Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Jamurai]

MK Leo finally getting to go to a stacked foreign tourney (GOML) is a pretty big deal, especially from the perspective of Meta Knight players. He is widely regarded as the best MK and has been pretty much since the beginning. This is going to be very interesting, and may be a significant indicator of what MK's viability is looking like at top level with his new Uair.

A timeline off the top of my head (might have some dates wrong):

Late 2014: Apparently discovered the Uair combo during his first tournament and rocked everyone.
All of 2015: Completely dominated Mexico, didn't drop a set, won everything he went to, beat Mr R and Vinnie.
Early 2016: Leo finally loses his first set(s) to his mentor Serge.
March 2016: 1.1.5 MK nerf.
To present: Has been losing more games than before, and also a few sets (albeit to good players, such as Wonf). warionumbah2 may be able to expand on this, I can't remember many specific results.

Things to bear in mind:

• The dude is very young (I think 15) and has never travelled outside of his home country, which may have a detrimental effect on his mentality.
• He uses Cloud as a serious secondary and may well pull him out for certain matchups.
• If the current bracket plays out as expected and he goes up against Nairo in winners, in my mind it's curtains. Mexico does not have a ZSS anywhere near Nairo's calibre.
• As well as ZSS, other good characters he doesn't have much top-level experience against include Diddy, Mario, Ryu and Fox (although apparently he's played quite a few friendlies with Larry this week).

If you want to see what all the fuss is about, he has some good matches on YouTube. Here are a couple of relatively recent GF sets of him playing, vs:

Hyuga @ The Arena 2016
Wonf @ MST

Looking forward to him proving that he is the real deal, I'm gonna be cheering for him all the way!

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Late 2014: Apparently discovered the Uair combo during his first tournament and rocked everyone.

Both TKD and AC told me about the existence of the combo via Facebook and said that MK was likely top tier with it [at a time where he was generally considered bottom tier, mind you]. Both are mexican, go figure.

 

[|RK|]

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.

I mean, but think of how many patches weren't related to that? No one thought Kirby needed stronger smashes, or DDD needed lower airspeed.

Interesting that when we talk about how dumb a character's tools are, and how insane the developers are to allow it [they aren't listening to us], but when it gets patched it's no longer about "common sense" - now it's because of community voices. The MK ladder and ZSS ladder were literally showcased in Samurai's presence. Super-dominant Sheik only *just* got nerfed. The pattern we should be looking at involves extreme kill options. Bayonetta had them in spades, and it's consistent patching to remove them. I see nothing that says community voices were the cause of these changes.

 

[ARISTOS]

Think we are inflating our own importance saying we're the cause for all changes

Bayo will likely be alright but the Bayo you once knew is gone.

 

[warionumbah2]

March 2016: 1.1.5 MK nerf.
To present: Has been losing more games than before, and also a few sets (albeit to good players, such as Wonf). warionumbah2 may be able to expand on this, I can't remember many specific results.

He lost to Javi() at Street Bros 2, which was the last tournament he's been to in the 1.1.5 era. His Cloud will be the key to success, people want to see his MK but there's a high possibility that we won't see it often.

 

[Amadeus9]

I mean, we already know MK is top level viable. In fact we also know pretty well how viable he is. Hes a good, solid character with the best Rosa mu in the game. He'll never be irrelevant. More interesting than MK, is seeing how Leo does. I'm a firm believer that the Mexican scene is potentially one of the strongest scenes in the world, now we get to see their strongest player in action playing with the strongest players, period. Can't wait. In the end, player v player competition is the most interesting thing to see with fgc

 

[Browny]

I swear Rosalina players underrate their character. Anyway, it's because of both a one-sided view and how everyone relies on theory too much.

Its literally a case of players' ego affecting how they see things. They refuse to admit that their character carries them (which is idiotic because ALL characters carry players, unless you intend on winning tournaments by using sandbag) so by ranking their character low, it makes it seem like they are SO GOOD that they overcome all these weaknesses and still manage to win often.

On the other side, you get people like Esam who is adamant that his character is top tier despite almost everyone agreeing they aren't. This has literally nothing to do with ego, it is purely how he sees the game. It is not egotistical to declare that your opinion is right over others, when all of the evidence available to you points to that. In the first case though, you have all the evidence against their claim which shows they only want to appear better than the evidence would suggest.

