW would I love to have hitbox-viewer mode to practice with, just saying.

 

[bc1910]

Please remember that these are hour old nerfs. It will take time for her position in the meta to settle. How many times have we seen people overreact to the nerfs of top characters? Don't fall into that trap.

What I will say is that on the face of it, this is the most severe nerf a character has had since 1.0.4 Greninja.

Most of her follow-ups are easy to DI down + away now, although in some cases the change to ABK helps it connect with aerials better. Witch Twist doesn't really lead into anything at low percents. Divekick is still great at breaking her out of disadvantage but is a pretty bad attack otherwise, particularly at low percents, because of the landing lag she suffers afterward. Your best bet is to divekick away to safety after landing one. SDI away easily breaks you out of any Up B 2 combos and of course others are finding ways to punish her on hit.

She still retains many strengths she had before such as Witch Time, strong OoS (it's just not rewarding until mid-high percents), excellent edgeguarding and the ability to force approaches with bullets.

I am not going to say anything about where she will end up in the meta, although it's safe to say she won't be #1 now.

 

[HoSmash4]

I don't think there's anything hype about a character being reduced this much due to community outcry. All it means is that if, for whatever reason or just simple lack of knowledge, the community decides to start hating on a certain character really hard just because they become sick of seeing them (and thus everything that character does is now op or ResidentSleeper), there's a chance the developers will actually listen and nerf a character who didn't need nerfs.

Bayonetta needed them, but likely not this much. Remains to be seen if the character still works.

I hope to **** this is the last patch for the sake of everything good.

As much as I think are 'Toxic and not fun' for the game, I hope patches end so we can just improve as a community and improve as players.

 

[Mr. Johan]

idk, I think this SDI trick on WT2 is pretty crippling if it turns out everyone can bop her for it.

Worst case scenario for her, she gets KO'd outright. Best case scenario, she avoids the punish....only to suffer the landing lag she now has to endure because she carried them up all that way with her specials and get punished there instead. Middle case scenario, she Witch Times the punish....but now, she has to land because she's exhausted her aerial specials by that point and go through the landing lag, and the opponent is now high in the air, away from any hard punishes, and possibly free by the time she makes it back up there, and she just wasted her counter opportunity. Other middle case scenario, she Bat Within's out....and now she's stuck with landing lag anyway.


Once people start SDIing that WT regularly, she really cannot afford to get her combo string started anymore. Any outcome for her in the end ends up as a negative one.

 

[Quantumpen]

I agree. The SDI multiplier on witch twist shouldn't have been changed. The ABK down kick angle change the various hitbox/knockback nerf on the final fair hit were more than enough to kill her 0 to deaths.

She should be able to get something like Witch Twist -> jump -> ABK -> Witch-Twist -> Fair x 3 for a nice 30% damage. Her combos should be good at racking up %'s. Now she literally can't get anything but like, Witch Twist, jump ABK, up-air.

 

[Death44]

Official 4BR Smash for Wii U Tier List v1.0 (1.1.3 patch)

Top
S:

High
A:
B:

Middle
C:
D:
E:

Low
F:
G:

Bottom
H:
I:
J:

Graphic version:

Spoiler: Raw voting data

Character | Average Placement | Standard Deviation | Gap
Sheik | 20.0 | 0.0 | 0.0
Zero Suit Samus | 19.46 | 0.708 | 0.538
Rosalina | 18.77 | 0.87 | 0.687
Ryu | 17.95 | 1.103 | 0.82
Pikachu | 17.86 | 1.065 | 0.099
Sonic | 17.83 | 1.269 | 0.021
Fox | 17.52 | 1.146 | 0.313
Mario | 17.51 | 1.108 | 0.014
Diddy Kong | 17.43 | 0.998 | 0.082
Meta Knight | 17.12 | 1.489 | 0.307
Villager | 16.52 | 1.614 | 0.597
Cloud | 16.5 | 1.657 | 0.023
Ness | 16.39 | 1.502 | 0.11
Captain Falcon | 15.16 | 1.767 | 1.228
Yoshi | 15.15 | 1.893 | 0.013
Luigi | 14.27 | 1.996 | 0.881
Dark Pit | 13.89 | 2.138 | 0.381
Pit | 13.88 | 2.308 | 0.006
Peach | 13.75 | 2.115 | 0.133
R.O.B. | 13.63 | 2.221 | 0.12
Wario | 13.56 | 1.898 | 0.067
Toon Link | 13.2 | 2.416 | 0.357
Lucario | 12.92 | 2.224 | 0.285
Olimar | 12.47 | 2.452 | 0.454
Greninja | 12.25 | 2.633 | 0.215
Ike | 12.12 | 2.425 | 0.126
Donkey Kong | 11.8 | 2.252 | 0.325
Mega Man | 11.41 | 2.159 | 0.386
Pac-Man | 11.29 | 2.278 | 0.124
Bowser | 10.81 | 2.66 | 0.477
Robin | 10.17 | 2.722 | 0.642
Roy | 9.29 | 3.209 | 0.883
Kirby | 9.1 | 3.388 | 0.183
Bowser Jr. | 8.93 | 2.671 | 0.176
Mr. Game & Watch | 8.72 | 2.47 | 0.21
Lucas | 8.65 | 2.993 | 0.071
Mewtwo | 8.35 | 2.666 | 0.297
Falco | 8.12 | 3.026 | 0.232
Wii Fit Trainer | 8.08 | 2.674 | 0.037
Shulk | 7.75 | 2.926 | 0.325
Marth | 7.72 | 2.237 | 0.038
Link | 7.47 | 2.474 | 0.249
Duck Hunt Dog | 7.18 | 3.11 | 0.283
Little Mac | 7.18 | 2.633 | 0.009
Dr. Mario | 7.14 | 2.437 | 0.033
King Dedede | 6.04 | 2.721 | 1.107
Lucina | 5.59 | 2.547 | 0.447
Mii Brawler | 5.01 | 2.952 | 0.584
Charizard | 4.79 | 2.255 | 0.218
Palutena | 4.78 | 2.199 | 0.008
Samus | 4.12 | 1.942 | 0.656
Mii Gunner | 3.6 | 2.153 | 0.525
Mii Swordsman | 3.32 | 2.054 | 0.282
Ganondorf | 3.23 | 1.675 | 0.082
Jigglypuff | 2.79 | 2.035 | 0.448
Zelda | 1.96 | 1.259 | 0.828

