Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Radical Larry]

Yes, but would you want a Dark Dive that can be shielded or a Dark Fist that grabs?

Depends...

Under Stage: Fists.
On Stage: Fists.
Above Stage: Fists.
Against Shields: Dive/Vault
Vertical Recovery: Vault
Overall Recovery: Fists.

 

[blackghost]

in terms of a 1v matchup greninja comes accross as beating bayo. i mean nothing like dying as punishment for landing a now very difficult ladder combo. with bayo struggling in neutral and not freaking out over witch time greninja does very well. i am curious how pink fresh would do in a ft 10 or something. he looked unfamiliar.

 

[Greward]

is the whole "bayo struggles in neutral" a meme or just a lie?

 

[TDK]

Both of ESAM's "Potential" and "Fatal Flaw" tiers make no sense.

Also, my list got no discussion, rip.

 

[Das Koopa]

Updated my data topic to include final 1.1.5 results/scores (including good ol' Combo Breaker!)

 

[ItsRainingGravy]

Firstly this is an exaggeration, and secondly you cannot really blame people for this. People have an irrational expectation of the results this character should be getting before he's considered "relevant".

If people would actually be willing to discuss the character's strengths, weaknesses, MUs and shortcomings from time to time (no, not all the time), rather than the constant circlejerk of "he's overrated" "he's underrated" "he has no results" then it wouldn't be such a big deal when he wins anything and we would actually get some good discussion. Which this thread is sorely lacking these days. And - get this - we wouldn't need to jump at every chance to talk about him.

To that end:

ItsRainingGravy Really enjoyed your post, but I'd note that Sonic is a worse MU for Greninja than Sheik at this point. I wouldn't class either as a gatekeeper but they're not in his favour. This is a big blow to his viability, as both are common/potential top 5 picks. Though I still think having one of the better Diddy Kong MUs as well as IMO a very good Mario MU will serve the character well as the meta develops.

Thanks! And ah, I can imagine that being the case.

BTW, just in case if anyone misunderstood me, my previous post meant no ill will towards Greninja or his players. Rather, I just wanted to post something that would make people chuckle is all, lol. As a matter of fact, Greninja is one of my favorite characters to play as, and I find his playstyle to be more interesting overall as opposed to Sheik (...and especially Sonic though I still like him too). I don't actually hate any characters on the roster, or any discussions about them. So yeah~

Speaking of MUs, strengths, and weaknesses...I think that I may eventually post a newer version of the MU chart I did a couple of pages back. But if I did, who would you guys be interested in seeing added? I don't want to add too many characters though, because again, it would end up being super messy. But if we go by Thinkaman's recent tier list, as well as my own personal interests:

()

Those are the 8 characters that I am currently the most interested in atm. Most of them are big question marks atm. And I REALLY don't feel like adding more than 8 characters at this point in time. 20 is already a relatively high number of MUs to keep track of. So I might not add all of them anyways. Minimum number being 3 more, which would be 15 characters. Past that, I would probably just make tweaks and edits to the current MUs that I have charted for (hopefully) increased and improved accuracy...in regards to their theories, and not results anyways.

If I don't, I'll probably just wait until after EVO or something. I'm going to be very busy this month anyways. Just wanted to see how interested people would be in this out of curiosity~

 

[C0rvus]

It's far too soon to be putting numbers or pluses and minuses on a chart for Bayonetta's matchups, though I can say I'm very interested in knowing where she stands in that regard. Honestly I'm not very impressed with what I have seen and heard so far, but the character seems pretty strong regardless.

 

[HeavyLobster]

is the whole "bayo struggles in neutral" a meme or just a lie?

My guess is that it was started by Sheik mains who were trying to jump on the bandwagon after her nerfs, because otherwise it doesn't make any sense.

 

[FullMoon]

To be fair Greninja is one of the characters that can make Bayo struggle in neutral a bit thanks to his mobility and shurikens, being a short character also means Bullet Climax isn't gonna be effective against him unless you pick Lylat or something.

She does have the divekick to break into his zone and has good safety on her aerials with the autocancels and stuff so I'm not saying Bayo's neutral is bad but against Greninja I could see her struggling a little.

Her neutral is definitely not bad though.

 

[MistressRemilia]

I feel like right now could be a good subject of discussion, so let's try to get this started:

The way I see it is that Olimar will most likely rise as the metagame goes on. As of right now, he's been tossed around the likes of MidHigh tier to HighLow Tier, and while this isn't bad, i feel the character has a lot of room to grow, specifically in terms of gaining consistency. Olimar is a character with a very strong zoning game as you all know, but also with a fairly decent grab game, being okay at killing with strong aerials of a purple pikmin or the upthrow of a blue pikmin, disadvantage state is kind of poor tho, even tho he has a bunch of mixups.

We've seen with players such as ImHip, Angbad or Shuton, that management of Pikmins is a key part to Olimar's metagame, and that's where i feel the character may grow into an even better character than he already is. Olimar's hard to contest zoning & slow but effective damage racking ability makes him kind of oppressive in the hand of a good player. That's the sign of a good zoner to me, especially with these other pros i mentionned already. A well-thought zoning with the character may allow some time to actually throw some Pikmins away for better ones in a specific scenario. I've seen Shuton do that quite a bit, but i feel it can be developped even more to the point where Olimars have a specific set of 3 Pikmins in most scenarios.