 

[KamikazePotato]

unless you intend on winning tournaments by using sandbag

Excuse me? Sandbag is at least Mid tier, possibly High based on results.

 

[Amadeus9]

Its literally a case of players' ego affecting how they see things. They refuse to admit that their character carries them (which is idiotic because ALL characters carry players, unless you intend on winning tournaments by using sandbag) so by ranking their character low, it makes it seem like they are SO GOOD that they overcome all these weaknesses and still manage to win often.

On the other side, you get people like Esam who is adamant that his character is top tier despite almost everyone agreeing they aren't. This has literally nothing to do with ego, it is purely how he sees the game. It is not egotistical to declare that your opinion is right over others, when all of the evidence available to you points to that. In the first case though, you have all the evidence against their claim which shows they only want to appear better than the evidence would suggest.

I think the "all characters carry players" thing is overdone and kinda dumb. The logical implication is still that some characters carry players more than others. It doesn't address the poor attitude people have like people perpetuate it does. Players carry players. Part of being a successful competitor is doing your best to win. And the playing ground is very even. Everyone has access to exactly the same tools. just rubs me the wrong way that so many dismiss player skill in this way in favor of finding more creative ways to bash people for making good competitive decisions. Especially because everyone has equal access!

Its like, deciding you want to do boxing, but you refuse to use gloves. Then blaming your losses on the fact that your opponent is being carried by their gloves, which is unfair cause youre only being carried by handwraps. Like ooook the same attitude exists because of your ****ty "all characters carry players" thing. Just please kill off this notion for good

 

[LancerStaff]

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

Maybe this time you can use correct information...

 

[Amadeus9]

Maybe this time you can use correct information...

Who cares about a matter so trifling as factually accurate information?

 

[Flux0r]

I'm gonna be blunt and honest.

I've lurked on this thread for a while, watching opinions clash and leaving a snarky comment once in a while that may get one or five likes. We need to talk about the line between balance and fun. So here we go:

I don't like what most of the patches have done to the game in a competitive setting.

Spoiler: Wait, why?

I like fast and combo heavy characters, in Smash that usually equates to top/high-tier. This means you will be judged and sometimes even harassed for your character choice by a good chunk of other players, usually those that don't play these types of characters. I never cared about it, all i cared about was having fun and trying my best.

I recently found my 3DS and 1.5 year old copy of Super Smash Bros. For 3DS, the game had not been connected to the internet, it was in the same state as 1.0.3 of the game. For the heck of it, i decided to give it a go. It was the most fun i ever had with this game.

I started with Sheik, i was in for a ride. Needle Storm was so fast it could combo into Dash-Attack, Bouncing Fish could edge cancel, Bouncing Fish hit hard and B-Air made edgeguarding feel worth it. Rosalina had a ultra-fast Down-Smash and more range. Zero Suit Samus had her old N-Air, Boost Kick and faster Paralyzer. Diddy had a better F-Air and of course U-Air.
What these characters had in common, is that they made you feel powerful, and stacking them against each other felt like a battle between gods. It felt fun and excitng.

Spoiler: Wait, why?

Scroll back 1.5 years later, they're all a shadow of their past selves. They all feel underwhelming, homogenized and most importantly, less fun. Because they had to be the nerfed for the sake of characters that needed buffs. It should have been the other way around from the start.

They did, to a somewhat degree with bugfixes and characters like Ike and Mewtwo getting significantly better and other characters going from trash to respectable. The problem is that they haven't done enough.

Quircky things like Greninja's Hydro Pump, Pac-Man's 12% damage Hydrant, Bowser Flying Slam, Link's Bomb lag cancel and DACUS that had very little impact on the game's overall balance were also removed for the sake of "balance". It's most likely Namco's doing, considering Sakurai has stated several times he prefers "uniqueness" instead of balance.
The loss of Vertical Vectoring made Diddy much stronger, since it toned down vertical KO options like Hoo-Haa and improved survivability to the Smash 4 characters poor vertical endurance.

