Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Das Koopa]

This raises a question for me. What does a doubles tier list look like?

I know Cloud/Sheik/Diddy are at the top, but what else is there?

Jiggs jumps the entire alphabet

 

[IsmaR]

Anyone else been feeling down about the future of this game lately? I never considered myself much of a patch-prayer, but man is Bayonetta unreal. Her design makes me feel many layers of salty. I'm afraid of the game's future atm.

Also Nairo is going Bayo at KTAR. I think he might stick with her. She's like a ZSS sidegrade, possibly with a more stable MU spread.

Nairo always buys into the new character hype. Like when he said he was gonna "stick" with Mewtwo.

Similarly, the future of the game is also always looking "bleak"

 

[Jams.]

Anyone else been feeling down about the future of this game lately? I never considered myself much of a patch-prayer, but man is Bayonetta unreal. Her design makes me feel many layers of salty. I'm afraid of the game's future atm.

Also Nairo is going Bayo at KTAR. I think he might stick with her. She's like a ZSS sidegrade, possibly with a more stable MU spread.

If Bayonetta is the future, at least the future of Smash 4 will be flashy and exciting to watch. I'm excited for Nairo's Bayo, the character seems to fit his style.

 

[Browny]

Bayo being 'flashy' with nothing but sideb-upb over and over

The pretty blue/red sparks sure are skewing peoples perceptions.

 

[Sinister Slush]

I like the pretty red and blue sparks.
At least Bayo ends stocks almost faster than ZSS and in a more colorful style. Plus witch time fun.
Bayo 0-death or witch time stuff > ZSS 0-death or Sheik camping with fair and needles for 5+ minutes to win the match

 

[Blobface]

Totally straight question here since I don't have her yet: what are Bayonetta's flaws? What does she do poorly?

 

[DblCrest]

I feel she has problems with

Comboing short characters ,
Speedy /disjointed attacks that interrupt the start ups for her combos
Lingering hitboxes that can screw up witch time opportunities.
Maybe ensuring KOs at high percentages when her combos won't cut it since her smashes are more so high risk reward than others and you can't just spam witch time.

Those the kind of problems I've had when playing as her so far anyway.

Edit: Removed Shields I apparently haven't labbed enough.

 

[Smog Frog]

her frame data could be better(though f4 witch twist kinda mitigates this)
she's light/tall
her mobility specs are lacking compared to other top tiers(though she has super fast burst movement)
not really much else tbh.

 

[Browny]

Well she can't kill you off landing a jab, so there's a start.

 

[RonNewcomb]

Totally straight question here since I don't have her yet: what are Bayonetta's flaws? What does she do poorly?

Stuff that works well on Bayo include:
* zoning from outside Witch Time's AoE, particularly projectiles that are either unreactable (needles), quick & plentiful (water shurikens), or arrive at a broken rhythm (Tink, DHDog)
* strong grab game into good damage
* short-ish characters, or runs-close-to-ground characters, to mitigate her neutralB bullets' usefullness

 

[Y2Kay]

As much as I believe the matchup is in greninja's favor.........

Fighting Bayonetta sucks.

Why? Stupid witch time is why. Greninja's startup just doesn't quite cut it. Nearly all my combos she seems to be able to punish me for.

So what do I do to win? Play lame. REALLY lame. I already play a little campier than I should but even then I'm not campy enough.

I can win, it's just really boring.........

 

[irokex13]

Please stop this "Bayonetta/Cloud loses to shield" statement. It simply isn't true.

Bayonetta has a kill throw with her forward throw, a 3% pummel, and if you DI her up throw incorrectly at low percents, she can Witch Twist you. She also has 3 aerials that are completely safe on shield (nair, up air, and bair).

Cloud has a 3% pummel, an actual combo from his d throw when he has limit (d throw nair at mid percents), and 4 aerials (nair, fair, up air, bair) that are safe on shield when spaced correctly. He also gets positional advantage from his throws which is huge given the amount of reward he gets from charging limit.

A character can lack a super potent kill throw like Ness or a "last forever" combo throw like Mario or Sheik and still have a viable way to challenge shields. We really need to stop spreading misinformation like this.

 

[DblCrest]

irokex13
Well I was saying it from the experience I've had playing her so far never said she outright loses to shields. So I was unaware that nair, upair and bair were completely safe on it. It's not like you can sit in your shield all day either.

Not sure why Cloud would lose to shield when he can just charge limit o.o;

 

[Yikarur]

As much as I believe the matchup is in greninja's favor.........

Fighting Bayonetta sucks.

Why? Stupid witch time is why. Greninja's startup just doesn't quite cut it. Nearly all my combos she seems to be able to punish me for.

So what do I do to win? Play lame. REALLY lame. I already play a little campier than I should but even then I'm not campy enough.

I can win, it's just really boring.........