There is one last point i'd like to mention, which is the usual lack of MU experience from Olimar's opponent: This may play in his favor, as some of his tools may not be respected despite them being good, such as Olimar's standing grab, or maybe even the simple fact of reacting poorly to the racked up damage of Pikmins, and then throwing out some move that may put close enough to Olimar so he may be able to punish you. He seems to benefit lack of experience quite a bit.

What are your thoughts on Olimar too? I wonder, i've heard all kinds of arguments for or against him, so...

 

[ItsRainingGravy]

It's far too soon to be putting numbers or pluses and minuses on a chart for Bayonetta's matchups, though I can say I'm very interested in knowing where she stands in that regard. Honestly I'm not very impressed with what I have seen and heard so far, but the character seems pretty strong regardless.

I agree. I feel as though it would be too soon to really have accurate data on her. However, the fact that she is a very interesting character and got hit pretty hard alone makes me curious to see what the initial impressions of the new Bayonetta are, even if they lack the same "accuracy" that the other MU theories have.

I want to do for sure, though. He seems like he would have a healthy amount of good MUs against the characters I already have charted, despite him being recently changed as well. are interesting due to the back-and-forth conversations about their viability. would be in the same group as those four characters, albeit probably impossible to pin down right now due to her recent nerfs affecting her very playstyle itself, so I probably might avoid her anyways. is the best super heavyweight. And just seems like a solid threat in general to watch out for.


If not , I'll probably just do instead. I kind of forgot about him, lol. But he'd be pretty cool to look at in further detail, too.

 

[Das Koopa]

I think it's inevitable that complex characters with untapped potential will slowly rise as people refine the characters more.

all probably will see some level of rise as people make their gameplay more efficient whereas more gimmicky characters that heavily benefit from a lack of matchup knowledge will likely fall as time goes on ( and come to mind)

Olimar is hard to pin but somebody who's good at fundamentals who knows all of the pertinent %s who can manage all the resources you need to manage will likely come along and display how good the character can be. He's unappealing for a lot of players IMO because he's intimidating to learn - you need to memorize Pikmin pull orders, you need to memorize different %s for different Pikmin to find the most efficient options, etc.

Characters like Shulk, Ryu, and Mac will all probably benefit from an increased knowledge/display of tech skill in the future.

 

[verbatim]

So judging from ESAM's video today it's looking like he's going to place Corrin as high tier. ZeRo also put him as top 10. But from the graph the other day, it looks like Corrin hasn't been getting notable results while being fairly popular. So what are these top players seeing in this character to rate him so high?

I would argue that with so many characters the difference between 20-35 really just comes down to who's lucky enough to be played by a top top player. Generally speaking competitive players, especially the ones that consistently win stuff, will have already had a main before xyz DLC came out, and would only switch if their character just go nerfed or they were as comparably good/better as theirs (cloud/bayo)

If I'm a player that can win a regional+ with thousands of hours put into... say Mario, I'm probably not going to sideline him for a new potential top 10-20 character.

 

[bc1910]

Bayo's neutral is good. Unless you have top 10 run speed, it can be very taxing to deal with FH Nair to divekick away, without hard reading her escape. She has various SH mixups and ways to force approaches as well. Not to mention BC shuts down a lot of characters' mid range short hop shenanigans by itself.

Ranking her MUs right now though would be nearly impossible. There's no doubt they've gotten worse; her players will have to play better and explore her neutral but that doesn't make her as strong or stronger than she was in 1.1.5, she's cateogrically weaker. How much worse her MUs have gotten will unfold over time.

Incidentally I also think it's pointless to place her on a tier list at the moment. She could probably be anywhere between 10th and 25th. I don't doubt she's still one of the better characters in the game but exactly how good isn't clear.

 

[Nobie]

I think there's a tendency with complex characters to desire "silver bullets," that if you lab enough, discover enough, practice enough, you can develop unbeatable strategies. The idea that your new tech could also have flaws, and that you are merely gaining an extra situational tool is not as enticing as "this is the key to victory."

 

[Y2Kay]

More good Greninja news: Elexiao jumped from 3rd to 1st on the French Power Rankings. Another good greninja that gets forgotten when discussing our froggy friend.

 

[Das Koopa]

I think there's a tendency with complex characters to desire "silver bullets," that if you lab enough, discover enough, practice enough, you can develop unbeatable strategies. The idea that your new tech could also have flaws, and that you are merely gaining an extra situational tool is not as enticing as "this is the key to victory."

I don't think anybody's suggesting that Olimar or Shulk are top tier potential in the making, rather that played at full potential they're probably better than people give them credit for. The issue is that the reward is rarely seen as worth the trouble, since you could apply the same or less effort to characters like Falcon (tech skill side) and probably have a better string of results than you would with Shulk.

 

[Ffamran]

Buffing Dark Dive to the point where it can reliably kill would honestly fix most of Dorf's issues there.

Or less recovery or enough knockback so this doesn't happen as often.

There was a problem fetching the tweet

@Emblem Lord and @TTTTTsd, are multi-hits generally more reliable in traditional 2D fighting games? Asking you guys since I don't know much about them, especially older ones.