Bayonetta might be the last straw for me. She was overtuned yes, but the way they responded was a drastic decision that ended up taking away the fun factor because 70% of the "competitive" community whined on social media. I will still play her, but it will never be as fun anymore because of this.

We all know the unbalance of Melee, but that's what gives it it's charm and fun factor. Stupid stuff like Fox's shine, Marth's F-Smash, Sheik's F-Air and Falcon's Knee works because they are equally stupid.

I just don't see the fun in the game anymore. It might be time to fire up the GameCube once again.

 

[Iron Kraken]

I swear Rosalina players underrate their character. Anyway, it's because of both a one-sided view and how everyone relies on theory too much.

This is basically the push-pull of players when it comes to rating their character:

Scenario 1: The Smash community places a person's main very high
Push: The player feels that he deserves more credit and claims that their character isn't all that great.

Scenario 2: The Smash community places a person's character very low
Pull: The player argues that their character is more viable than people make it out to be because they want to believe they're not wasting time with the investment they have put into their character.

The top Rosalina mains - like Dabuz and Falln - are classic Scenario 1 players. They feel that when people talk about Rosa being so good they are being discredited. And what gives them ammo is the fact that there are so few top-level Rosa players, especially compared to most of the other consensus top tiers.

Think about it from Dabuz's perspective - all he hears about is how his character is possibly the best in the game right now - but besides him no one is using Rosa at a level that can compete with the top players in the game. So why should he believe that Rosa is the best character in the game?

---

I have a different perspective though. No, I'm not that top Rosalina player in the world, but I've been a Rosa main since Day 1 of 3DS, have followed the Smash 4 scene closely from the beginning (especially the top Rosas), have spoken with all the top Rosas, and have played a lot of the top players in the game (at least on online).

My perspective is that Rosa is the best character in the game in 1.1.6. She was the best in the 3DS days, she was one of the best for most of Smash 4's life, she became the 2nd best in 1.1.5, and now she's the best again. Meta Knight's probably her only true losing match up, but it's not undoable like some people make it out to be. MK destroys Luma and edge guards the **** out of Rosa, but Rosa still wins the neutral.

I will always believe that the only thing that has kept Rosa in check since the beginning of Smash 4 is that very few top players actually try to learn what she's capable of. She's just not a popular choice among top players. And even when I've seen some other top players try to learn her a bit, like Vinnie, I can always tell how they don't really know what they're doing with her. She has a lot of little intricacies that are hard to fully grasp and utilize unless you really put in the time with her. Frankly, she's weird. She's not a character where a top player can just transfer their great fundamentals and instantly become great with (think Mew2King picking up Cloud).

I don't believe that how good a character is should depend purely on results. If that's the standard, Rosa will never be the top character in the game, because she's just not popular enough. But as an experienced Rosa main, I do believe that Rosa's tools make her the best character in the game. I never would have gotten as good as I did in Smash 4 if I had mained anyone else.

 

[Smog Frog]

isnt in the running for best in the game. how is she better than ?

edit: if there even is a best character in the game. i think at this point the top echelon of characters are too close together for there to be a definitive #1.

 

[Quantumpen]

Like Smog Frog said -- I really, really wish people would drop the best in the game talk. It's just not applicable anymore, there are like 10+ characters who are all solo viable and there isn't any character who particularly dominates the metagame. Sheik has a lot of bad match-ups, Diddy has a lot of bad match-ups, Cloud is super overrated, but strong... an equally strong case could be made for Mario, Sonic, ZSS and Mewtwo, Fox, etc -- and thanks to historical popularity differentials who knows what other strong characters are fully capable of with players like VoiD, Mr. R or Nairo behind them? The characters you think are top tier are just the beneficiaries of character love because of the time when they were super good.

This game's balance is ridiculous. That's what happens when you have good iterative patches =p. To have a meaningful tier list we need to stop overslicing the games cast. You just cannot order Diddy, Sheik, Cloud, ZSS, Rosa, Mario, Fox, Sonic etc meaningfully at this point in the game. 1.1.5 Sheik has so many issues that saying she's #1 just because Mr.R is a freaking monster is a little silly. Same for Diddy. We should really just be framing the conversation in terms of "Who belongs to that group?"