Sounds like the Dedede MU. My matches against dedede usually last 6-7 minutes because Dedede wants you to jump into his stuff. Same for Bayonetta

 

[C0rvus]

I don't think Bayonetta will be doing flashy combos for very long. Long term, I'm thinking her more reliable and traditional links out of up throw and down tilt will be what keeps her consistent. Meanwhile, ABK and Witch Twist stuff is susceptible to DI and SDI, but mess up and she gets a kill. Yay. Also Witch Time always keeps her in the game.

I do think Nairo should consider her, especially after he takes KTAR for free. The Mewtwo example is moot because Bayo is a very good character, unlike pre-patch Mewtwo.

 

[Smog Frog]

what makes a character have a decent mu with ?

 

[Y2Kay]

what makes a character have a decent mu with ?

Have a move that bails you out of all her high damaging combos......

oh yeah being small and fast with a projectile is preety good too. Having a recovery that can't get dasbooted by d-smash is also important.

Greninja has all of these traits btw

 

[BSP]

As for , who was also mentioned as a bad MU... I can't see it. Pacman is annoying to catch for sure, but I can't imagine it being bad.

I see it as 60:40 for Pac-Man. He destroys Luigi's neutral game if he plays it right. Luigi can't fireball because of power pellets and he literally can't punish Pac-Man for his trampoline unless he gets a clutch misfire (assuming he hard reads the trampoline and catches Pac-Man in the air) or Pac-Man falls into him if he misses. My buddy and I hard labbed Luigi's options for punishing Pac-Man's trampoline, and we essentially came to the conclusion that it's un-punishable by Luigi in a match except in those two cases. If he tries to short hop over it, it'll bounce him up. A full hop is too slow to catch Pac-Man in time to do something meaningful.

The combination of these two factors = it's very difficult for Luigi to consistently get in, and then it's even harder for him to stay in since all Pac-Man has to do to get out of danger is up B. It's only ~7% every time Luigi gets hit / Pac-Man gets away, but he's going to lose if he can't retaliate. Retaliation isn't exactly easy when your fireball heals Pac-Man, and you're regularly forced to jump to get in on him.

That being said, Luigi's damage is still insane, and he racks up damage extremely fast. All he needs are 1-2 combos to equalize Pac-Man hitting him a couple of times, and in general all of his buttons are better than Pac-Man's. Furthermore Pac-Man can't KO, so Luigi's going to have rage each stock enabling early KOs as an equalizer. Pac-Man's abysmal KO potential is why the MU isn't that bad IMO. Certainly winnable for Luigi, but it's not a cakewalk.

Makes sense I guess. Pacman is a one-hitpoint-wonder that spends his games running away and clearing his objective one piece at a time. The only way he can get kills is by trapezeing his way through the stage until he snags what he needs to finally start killing blokes.

True to the franchise. Gotta love it.

Unfortunately he doesn't have an "I win" mechanic similar to his power pellets in his own games. Once you know how he works, you realize just how much he struggles to put you in situations where your stock is in danger.

@Gheb_01 I missed quoting you I guess. What makes you think he's better in teams? I can't think of anything he can bring to the plate that some other character couldn't. Maybe on a devoted stall team, but I'd see that falling apart if the opponents know exactly how he works.

 

[David Viran]

I do think Nairo should consider her, especially after he takes KTAR for free. The Mewtwo example is moot because Bayo is a very good character, unlike pre-patch Mewtwo.

Dabuz is going and he said he might go bayonetta as well lol.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Here's some sobering stuff on Bayonetta's Bat Within dodges:

Not sure why this doesn't exist already, but I did some research on Bat Within:

When it's activated, it starts a whole new animation, rather than continuing the frame data of the roll/spotdodge/airdodge/Down-B cooldown. They have different animation lengths between them. Bayonetta and the opponent triggering Bat Within do not experience hitlag, and the opponent does not transition (if a Jab1 loops normally, holding A will not give them Jab2).

Bat Within causes slowdown on the opponent for most of the animation. While the animation length is long-ish, the opponent's slowdown gives it much better frame data than that would suggest.

Spotdodge BW basically has a FAF of 17. Forward/Back Roll BW FAF is 25. Airdodge BW FAF is 22. Down-B BW FAF is 29.

This means that her Frame 1 BW spotdodge gives her +13 extra frame advantage compared to her normal animation (or +9 if you compare it to the first true invincibility frame, which is Frame 5). Bat Within seems truly outrageous.

 

[Sonicninja115]

Totally straight question here since I don't have her yet: what are Bayonetta's flaws? What does she do poorly?

Recovering isn't great, it has some flaws, but is still good at getting her where she needs to go.

Also, you experience a TON of LL after a long combo. As a punishment for not going into free fall, Bayonetta will have landing lag stack, and each special adds to this ever growing pool. There are ways around it of course, Bullet Climax, Batwithin, grabbing the ledge. But these aren't fool proof. After a long/whiffed combo, go down and grab her. Smash attack her. She will have a ton of lag and it is a fairly easy punish.

 

[Browny]

Please stop this "Bayonetta/Cloud loses to shield" statement. It simply isn't true.

Bayonetta has a kill throw with her forward throw, a 3% pummel, and if you DI her up throw incorrectly at low percents, she can Witch Twist you. She also has 3 aerials that are completely safe on shield (nair, up air, and bair).