I do agree with TTTTTsd that there are multi-hits that "shouldn't" be reliable, especially when there's context. Easiest ones to look at are Melee Falco and Fox's Fairs, Bowser's aerial Flying Fortress, and Mega Man's Uair. Melee Falco and Fox's Fairs were pretty much clean and late hits that transition by hitting multiple times. Falco's started out doing 9% and ends by doing 3% like how a lingering Nair works, but in between he does 8%, 7%, and 5%; the move gradually does lower and lower damage. If you go by its frame gaps, it has 6 to 7 frame gaps between hits which isn't really good for a multi-hit and there's also the fact none of the hits have set knockback, instead, they have base and growth. It's a multi-hit that isn't supposed to connect entirely. Is that fine? Yeah, but would it be fine if it connected? Yep, but that would mean you're changing "what kind of move it is" and you would need to seriously alter how it hits which didn't happen in Brawl for Fox. Fox kept its damage per hit, but had its knockback changed for the "loop" hits. This resulted in Fox having a Fair that could do 23% (6% + 5% + 5% + 4% + 3%) reliably. Not guaranteed like in Smash 4, but enough that Fox could hit with Fair and put on massive damage. That's pretty much insane. Now, imagine Melee's versions. In a similar case, Mega Man's Uair really shouldn't connect entirely. It's a projectile that can do about 30% -- I hate dealing with re-hit rates, so someone else will need to check this -- and it pushes you up. If Mega Man's Uair connected, it'd be a tornado of doom; it would be a broken move without a doubt. Bowser's aerial Flying Fortress would be like what TTTTTsd described Ken's heavy Shoryuken in ST, where it's a get the hell off me move. The rest of the hits are safety nets and while it would be fine if Bowser's Flying Fortress worked the same in the air and on the ground where it connects well, it might be a bit too strong and it would make Flying Fortress a slightly different DK Spinning Kong. There is, however, reasons why they don't connect and it's kind of fine for them for them to not connect entirely.

The problem, which I think Emblem Lord was trying to get at, is when there are moves that don't have any reason why they shouldn't be connecting. Big ones are Samus's Up Smash and Zelda's Up and Side Smashes. They really aren't doing anything to warrant them not connecting entirely. They're not like Melee Falco and Fox's Fairs that are multi-hits acting like clean and late hits which wouldn't really work for a Smash since you need a really strong hit -- might work more for a tilt. They're not like Bowser's aerial Flying Fortress where there's a really strong hit and loop hits and they're not a projectile; they're just multi-hits. So, they should connect fully... and Zelda's did after a patch, but not Samus's Up Smash. Samus's Up Smash is an anti-air and while it's unfortunate that it can't hit lower, it has really good coverage as an anti-air. Problem is that it can drop people out even when you do use it as an anti-air and not a random combo move or whatever. Then you look at similar moves, Mega Man, Mewtwo, Roy, and arguable ZSS's Up Smash and they're all anti-airs and none of them drop people out. What is Samus's doing that would justify it not connecting properly? I see nothing that would scream Samus's Up Smash should be unreliable. If there is, then please, tell the world.

Spoiler: Maybe Rapid Jabs Shouldn't be a Thing

Smash 4 has been better when it comes to multi-hits even if the execution fails -- there aren't any Brawl Falco Fairs running about that are basically weaker, just as unreliable Melee Falco and Fox Fairs with higher landing lag --, but there are some that aren't reliable for one reason or another. Some of them you can justify and some of them are a bit controversial like Samus's Uair can be argued as should be "completely" reliable as despite its power, Samus players tend to use it more often, staling it, and more for combos rather than killing unlike Sheik's, so it being reliable at the cost of power is fine while others could argue that because it can kill and it's not entirely unreliable, it doesn't have to be guaranteed to connect entirely. Strangely enough, Falco's Nair was like a Samus Uair, except because of what was done to it between games, higher knockback and higher hit lag on its last hit and higher landing lag, it sort of leaned towards Zelda's Nair connects well at the cost of higher landing lag instead of like Samus's Uair that can connect, but it's not guaranteed, however, that's made up by low recovery and/or low landing lag which Falco's had in Brawl. The developers decided to go with the Zelda route where it kept its higher landing lag, but connected better instead of the Samus route where it would have needed lower landing lag, but kept its poorer connection. I'd argue it might have been better for Falco to have kept his Brawl Nair so he'd at least have an approach, a weird confirm like in Brawl, and to not overlap with Fair, but it's pretty much fine the way it is. Anyway, I digress.

The unfortunate side is the ones that don't connect well, it's mostly on rapid jabs which I'm beginning to feel is a part of their design, being able to hold them, shouldn't be in Smash. The developers have went their way to get rid of infinites as much as they can even if they're not true like Link's so-called jab infinite. One of them was introducing rapid jab finishers so that rapid jabs are forced to exit with a move that sends people flying out. Problem is that rapid jabs can still be held which still keeps some of their ability to infinite in some situations, but most rapid jabs ended up pushing people out too fast or they were given frame data that makes them pretty much bad. The ones that weren't are or were really, really strong like Bayonetta, Fox, Little Mac, Mewtwo, Palutena, Robin, and Rosalina & Luma's. In Rosalina's case, she can position Luma to be an active hitbox near the ledge. Anyway, theirs tend to do a lot of damage or even KO, are more difficult to get out, and connect well from their jab 2 or 3, during their rapid jab, or to their rapid jab finisher. There are of course, the ones in the middle like Corrin, Diddy, Duck Hunt, Kirby, Mr. G&W, Sheik, and Triple D whose rapid jabs aren't anything special. If anything, they're more defined by their jab mixups like Kirby, Mr. G&W, and Sheik. And then you have Bowser Jr., Captain Falcon, Falco, Greninja, and the Pits who have awful rapid jabs that connect poorly to, from, or during their rapid jab and push people out. Bowser Jr. and Falco don't have a choice, they have to go through with their jab or not use them at all; Captain Falcon, Greninja, and the Pits have good 3-hit jabs to use instead. Oh, but it's just one bad option among your other, hopefully, good options. Having options is just good and there's no real reason for an option to just be bad. Even if they're situational like Ganondorf's Utilt and Warlock Punch, at least they do their job. You don't see Ganondorf landing an Utilt and somehow the knockback bugs out and you're just standing there like nothing happened.