This past month has been one of the most diverse months we've seen in terms of top 8 placings, and as new people enter the community and the old Diddy/Sheik guard die off, you're going to see more and more of this.

That said, while I largely agree with Iron Kraken, Rosa also happens to have a lot of lukewarm/tough match-ups against popular, strong characters. This impacts the view of her tournament players like Dabuz have, since they play those match-ups almost exclusively and at a very high level.

A lot of Rosa's power and hate in the community comes from how she just shuts down the weaker half the cast, in a way most of the other top tiers don't.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Sheik has a lot of bad match-ups, Diddy has a lot of bad match-ups [...]

Yeah guys, Sheik has so many bad matchups like ... uhhh ... I don't know but she has a lot of them. A lot I say.

 

[Quantumpen]

Yeah guys, Sheik has so many bad matchups like ... uhhh ... I don't know but she has a lot of them. A lot I say.

Well by bad, I mean slight dis-advantage like most other top group chars. She loses to Mewtwo (Can't be edge-guarded, kills her with half his moves at really low %'s, has great kill confirms, beats her in fair trades and can zone with d-tilt) , is even or loses to Diddy (hard to gimp recovery, lots of confirms into kills with rage, even or better neutral than hers), is even or loses to Cloud (tough to challenge disjoints and SO much KO power -- plus heavy and hard to get off stage), and probably loses to Mario post patch. She loses to Lucario thanks to the Aura mechanic and his heavy eight.

I.e she has a similar match-up spread to the other "good" characters. She's not dominant anymore. Essentially she struggles when her opponent is tough to edge-guard or has a lot of kill power because of the rage mechanic, and against characters with better ranged zoning options since she can't needle camp as well and her fair now trades/loses to quite a lot of moves -- and the trades are usually not in her favor damage or positioning wise.

This clear exploitable weakness (Struggles to get kills at percents where other characters start bopping her even if she's at 60% due to her light weight) severely hurts her gameplan against characters who have an easy to throw-out kill option that benefits greatly from range and can at least keep even/play neutral against her(some characters cannot, and these are the character she beats) of the cast and makes her very prone to winning neutral 3/4ths of the time and still losing the match. That sort of designed weakness rarely defines a top tier character, even if she has balling frame data and pressure.

 

[Big-Cat]

Like Smog Frog said -- I really, really wish people would drop the best in the game talk. It's just not applicable anymore, there are like 10+ characters who are all solo viable and there isn't any character who particularly dominates the metagame. Sheik has a lot of bad match-ups, Diddy has a lot of bad match-ups, Cloud is super overrated, but strong... an equally strong case could be made for Mario, Sonic, ZSS and Mewtwo, Fox, etc -- and thanks to historical popularity differentials who knows what other strong characters are fully capable of with players like VoiD, Mr. R or Nairo behind them? The characters you think are top tier are just the beneficiaries of character love because of the time when they were super good.

This game's balance is ridiculous. That's what happens when you have good iterative patches =p. To have a meaningful tier list we need to stop overslicing the games cast. You just cannot order Diddy, Sheik, Cloud, ZSS, Rosa, Mario, Fox, Sonic etc meaningfully at this point in the game. 1.1.5 Sheik has so many issues that saying she's #1 just because Mr.R is a freaking monster is a little silly. Same for Diddy. We should really just be framing the conversation in terms of "Who belongs to that group?"

This past month has been one of the most diverse months we've seen in terms of top 8 placings, and as new people enter the community and the old Diddy/Sheik guard die off, you're going to see more and more of this.

That said, while I largely agree with Iron Kraken, Rosa also happens to have a lot of lukewarm/tough match-ups against popular, strong characters. This impacts the view of her tournament players like Dabuz have, since they play those match-ups almost exclusively and at a very high level.

A lot of Rosa's power and hate in the community comes from how she just shuts down the weaker half the cast, in a way most of the other top tiers don't.

Yet I constantly hear about how they do NOT have many bad matchups. Then again, this ties into the whole push-pull thing.