Spoiler: Text version

S: Sheik, Zero Suit Samus, Rosalina & Luma
A: Ryu, Pikachu, Sonic, Fox, Mario, Diddy Kong, Meta Knight
B: Villager, Cloud, Ness
C: Captain Falcon, Yoshi
D: Luigi, Dark Pit, Pit, Peach, R.O.B., Wario, Toon Link, Lucario
E: Captain Olimar, Greninja, Ike, Donkey Kong, Mega Man, Pac-Man, Bowser, Robin
F: Roy, Kirby, Bowser Jr., Mr. Game & Watch, Lucas, Mewtwo, Falco, Wii Fit Trainer
G: Shulk, Marth, Link, Duck Hunt, Little Mac, Dr. Mario
H: King Dedede, Lucina
I: Mii Brawler, Charizard, Palutena
J: Samus, Mii Gunner, Mii Swordsman, Ganondorf, Jigglypuff, Zelda

For the longest time we've been tied to "character competitive impressions" to supplement our lack of an official tier list during the early stages of Smash 4. Constant balance patches and character releases have kept us from taking those steps for a long time now but with the advent of the 4BR (WiiU Back Room) we've together tackled the long awaited elephant in the community. However, the community that has been built up around this lapse of structure has been exceptional and we've become of the most active and critical threads on Smashboards - it needn't be forgotten and you're all apart of what makes it great!

You can read the full article here.
A more fleshed out blurb and credits can be found there and that should be the primary external reference point.
To note, the tier list assumes no custom movesets and Mii Fighters restricted to Guest Mii sizes and a 1111 move set.
I'll summarize the procedural format as "with up to 20 divisions, and characters in the same division being equal, segregate the cast as such as 20 is best and 1 is worst". We will likely be keeping up with this format and although not explicitly stated thus far, this is so we can transition into v2 (or 1.1.4 patch or later) version easier. There is a good chance we will be expanding the user base for participation in the future and that isn't restricted to just those in the 4BR, keep this in mind .

To differentiate from the article discussion, we will be expecting discussion here on this list to be above nonsensical rants or complaints, petty jabs and otherwise. THE ARTICLE IS THERE FOR YOU OTHERWISE.
Feel free to ask as many questions as you'd like here (probably should tag me at least, I'll hopefully get more members on board in being active in the discussion too!)

I don't know if I entirely agree with this. Ness has some crazy potential, but very few know how to use him correctly. I love using him but I'd never take him into a competitive scene. I think swapping him and Toon Link would make a more viable tier list. Toon Link has INSANE potential, he's a very good character. Just my opinion, but I think Toon could be in A or B tier. And I'm not just saying that because he is my main lol!

 

[Das Koopa]

random-ish thought

Palutena mildly reminds me of in that her Fair/Bair are great, she has a good teleport recovery, but her special set and grounded attacks are mediocre. Palutena has a bit of edge since her mobility is comparatively better and all of her aerials (Sans Dair?) are good, but... yeah. Seems like a b/l Tier character given her recent results.

 

[Emblem Lord]

How is Pit "not good"

Omg ok I'm at work but I will post about this later. Trust me it's going to be good.

 

[Yikarur]

I told people very early that Palutena is not like Bottom5. She has a really good mobility and one of the best bairs and dash attacks in the game. Her problem is that everything else is terrible. She is basically dthrow/fair/bair/dash attack - the character and a linear character like that is obviously not good but the tools she has are strong enough to justify her not being bottom5.