The reason why I say rapid jabs being able to be held down is a something that shouldn't be in Smash is that it kind of gives incentive for some of them to not be good at all. Rapid jabs can tack on a lot of damage and sometimes from very low committal options like Fox's jab. In certain situations, they could be made inescapable or difficult to escape while doing an obscene amount of damage. If they couldn't be held down, then there's no reason why a rapid jab shouldn't be reliable. It could be limited to 4 hits, so if Captain Falcon decides to rapid jab, all 4 of those hits should connect properly and BOOM!, rapid jab finisher, except that's not the case. For some characters, it's kind of fine like Mega Man, Meta Knight, Pikachu, and Villager have unique jabs.

Spoiler: The Fire Bird Rant

The only other non-rapid jab example I can think of that has poor connection outside of Duck Hunt's Smashes is just Falco's Fire Bird. If we go back to Brawl, then Wolf's Fire Wolf. That's pretty much it. Let's look at Wolf's first. It's a variant of Fire Fox like how Blazer is a variant of Dolphin Slash; Fire Wolf launches at frame 22 to Fire Fox's 43, lacks a charging hitbox, moves just as fast or faster than Fire Fox, and has less distance than Fire Fox, but more than Fire Bird which has average recovery distance. Fire Wolf trades power since Fire Fox can KO and does much more damage even without connecting its charging hits into its clean hit for utility as a recovery move. That can justify why it doesn't connect well since it's mostly used for recovery and sometimes movement. The only really bad thing is that Wolf's Fire Wolf has some ledge sweet-spotting issues which extends to his Wolf Flash as well. Other than that, Wolf's Fire Wolf isn't bad. At worst, it's average. Moving on, Wolf has another vertical recovery move, Wolf Flash, which is much stronger if you manage to sweet-spot it. Wolf Flash itself is more of a vertical recovery like how Roy would use Blazer to recover while Fire Wolf is the more utility and mixup recovery emulating a Melee-style of recovery and acting as Wolf's Fox Illusion, a horizontal recovery. If you look at Fire Bird, doesn't have any of that. Fire Bird launches at frame 44 about the same as Fire Fox, has a charging hitbox, but it pushes people out instead of in like Fire Fox, travels slower than Fire Fox, and has less distance than Fire Fox at about an average recovery's like Captain Falcon, Mario, and Ganondorf's Up Specials -- yes, Ganondorf's Dark Dive has average vertical lift. Also, Fire Bird locks Falco's aerial movement; he can barely move horizontally after it unlike Fox. Fire Bird is essentially a massive downgrade from Fire Fox. As a multi-hit, it can potentially do 31% if you manage to connect all of its hits, but like Fire Wolf, that's not happening. Should it connect? I don't think so since it's kind of stupid damage as it won't KO like Fire Fox or Twisting Fox which is an upgrade from Fire Bird. Letting it do that much damage is pretty insane and it doesn't address the problem of Fire Bird and that as a recovery move that's primarily used vertically or diagonally up like a lot of characters, it's 2 to 4 times as slow on startup and moves sometimes slower during its travel. Oh, but Falco's got a high jump. There are characters with low jump and/or bad aerial mobility and they have good or at worse, average recoveries even if they're exploitable like Dr. Mario, Ganondorf, Ike, Luigi, Roy, or Zelda. There are also characters with high jumps who have amazing recoveries like Greninja, Rosalina, and ZSS. And then there's Yoshi whose high jump and main recovery "move" is covered with armor. The only character with a really bad recovery is Little Mac and that's because they designed him to be like that. Even then, his recovery moves are faster and safer since they actually hit. Could extend this to Cloud, but I'd say Cloud's Climhazzard as a vertical recovery move beats Falco's Fire Bird any day. The issue with Fire Bird is that it's in a game where recoveries are really strong and most of them are fairly fast. The ones that aren't fast tend to have really good distance or are scary to challenge like Fox's Fire Fox or Lucas and Ness's PKT2. Fire Bird is none of that; it's slow in startup and travel speed and it's a joke as a hit. The only good part about it is that you can angle it, but Afterburner Kick, Fire Wolf, and teleports do that better.

 

[Jams.]

I'm hesitant to regard Olimar as a character with lots of untapped potential. People seem to be suggesting that Olimar will have a Brawl-esque Renaissance in this game. The problem is, he already had that Renaissance in Brawl. Smash 4 players didn't suddenly forget the skills that made Brawl Olimar jump from mid tier to top tier. Concepts like Pikmin management aren't new and were required for high level Olimar play in Brawl. This isn't a complex new character, this is a complex established character that players have optimized for years, and developed transferable skills for.