 

[Iron Kraken]

Like Smog Frog said -- I really, really wish people would drop the best in the game talk. It's just not applicable anymore, there are like 10+ characters who are all solo viable and there isn't any character who particularly dominates the metagame. Sheik has a lot of bad match-ups, Diddy has a lot of bad match-ups, Cloud is super overrated, but strong... an equally strong case could be made for Mario, Sonic, ZSS and Mewtwo, Fox, etc -- and thanks to historical popularity differentials who knows what other strong characters are fully capable of with players like VoiD, Mr. R or Nairo behind them? The characters you think are top tier are just the beneficiaries of character love because of the time when they were super good.

This game's balance is ridiculous. That's what happens when you have good iterative patches =p. To have a meaningful tier list we need to stop overslicing the games cast. You just cannot order Diddy, Sheik, Cloud, ZSS, Rosa, Mario, Fox, Sonic etc meaningfully at this point in the game. 1.1.5 Sheik has so many issues that saying she's #1 just because Mr.R is a freaking monster is a little silly. Same for Diddy. We should really just be framing the conversation in terms of "Who belongs to that group?"

This past month has been one of the most diverse months we've seen in terms of top 8 placings, and as new people enter the community and the old Diddy/Sheik guard die off, you're going to see more and more of this.

That said, while I largely agree with Iron Kraken, Rosa also happens to have a lot of lukewarm/tough match-ups against popular, strong characters. This impacts the view of her tournament players like Dabuz have, since they play those match-ups almost exclusively and at a very high level.

A lot of Rosa's power and hate in the community comes from how she just shuts down the weaker half the cast, in a way most of the other top tiers don't.

The lukewarm/tough match-up thing is every bit as much perception as a place on the tier list is, just because Dabuz made a match up chart saying that Rosa has an atrocious match up against Cloud doesn't necessarily mean it's true.

Of course there's no hard-proof of Rosa being "the best," and you're right, it's not that relevant of a discussion anymore since Smash 4 has great balance towards the top now.

I was really just responding to someone who said that Rosa mains "always underrate their character," and decided to chime in as a Rosa main who in genuinely of the opinion that she is the strongest character in the game.

 

[thehard]

I'm gonna be blunt and honest.

I've lurked on this thread for a while, watching opinions clash and leaving a snarky comment once in a while that may get one or five likes. We need to talk about the line between balance and fun. So here we go:

I don't like what most of the patches have done to the game in a competitive setting.

Spoiler: Wait, why?

I like fast and combo heavy characters, in Smash that usually equates to top/high-tier. This means you will be judged and sometimes even harassed for your character choice by a good chunk of other players, usually those that don't play these types of characters. I never cared about it, all i cared about was having fun and trying my best.

I recently found my 3DS and 1.5 year old copy of Super Smash Bros. For 3DS, the game had not been connected to the internet, it was in the same state as 1.0.3 of the game. For the heck of it, i decided to give it a go. It was the most fun i ever had with this game.

I started with Sheik, i was in for a ride. Needle Storm was so fast it could combo into Dash-Attack, Bouncing Fish could edge cancel, Bouncing Fish hit hard and B-Air made edgeguarding feel worth it. Rosalina had a ultra-fast Down-Smash and more range. Zero Suit Samus had her old N-Air, Boost Kick and faster Paralyzer. Diddy had a better F-Air and of course U-Air.
What these characters had in common, is that they made you feel powerful, and stacking them against each other felt like a battle between gods. It felt fun and excitng.

Spoiler: Wait, why?

Scroll back 1.5 years later, they're all a shadow of their past selves. They all feel underwhelming, homogenized and most importantly, less fun. Because they had to be the nerfed for the sake of characters that needed buffs. It should have been the other way around from the start.

They did, to a somewhat degree with bugfixes and characters like Ike and Mewtwo getting significantly better and other characters going from trash to respectable. The problem is that they haven't done enough.

Quircky things like Greninja's Hydro Pump, Pac-Man's 12% damage Hydrant, Bowser Flying Slam, Link's Bomb lag cancel and DACUS that had very little impact on the game's overall balance were also removed for the sake of "balance". It's most likely Namco's doing, considering Sakurai has stated several times he prefers "uniqueness" instead of balance.
The loss of Vertical Vectoring made Diddy much stronger, since it toned down vertical KO options like Hoo-Haa and improved survivability to the Smash 4 characters poor vertical endurance.