 

[bc1910]

Her jab mixups are good as well.

And Warp isn't versatile but it's very good at what it does.

 

[|RK|]

I don't think there's anything hype about a character being reduced this much due to community outcry. All it means is that if, for whatever reason or just simple lack of knowledge, the community decides to start hating on a certain character really hard just because they become sick of seeing them (and thus everything that character does is now op or ResidentSleeper), there's a chance the developers will actually listen and nerf a character who didn't need nerfs.

Bayonetta needed them, but likely not this much. Remains to be seen if the character still works.

I hope to **** this is the last patch for the sake of everything good.

Since when have the devs ever cared about our complaints?

 

[Wintermelon43]

Since when have the devs ever cared about our complaints?

1.1.6

(Actually 1.1.5 really)

 

[bc1910]

Since when have the devs ever cared about our complaints?

Are you kidding?

The patch cycle has been entirely shaped by community feedback, particularly in regards to nerfing the top tiers.

 

[|RK|]

Are you kidding?

The patch cycle has been entirely shaped by community feedback, particularly in regards to nerfing the top tiers.

I don't see the evidence. Diddy and ZSS nerfs can possibly be tied to the tournaments Sakurai went to, but nothing tells me community complaints were relevant factors in any other nerfs. Do you have proof that it was specifically our complaints, or is this a guess?

 

[Shaya]

Bayonetta right now seems like some sort of Brawl character, a Brawl Falco type of character.
Anyone who has the tools to run away and completely out neutral her - well it's probably RIP.... but otherwise....

The dive kick hitbox reduction makes it a lot harder to shield it, have her bounce off and then more reactively punish her.
It's kinda like how once upon a time I said if they removed the footstool portion (or reduced the activation radius significantly) of ZSS down-b, it would be super borked 1-stop-shop-win-button.
I think there would still be room for her to find uair or bair follow ups from either witch twist or side-b from characters falling out or DIing in certain directions, so she isn't completely lacking kill set ups from what I see. It's just definitely no longer feasible for her to find side-b up-b aerial side-b up-b aerial or some combination there of with extremely high consistency.

With less reason to actually mash side-b or up-b into an opponent because even if they dropped out or you whiffed you were taking minimal punishment in contrast to the success seems to lead into a lot more carefully and slower paced play style.
Nair and down tilt are still extreeemely good normals.
A sprinkle of xbox huge hitboxes on heaps of other tools too and I'm remembering how much of a ***** it is to approach or punish this character's boxing tools... it's like I've been relying on bayonetta players to continually go for the god-like high reward things over and over again (sounds familiar with Diddy Kong and dash grab, right?) and in learning to deal with that have neglected the question of how you're meant to deal with neutral air and a perpetually retreating dive kicker on a very safe basis.

It's weird.... I suppose this is where her neutral game/meta would've gone in the long term where only the "guaranteed" start ups would be attempted to avoid punishment, so perhaps this degree of "gutting" would've eventually been justified.
But between bullet arts, bullet climax, nair/dtilt and dive kick I see a pretty competent Brawl Falco-styled character who wouldn't necessarily be top tier but could be timing out tournaments near you in the future.

Brawl Falco was monstrously difficult for the opponent to learn how to approach and punish his tools. I can see Bayonetta holding a similar niche. What people "loved" about or envisaged her to represent (COMBAWZZ) may be dead, but she likely has a future.
At the same time, she could be really bad.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

What wins do TLTC or Prince Ramen have with Palutena?

 

[Das Koopa]

I don't see the evidence. Diddy and ZSS nerfs can possibly be tied to the tournaments Sakurai went to, but nothing tells me community complaints were relevant factors in any other nerfs. Do you have proof that it was specifically our complaints, or is this a guess?

A ton of nerfs to Rosalina early in the game's cycle.
Luigi's various grab rewards nerfed.
Diddy's hoo hah nerfed to not be a kill move.
Sheik specifically nerfed in areas repeatedly emphasized by the community (Needles, unFair, and broken 50/50 grab reward)
Meta Knight's KO ladder nerfed.
Zero Suit Samus' KO ladder nerfed.
Bayonetta KO ladder obliterated by demolishing ABK ladder, making Witch Twist SDI easier, etc. Witch Time nerfed initially.

Even a few buffs happened that addressed common complaints with certain characters, such as Meta Knight's hitboxes being corrected, Marth getting more reward off of spacing, etc.

while every complaint hasn't been addressed by the devs I think it's safe to say that they were looking farther than just online results, and delving more into Japanese social media to get perspective from competitive players. The patches have been targeted almost 100% at 1v1 play.

 

[sedrf]

Ramen won GOTE I think

 

[Das Koopa]

Ramen won GOTE I think

Yes, over 8BitMan.

Palutena had a pretty good month.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I was thinking in terms of specific matchups, not whole tournaments.