I think it speaks volumes though that most of the high level Brawl Olimars (Nietono, Dabuz, Denti, Logic, Rich Brown, Brood, etc.) have dropped him in this game.

 

[FallofBrawl]

Falco seems to be a character that's designed to have a bunch of pratfalls and jab locks for combo extending, I can see his punishes being more refined by his mains but if he doesn't get some kind of Mew2 overhaul or a top player pushing his meta, he's going to be in obscure limbo.

I think he should've kept side b shortening, it was a nice tool to cover ground in Brawl.

 

[Nemesis561]

This is going to sound kind of counter-intuitive, but perhaps the more bad players there are of a character, when combined with a character being severely punished for making the wrong decisions, the more they can drag a character's ranking down (though it can also have an overall positive result).

I call it the Reverse Ganondorf.

Hypothetical Example 1: Mewtwo is a character with a very good toolkit, but is designed to suffer when making the wrong decision. Perhaps a lot of players were inspired by Abadango to pick up Mewtwo, only for them to get dunked on hard.

Hypothetical Example 2: Because all of the Little Macs that used to run around who weren't that good/relied on the character's polarized strengths instead of learning to overcome his extreme weaknesses, they were easy to exploit. Call it "Lesser FG Mac Syndrome." However, with fewer Macs playing, only the dedicated few who really want to push the character are at the wheel, and as others have mentioned a good Little Mac is scary for a lot of players.

I played an Olimar in tournament and got absolutely crushed... I can attest that matchup inexperience in this scenario is huge and I'd imagine most of the player base isn't knowledgeable in the matchup.. I would imagine at a local level Olimar has gotta do well but at a higher level against people who have the experience I'm not sure

 

[Shady Shaymin]

Was there anything in the most recent part of esam's tier list that really stood out as bad?

 

[Greward]

The problem with Olimar is that he has a horrific disadvantage state.

Yeah he racks damage up very fast and has a very strong neutral game with decent killing options (though a bit lacking imo for a glass cannon), but once he's in the air or offstage he can't do anything.

His aerials basically lose against another attack because of the pikmin clashing issue, he's floaty with not that good air speed combined with a very easy to gimp recovery.
And to top it off, he's super light.
The whistle super armor did help a lot landing in brawl, but since it got nerfed to a 6 frame window it's not reliable.

The advantage game is basically too hard in this game for Olimar to shine imo. He can easily lose neutral and never get back to it for the whole stock.

Was there anything in the most recent part of esam's tier list that really stood out as bad?

Robin position is madness. He's not good and his jab got nerfed in 1.1.5 so that most characters can get out of it. I don't really know the reasoning for that nerf, but atm Robin is not too good.
He has good kill power and a sword but that's all. He gets outcamped by projectiles and range too hard. Still useful against fatties and I guess light characters with short range like Pikachu (maybe that explains the position?)

 

[ARGHETH]

Robin position is madness. He's not good and his jab got nerfed in 1.1.5 so that most characters can get out of it. I don't really know the purpose for that nerf, but atm Robin does little.
He has good kill power and a sword but that's all. He gets outcamped by projectiles and range too hard. Still useful against fatties and I guess light characters with short range like Pikachu (maybe that explains the position?)

Jab got nerfed, but it's not really that different. It links better against fastfallers at low %s now, which is nice, but Fire/Wind jab starts whiffing at lower %s against floaties.
Levin Fair, Uair, and Bair are amazing, Arcthunder is a good trapping projectile, and Arcfire is great as a wall. Thoron is a cross-screen punish move that does 18%. He has throw combos, including Checkmate which kills at ~90-100%, and a Bthrow that kills at ~150% near the ledge.
Pikachu's a relatively bad MU; Dath and Raziek put it as 40:60, and they're the Robin optimists.
He's also been getting pretty good results lately, mainly from Dath and Jerm.

EDIT: didn't see the quote
ESAM lives in the same region as Dath, so he has a lot of Robin MU experience. Probably influenced his thoughts.

 

[sedrf]

Was there anything in the most recent part of esam's tier list that really stood out as bad?

People responding to them exactly the same as he does so just mostly trash.

 

[meleebrawler]

I think there's a tendency with complex characters to desire "silver bullets," that if you lab enough, discover enough, practice enough, you can develop unbeatable strategies. The idea that your new tech could also have flaws, and that you are merely gaining an extra situational tool is not as enticing as "this is the key to victory."

The usual culprit behind this line of thinking usually being an "infinite".

I'm hesitant to regard Olimar as a character with lots of untapped potential. People seem to be suggesting that Olimar will have a Brawl-esque Renaissance in this game. The problem is, he already had that Renaissance in Brawl. Smash 4 players didn't suddenly forget the skills that made Brawl Olimar jump from mid tier to top tier. Concepts like Pikmin management aren't new and were required for high level Olimar play in Brawl. This isn't a complex new character, this is a complex established character that players have optimized for years, and developed transferable skills for.

I think it speaks volumes though that most of the high level Brawl Olimars (Nietono, Dabuz, Denti, Logic, Rich Brown, Brood, etc.) have dropped him in this game.