Bayonetta might be the last straw for me. She was overtuned yes, but the way they responded was a drastic decision that ended up taking away the fun factor because 70% of the "competitive" community whined on social media. I will still play her, but it will never be as fun anymore because of this.

We all know the unbalance of Melee, but that's what gives it it's charm and fun factor. Stupid stuff like Fox's shine, Marth's F-Smash, Sheik's F-Air and Falcon's Knee works because they are equally stupid.

I just don't see the fun in the game anymore. It might be time to fire up the GameCube once again.

I'm trying to word this in a way that isn't insulting and doesn't attack your definition of fun, cuz that's just rude, so hang tight.

For starters, yeah overpowered things are fun, but to me playing a balanced game is overall more satisfying. I DO like certain strong attributes, I think we've got more than enough anyway and they generate interesting counterplay if done right. Also yes I find character balance very attractive in a game and basically paramount. People being able to do reasonably well with almost all characters in a game like this = a good endgame.

It just sounds like you want to ride on overwhelming options to succeed, when IMO it should be the player that overwhelms you and not the character. That is why we praise ZeRo, Nairo, VoiD, Abadango, etc. They're the elite few that can exploit their characters' strengths so well.

I also fail to see how any of those characters play the same with the kind of tools they possess at the end of the day.

Developers should really not be attacked (not saying you are but it's a bothersome trend) for polishing their game, and I don't know if you remember but early Hydro Pump really destroyed some recoveries/made Greninja feel "gimmicky" for lack of a better word. Pac-Man having a 13% hydrant is obviously to dissuade insta-bairing it and creating mindgames, which is kinda objectively more interesting. Flying Slam was kinda lame, Bomb lag canceling makes no sense and DACUS was never a feature. There really should be no problem with removing things like that, especially because these characters have been compensated elsewhere in areas everyone can understand.

 

[Mario766]

I think this is the first time I've heard someone dislike a game for being more balanced.


I blame Melee.

 

[FullMoon]

To be fair most of the recoveries Greninja ruined with release Hydro Pump are still getting ruined by it now.

 

[Quantumpen]

I believe that's just people overselling the character because of historical popularity and their wealth of absolute S-tier players.

Sheik has specific exploitable weaknesses and at least one bad match-up (very likely more) in Mewtwo.

Yet I constantly hear about how they do NOT have many bad matchups. Then again, this ties into the whole push-pull thing.

People say that because it was true, and they still see players like Mr. R and VoiD performing well. The new meta hasn't had time to settle, but her theory is no where near that good and we've already started to see her results slipping.

Abadango has bopped 3/4 best Sheik players with his Mewtwo. Watch those matches, they're very illustrative. He loses in neutral many times, gets a few combos in, trades a few fairs -- then...

rage-up throw, dead at 100%
up-smash read, dead at 60%
fair trade, dead at 70 - 90% depending on positioning
good nair read? Dead due to disable/u-tilt upsmash confirm at 60-70%

And he's not as optimized a player as Mr. R or VoiD. Sheik just struggles when she can't edge-guard and her opponent has kill power

 

[Mario766]

That...doesn't mean you win the match-up.


If you LOSE NEUTRAL many times, you are in a disadvantage state. Just because you can pull out a kill move at X percent and kill earlier than Sheik

You're literally in the spot that 99 percent of the cast is in.

 

[Emblem Lord]

I think this is the first time I've heard someone dislike a game for being more balanced.


I blame Melee.

Play more games.

 

[Mario766]

Play more games.

I'll stick to my balanced game thank you.

 

[Quantumpen]

That...doesn't mean you win the match-up.


If you LOSE NEUTRAL many times, you are in a disadvantage state. Just because you can pull out a kill move at X percent and kill earlier than Sheik

You're literally in the spot that 99 percent of the cast is in.

It's not true in a game with a rage mechanic that losing neutral means you're losing the match-up. If your opponents advantage is poor (and sheik's is) and their kill options are limited, then neutral victories might not mean much on their own, and if your disadvantage state is solid (Mewtwo's is) and you have a lot of kill power, you're actually at the advantage when you're high rage even if they're at much lower percents.

The value of winning neutral scales with the strength of your advantage state AND as % increase, the quality of your kill confirms, if you lose many times but your opponent is getting more and more able to bop you each time while you still struggle for kills off of your victories in neutral, you're not in a better position.

 

[Strong-Arm]

I like that the game is balanced now, why is it even remotely close to a problem that its balanced? What is everyone smoking here.

 

[Djent]

probably loses to , and // are arguably even. But that's it AFAIK.
might lose to / and has evenish matchups with strong midrange zoners.

These two characters are the only ones I'm comfortable calling "top tier" at this point; the others () have too many weaknesses and/or spotty matchups to make the cut. However, they might not be worthy of the "S" label, as IMO they don't quite have the centralizing power that they used to.

 

[Strong-Arm]

I still think this game is balanced to the point that there is no single best character.

 

[Mario766]

I still think this game is balanced to the point that there is no single best character.

Maybe not single best, but very close to it at the very least.

 

[Man Li Gi]

I'm gonna be blunt and honest.

I've lurked on this thread for a while, watching opinions clash and leaving a snarky comment once in a while that may get one or five likes. We need to talk about the line between balance and fun. So here we go:

I don't like what most of the patches have done to the game in a competitive setting.

Spoiler: Wait, why?

I like fast and combo heavy characters, in Smash that usually equates to top/high-tier. This means you will be judged and sometimes even harassed for your character choice by a good chunk of other players, usually those that don't play these types of characters. I never cared about it, all i cared about was having fun and trying my best.

I recently found my 3DS and 1.5 year old copy of Super Smash Bros. For 3DS, the game had not been connected to the internet, it was in the same state as 1.0.3 of the game. For the heck of it, i decided to give it a go. It was the most fun i ever had with this game.

I started with Sheik, i was in for a ride. Needle Storm was so fast it could combo into Dash-Attack, Bouncing Fish could edge cancel, Bouncing Fish hit hard and B-Air made edgeguarding feel worth it. Rosalina had a ultra-fast Down-Smash and more range. Zero Suit Samus had her old N-Air, Boost Kick and faster Paralyzer. Diddy had a better F-Air and of course U-Air.
What these characters had in common, is that they made you feel powerful, and stacking them against each other felt like a battle between gods. It felt fun and excitng.

Spoiler: Wait, why?

Scroll back 1.5 years later, they're all a shadow of their past selves. They all feel underwhelming, homogenized and most importantly, less fun. Because they had to be the nerfed for the sake of characters that needed buffs. It should have been the other way around from the start.

They did, to a somewhat degree with bugfixes and characters like Ike and Mewtwo getting significantly better and other characters going from trash to respectable. The problem is that they haven't done enough.

Quircky things like Greninja's Hydro Pump, Pac-Man's 12% damage Hydrant, Bowser Flying Slam, Link's Bomb lag cancel and DACUS that had very little impact on the game's overall balance were also removed for the sake of "balance". It's most likely Namco's doing, considering Sakurai has stated several times he prefers "uniqueness" instead of balance.
The loss of Vertical Vectoring made Diddy much stronger, since it toned down vertical KO options like Hoo-Haa and improved survivability to the Smash 4 characters poor vertical endurance.

Bayonetta might be the last straw for me. She was overtuned yes, but the way they responded was a drastic decision that ended up taking away the fun factor because 70% of the "competitive" community whined on social media. I will still play her, but it will never be as fun anymore because of this.

We all know the unbalance of Melee, but that's what gives it it's charm and fun factor. Stupid stuff like Fox's shine, Marth's F-Smash, Sheik's F-Air and Falcon's Knee works because they are equally stupid.

I just don't see the fun in the game anymore. It might be time to fire up the GameCube once again.

Lord have mercy as I'm about to lose all possible credibility with my response:
Fun isn't supposed to be a one sided process produced by activities. If there are multiple parties involved, each party should have some arbitrary level of "fun", not just the guy with all the cards in hand. I'm sure John D. Rockefeller had so much "fun" bankrupting and completely owning the petroleum industry, but trust busting became a thing and "ruined" it so monopolies/oliglopies aren't all the people in charge.