The things that made Olimar great in Brawl are gone or severely toned down, there's no getting around that. He can't throw Pikmin with reckless abandon to cover gaps in his management, nor play "swordsman" with transcendent (yellow) pikmin.

In exchange his former downsides got toned up, including his recovery and pikminless boxing game. So he's generally a less polarized character, leading to middling perceptions of him.

 

[Nah]

What they did to Robin's jab last patch wasn't exactly a nerf. More like they were balancing out the two jabs imo. Between 1.06 and 1.15 it was possible to get out of Fire jab at any percent fairly easily while Wind jab kind of ate all but the floatiest characters up. Now Fire jab true combos like it did at launch but instead from roughly 40% to 120% rather than all percents, but Wind Jab is slightly less good on floaties (which is kind of how jabs work yes? Rapids are good vs fastfallers while gentlemans are better on floaties?).

How it is now is (overall) better than what it was at launch though. Wind jab being a dysfunctional piece of **** was not fun.

I haven't bothered to watch Esam's tier list video, but it's surprising to hear that he'd place Robin higher than the majority of people would think. Pikachu's not a good MU for her and he gets to fight Dath so you think he wouldn't.....

 

[ARGHETH]

I haven't bothered to watch Esam's tier list video, but it's surprising to hear that he'd place Robin higher than the majority of people would think. Pikachu's not a good MU for her and he gets to fight Dath so you think he wouldn't.....

He's 28th in Esam's video, two spots below his spot on Thinkaman's (adjusted) list, 26th.

 

[Vyrnx]

Mid-mid tier at worst and low-high tier at best with results to back it up

I don't see what backs up Wii Fit Trainer being a given mid tier, or even particularly good, character, in the grand scheme of things. To me, at least, the results that get cited work very much to contradict the idea of Wii Fit being good rather than back it up.

The two most common results listed are:
-Two WFTs top 32 at EVO 2015
-One WFT top 32 at Genesis 3

The old, "This is nothing to sneeze at," doesn't apply here. It makes me sad that these are the results that Wii Fit advocates have to cling to.

Firstly, not only did EVO take place eleven months ago, but customs were legal and WFT has absolutely ridiculous customs. Yet WFT's EVO results have been mentioned again and again for months even after customs were banned, and every time someone mentions her EVO results I cringe and hope they never do it again, but then someone mentions EVO again a month later, until we get to a situation where eleven months later the results of a custom tournament are still being cited.

The second is a decent result that nonetheless does nothing to confirm WFT as a good/mid/high character. It is also the best result WFT has ever received despite just being a decent result, and Rin has consistently performed poorly ever since. It shouldn't have to be the only result WFT mains can actually lean on, especially as Genesis gets farther in the past.

Possibly the third most cited result would be Anti almost beating good players (despite the sets not actually being that close), which just lmao, happened both a very long time ago and does more to show that WFT is not top level viable.

The most touchy topic would be Waveguider's results. His results are updated frequently, yet up until now, he has won what are practically locals and small regionals (that get blown way out of proportion), and performed well (4th-5th) at a few larger ones, but then there is the fact that Australia is an objectively weaker region than Japan and the US and Waveguider's results simply do not confirm that he would perform well in either Japan or the US.

Even John Numbers, who has the character's best overall results of any rep, only occasionally places well at locals and small regionals (albeit a tough one), but more frequently places out of top 12/16, akin to many, many other characters. If he achieved consistency, or went to the larger tournaments and performed better than he does, I would be a bigger believer.

To get to WFT's "good" results, you have to dig very deep, and the deeper you dig the more characters start showing results and appear good/mid/high... For instance, if you open up locals and regionals and talk about isolated instances of top 8s as justifying a character as good/high/mid, then many characters would start appearing, as we have seen with, at this point, literally every character in the game getting a post in this thread saying, "looks like x character just got a random placement, such an underrated character." What would actually justify WFT as good would be WFTs placing well at large tournaments (not necessarily nationals, really basically any of Das Koopa's tournaments) consistently, which the character has simply not done despite representation. It's also notable that WFT has had a big dropoff in her few results in the last five or so months, at the same time that some other characters might actually be picking up some steam.

The strongest evidence for WFT being good would be the fact that most characters are now somewhat good viewed independently, but as far as how she stacks up, it isn't a given at all that WFT is a mid tier. Is the possibility there? Maybe. Her results indicate that she is a low tier.

 

[Mr. Johan]

I like the new Robin Jab. He can go for mixups at 90% now out of Jab 2. Let me grab you out of your airdodge and shark you out of double jump please.

Plus the increased knock back on Jab 2 now means Greninja is forever locked in the Wind Jab if he tries to SS out since he just drops back into it and doesn't hit Robin. B)

 

[dakotaisgreat]

I am by no means the best Olimar, or even a notable or amazing one, I do not claim to be. Pls nobody bully me.

But on the subject, as a person who has mained him since the very day Brawl released, I think Olimar's placing is only going to go down as time goes on. I've spent a lot of time in the Olimar discord and skype groups and nothing anyone in there has said leads me to believe otherwise. Most of the problem's Olimar faces the solution is usually "muh purples", "whistle through it" and not much else.