I find it funny that nerfing said "fun" characters means they've become homogenized. All the characters that were considered strong were: rushdowns that could properly exploit the development team's oversights.

If "fun" is characterized as knowingly utilizing a plethora of tools which your opponent could never have or even dream to reach, then I must hate having "fun".

Also, using Melee for your argument as imbalance is fun.......you know there is a reason we are playing Smash 4 instead of Melee right?

 

[Emblem Lord]

I'll stick to my balanced game thank you.

Define balance.

 

[Trifroze]

Not going to say Rosalina is any worse than very good, just that she might be worse than amazing.

Is there any doubt that matchup inexperience may play a big part in her mid to high level results being as strong as they are, due to all the more or less consequential situations Luma creates if you're not fully aware of its mechanics or your intuition is lacking? At the top level this realistically shouldn't be a factor anymore so let's be fair and assume it isn't, but at the same time top level is the one place where Rosalina is relatively lacking.

Might there be some "noobslayer" element to this character that slowly wears off until she settles at wherever her (undeniably strong) tools let her settle at?

 

[outfoxd]

Do MVC players revel in the imbalance? Not trying to be snarkt, just curious if wanting balance is a part of the culture. I remember playing mvc2 and learning Four Gods stuff and not even worrying about it.

 

[outfoxd]

Not going to say Rosalina is any worse than very good, just that she might be worse than amazing.

Is there any doubt that matchup inexperience may play a big part in her mid to high level results being as strong as they are, due to all the more or less consequential situations Luma creates if you're not fully aware of its mechanics or your intuition is lacking? At the top level this realistically shouldn't be a factor anymore so let's be fair and assume it isn't, but at the same time top level is the one place where Rosalina is relatively lacking.

Might there be some "noobslayer" element to this character that slowly wears off until she settles at wherever her (undeniably strong) tools let her settle at?

Likely. Her kit forces you to play differently and that's always a point of contention at low to mid level, where im stuck.

 

[Quantumpen]

That depends. IMHO the reason MvC2 never really took off in the same way other fighting games did had a lot too do with the atrocious balance and generally poorly designed game mechanics. Some people might like pulling off an infinite into a guard break and then fly/unfly to dealth shenanigans, but by and large the community just said "eh... nope" and the game had a really tough time growing beyond its group of dedicated players.

I think the general feeling folks have about those kinds of things is that they're boring because they're just tech skill exhibits, you don't actually get to see the two players interact. Fighting game design has been leaning towards optimizing interaction frequency and away from long tech skill demos. Some people are upset about that, but it is definitely working financially and community size wise.

 

[Mr. Johan]

I can spin that argument right back and say that if the balance patches did not happen, and pre-patch Diddy, pre-patch Sheik, pre-patch Sonic, and pre-patch Bayonetta were all set in stone with no changes until Smash 5, then the Sm4sh meta would inevitably transform into a meta with these four gods as the focal point, with a few high-tier heroes that nonetheless carried one of those four as a secondary ala Plup or Armada.

The meta would still be "homogenized", in a sense. It would just homogenize around an effective VIP club, instead of the block party we have now, with Puff, Miis, Jr. and DDD peering out from the windows on the other side of the street.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Do MVC players revel in the imbalance? Not trying to be snarkt, just curious if wanting balance is a part of the culture. I remember playing mvc2 and learning Four Gods stuff and not even worrying about it.

More like...Marvel is Marvel. If you are playing a Vs game then its understood that you KNOW the series is cheese. And the cheese is ok with you.

 

[Trunks159]

I can spin that argument right back and say that if the balance patches did not happen, and pre-patch Diddy, pre-patch Sheik, pre-patch Sonic, and pre-patch Bayonetta were all set in stone with no changes until Smash 5, then the Sm4sh meta would inevitably transform into a meta with these four gods as the focal point, with a few high-tier heroes that nonetheless carried one of those four as a secondary ala Plup or Armada.

The meta would still be "homogenized", in a sense. It would just homogenize around an effective VIP club, instead of the block party we have now, with Puff, Miis, Jr. and DDD peering out from the windows on the other side of the street.

I love this metaphor.