Basically, Olimar is a very easy character to counterpick who definitely preys on match up inexperience. He was hurt a lot already by being relatively untouched by patches while many other characters around him rose up in the ranks such as Marth and Ike. As salty as I am that MK and Diddy got to keep their brawl greatness, I don't expect the great Olimars like Myran and Angbad to be breaking new ground anytime soon.

What do you think Dabuz?

EDIT: That feel when I have the power to summon Dabuz

 

[A10theHero]

Oh, hai. It's me again. A good friend of mine asked me to come back and say some stuff, so here I am.

To be honest, I don't really like posting here because it ultimately feels rather pointless. Discussion here is pretty circular. It often goes back and forth with no real end (and a lot of likes and single-sentence snarky remarks in-between). Not to mention, my time would be better spent labbing, honing combos and techniques, and sharing them with other Pika players. And in spite of that I'm still here, so RIP that.

Another reason I don’t really like coming here is because, ultimately, discussion about Pikachu will always go back to ESAM. "If X is a thing, then why isn't ESAM doing it?" people will say. I don't know for certain why ESAM doesn't do X more or use Y as a mixup. It could be for a variety of reasons. Information sometimes just doesn't reach him. Like I tweeted him all of my Up Throw to Thunder percents a while back. He saw it for the first time yesterday. Not only that, but he plays an aggressive, conservative Pikachu, which isn't the only kind of Pikachu out there--other styles exist. Some tech just doesn’t mix well with certain playstyles. Like if you rarely ever use Dtilt like ESAM, how could Dtilt to Up Smash/other stuff benefit you? This of course implies that styles are inelastic, but they do change; even then, that takes time. For how long has ESAM said he’s going to become more patient with his play? (His style actually has been changing a bit, but there’s still a long way to go before I’d say it’s a “patient” style.)

To most of the people here though, the extent of what they know about Pikachu is through ESAM. He is still THE Pikachu to them. But he really isn't. Discovered combos, tech, insights, etc. suddenly don't exist just because he doesn't use them. Even then, when there is something he wants to apply, it takes time. Like, it's been months since we knew about Up Throw to RAR and/or Turnaround Thunder. He’s used it successfully here and there in past matches, but he doesn’t have the inputs mastered yet. And he didn’t really know the ranges he was aiming for with the combo. The last time he streamed, he was practicing that fortunately. (He was also trying out Uair to Up Smash, but I'm still skeptical about that.)

Some of you likely would mention right about now, "Results put theory to the test, so maybe everything you're bring up is impractical and that's why the results don't show that." Given what I just said, a lot of factors can make this statement unreliable, especially if ESAM is your only reference for Pika-play. It'd help if we had a larger sample size, but we can only guess why more people don’t play X or Y. Regardless, it's not hard to see when something new is practical or not. Even without the results there. Compare SH RAR Uair to Footstool to Skull Bash to Up Tilt to Thunder. The former is a low percent combo that deals ~10% damage while the latter is a potential method of killing that deals more than 20% when DI is read correctly. Up Tilt to Thunder complements the cons of Up Throw to Turnaround Thunder well because there are fewer frames for the opponent to react to and the typical reactionary DI sends them at a very favorable angle (and then there’s a trade-off of losing to shields, which is a problem Up Throw to Turnaround Thunder doesn’t have). Pikachu obviously doesn’t need more low percent combos but having more methods to seal a stock always helps. (Not to mention Uair has better followups at low percents.)

The problem is mainly that no progress is ever done when talking about Pikachu and it just keeps going back and forth. Other characters have been (and are) in a similar state.


Normally discussion about a character should go like this:


user 1: ZSS is too good why is she not the best character in the game

user 2: bad grab and no rising aerials so strengths are balanced out

-> from now on user 2's information becomes common knowledge and user 1's question is bashed every time it's made in the future


With Pikachu it goes like this:


user 1: Pikachu is amazing he edgeguards everyone and is hard to hit and has one of the best neutrals and QA

user 2: edgeguarding isn't a reliable killing method, he lacks range and mobility so he doesn't have good follow-ups past low percents, he's generally unsafe and has to trade and lose those trades a lot, and QA is a good move but it has clear counterplay

user 3: Pikachu is amazing he edgeguards everyone and is hard to hit and has one of the best neutrals and QA

...


Pikachu stuff gets bashed because the same fallacies keep getting brought up over and over, and the ones praising him literally never make an objective review of the character, leaving the weaknesses completely out. People are tired of it because it's gone on for so long in this way, and people should be tired about this for a few other characters as well at this point.

I hope this wasn’t an attempt at an objective review either.

He lacks good mobility? One of the best air accelerations in the game, 12th best walking speed, 15th best running speed isn’t good? Of course, he has a very low air speed, but as people have said in this thread before, air acceleration is much more important since it gives more burst mobility. Then there’s also that F14 initial dash animation. That is actually pretty bad. At least he has a F2 air dodge and one of the best rolls and spotdodges in the game. But I guess, all this considered, that still counts as bad mobility?

And he actually has decent follow-ups at higher percents. Quick Attack combos into aerials (usually uair), Up Tilt can still lead to a uair and then string, and Down Throw to Uair still works on non-floaty characters. Fair to RAR Uair is also a thing. At higher percents, he still has combos from Quick Attack for a while and then kill mixups, which can be true combos, but those are limited by not being true with certain DI or incorrect reads. Obviously, the combo potential drops as the percent increases, but it’d be wrong to say he doesn’t have good followups at higher percents.

Also on a side note, Quick Attack is mainly a punish tool and a pressure escape option. If people are relying on it like some crutch in neutral, they deserve to be punished. (*insert clip of ESAM using Quick Attack a lot against M2K’s Cloud at Pound and then getting the extended hurtbox punished here*)

I still agree though that it’d be nice if people didn’t ignore weaknesses. But it’d help if people knew what they were talking about in the first place as well. It’s kinda weird to me to see people in general blame the ones overrating him and proceed to underrate him through misinformation. This is partly why I decided to make another post here.

Speaking of, here’s something I definitely need to clear up:

A lot of people view this thread and everyone has different catch-up speeds, so when someone asks an age old question about RAR Thunder you quote them Shaya's old post about it and continue discussing your damn characters.

With all due respect to Shaya, that post was incorrect.

In regards to the combo actually being a thing, I had written this up to explicitly mention most of the true combos associated with Up Throw and Thunder. It outlines how to test the combo out yourself as well as proof that the method is valid. (You just need to read the sections titled “Proving Up Throw to Turnaround Thunder is True” and “Clearing a Misunderstanding Related to the Method of Testing”. There’s also an Aside that talks about some interesting general-Smash quirk you’ve probably experienced but never noticed.) You wouldn’t believe how many times when conversing in various Smash outlets that that post has been mentioned. That’s why I wrote that document.

So yes, the combo is a thing. It’s true on DI read. I assure you that nothing was debunked. You can see it for yourself. When Up Throw to Thunder was first brought up here, it felt like the discussion was just about whether or not it was actually a thing. More valuable discussion would’ve been on the pros and cons of the combo. But that kind of discussion didn’t seem like it was going to happen. Oh well, at least there are places where that kind of conversation can actually happen.

With that, I bid you all adieu.

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

I felt like this thread was missing something.

Its called hard evidence and labbing.

You cant get better data than that

 

[Shaya]

We ended up talking a lot about that combo A10theHero
While ESAM's description of how to execute it wasn't correct (and avoidable; basically the part where you have to get past your initial dash to rar jump rather than b-reverse midair); which was what my post originally debunked, the more refined alternative choices does seem to allow it to be real under near frame perfection conditions.
Did you end up figuring out whether or not DI behind Pika from up-throw disallowed it ? (Although that DI allows you to go for dthrow thunder instead, but we didn't see if the %s for those work out well?)

Aerial Acceleration is great and is an important stat, but not if you have non-existent max aerial mobility (you get to move at max speed very quickly in either direction, but it's still not moving that fast in either direction).

 

[Dabuz]

Olimar's disadvantage state is awful, no matter how good is neutral is (REALLY GOOD) he can't escape good ledge trapping and juggling and even edgeguarding sometimes. This wasn't actually a big deal in brawl because whistle armor was broken and let him get threw basically everything. He also doesn't have the ability to push an advantage well because pikmin item properties; once again in brawl, he has scary because of up air and upsmash. This leaves him as only being able to refine his neutral, and his neutral does have flaws so even when played perfectly, he can't avoid getting hit forever. Probably will end up being one of the worst characters in smash 4 once the game's meta really gets optimal.

 

[Nobie]

Two of the strongest players in NYC are a Pac-Man and a Wii Fit Trainer, and they fight each other pretty often. I don't know what that says about how good those characters are, but I do know it means they're more than usable.

What I find funny about the ESAM tier list is that his descriptions make sense, and if it weren't for the actual ranking people wouldn't be so quick to judge. For example, he calls Pit a super honest character. To him, that means mid tier. To others, that might mean high tier. Perhaps we're all judging by some non-obvious criteria that reflects how we view the game.

 

[Furret24]

Olimar's disadvantage state is awful, no matter how good is neutral is (REALLY GOOD) he can't escape good ledge trapping and juggling and even edgeguarding sometimes. This wasn't actually a big deal in brawl because whistle armor was broken and let him get threw basically everything. He also doesn't have the ability to push an advantage well because pikmin item properties; once again in brawl, he has scary because of up air and upsmash. This leaves him as only being able to refine his neutral, and his neutral does have flaws so even when played perfectly, he can't avoid getting hit forever. Probably will end up being one of the worst characters in smash 4 once the game's meta really gets optimal.

Quite the bold statement you posted here. I wonder how accurate it will be in a few years.

Anyone here a little more optimistic on Olimar's future?

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

Quite the bold statement you posted here. I wonder how accurate it will be in a few years.

Anyone here a little more optimistic on Olimar's future?

I dont know about being one of the worst characters, but if his pikmin Ai and the ability TO MASH out of pikmin damage is a thing, im not too sure on his future. Some oli mains are dedicated, but olimar has crippling flaws that keep him out of high tier

 

[Ninety]

He's 28th in Esam's video, two spots below his spot on Thinkaman's (adjusted) list, 26th.

And that stands out to people as too high? Goddamn, how bad of a character do y'all think he is?

 

[C0rvus]

If the Pits' are high tier than your criteria for high tier to too lenient imo.

And Dabuz could very well be right about Olimar. He's already far from fantastic, has a relatively small playerbase, and not many places to improve. He just has unfortunate properties; somehow he's light but has bad disadvantage, his moves have item priority so they lose to everything. Kinda sad tbh, I love Pikmin.