Cloud has a 3% pummel, an actual combo from his d throw when he has limit (d throw nair at mid percents), and 4 aerials (nair, fair, up air, bair) that are safe on shield when spaced correctly. He also gets positional advantage from his throws which is huge given the amount of reward he gets from charging limit.

A character can lack a super potent kill throw like Ness or a "last forever" combo throw like Mario or Sheik and still have a viable way to challenge shields. We really need to stop spreading misinformation like this.

People need to learn to DI her fthrow better. I can get Mario to live at 155% when fthrown from the edge of FD. Lots of kill throws at the edge hover around the mid 120s with ness being around 90.

Saying they lose to shield isnt accurate, but they CERTAINLY get less reward from a grab than the majority of the cast to the point that you can trade with oos punishes and possibly win.

Saying a throw gives you 'positional advantage' is just a euphemism for the throw being bad.

Thats like saying Ryus downsmash being good for damage racking. No, I want the damn move to kill below 160% when I clip someones recovery right on the ledge.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Saying a throw gives you 'positional advantage' is just a euphemism for the throw being bad.

I'm going to nitpick because this is largely dependent on what the character wants.

Cloud U-Throw is pretty solid because it puts them very high above you and forces them to land. Cloud likes this. All of his other throws are decent at creating distance, also really nice and lets me charge limit.

The throws themselves on a lot of other characters would be bad but it's important to look at it relative to who it's on.

 

[MF Viewtiful]

How do folks think of the Ryu vs Bayo matchup? I imagine it being stupid for both sides somehow.

 

[Pazx]

This raises a question for me. What does a doubles tier list look like?

I know Cloud/Sheik/Diddy are at the top, but what else is there?

Cloud is certainly towards the top of the doubles meta, but I don't think either Sheik or Diddy are that quite as dominating/good as they are in singles respectively. Their strength in singles lies in their dominant neutral game, which is something that's far less important in doubles. Neither character has a particularly high damage output either, the nature of doubles means that Sheik with her relatively low damage-per-hit may have to cut her strings short and Diddy's output in general is nothing special. Having a teammate certainly helps alleviate the weakness that is "having trouble killing" (particularly for Sheik) but I think their kits are more tuned for singles play. They're both still very good in doubles, just not as good, and to me it seems like there are better choices.

You're not the first person I've seen say Diddy is one of the absolute best characters in doubles so maybe I'm wrong (I hope so! Teach me how to play Diddy in doubles) but I really don't see it myself.

 

[Browny]

I'm going to nitpick because this is largely dependent on what the character wants.

Cloud U-Throw is pretty solid because it puts them very high above you and forces them to land. Cloud likes this. All of his other throws are decent at creating distance, also really nice and lets me charge limit.

The throws themselves on a lot of other characters would be bad but it's important to look at it relative to who it's on.

Everything is relative

A throw should do one of four things (two if the throw is really good)
kill
combo
set up a 50:50
do a lot of damage

If a throw does none of those, the only redeeming feature of the throw is that it puts the enemy away from you. Wow what an amazing move, I sure would love it if clouds upair had its BKB doubled and KBG halved so it was as useful as his upthrow.

Clouds throws have purpose in the sense that it does damage and has knockback, but they are completely outclassed by the majority of the casts throws.

Would you trade your 'positional advantage' throw for a combo or kill throw? If the answer is yes, then the throw, relative to all others, is bad.

 

[IsmaR]

That's like saying "would you trade in a rock to get a piece of gold?"

Which is not how anyone is approaching it besides you.

The rest of us are saying "Would you use what you've got to the best possible advantage?"

I believe it's more fair to say that as opposed to "Does it kill like Ness b-throw/set up for Bouncing Fish? No? Garbage."

 

[MajestikLark]

Cloud is certainly towards the top of the doubles meta, but I don't think either Sheik or Diddy are that quite as dominating/good as they are in singles respectively. Their strength in singles lies in their dominant neutral game, which is something that's far less important in doubles. Neither character has a particularly high damage output either, the nature of doubles means that Sheik with her relatively low damage-per-hit may have to cut her strings short and Diddy's output in general is nothing special. Having a teammate certainly helps alleviate the weakness that is "having trouble killing" (particularly for Sheik) but I think their kits are more tuned for singles play. They're both still very good in doubles, just not as good, and to me it seems like there are better choices.

You're not the first person I've seen say Diddy is one of the absolute best characters in doubles so maybe I'm wrong (I hope so! Teach me how to play Diddy in doubles) but I really don't see it myself.

Don't forget about Villager either. He/She used to be extremely viable in doubles, and if there were two of them you could really wreak havoc. Definitely not as viable after the newest patch, but still very good nonetheless.

 

[Shaya]

Re: Ike/Middle Tier/Japan

A follow up article is coming for the tier list soon which I believe is taking a more closer gander on the regional differences. Not fully sure how much is being looked in depth so I'd prefer not to go ruining some interesting details (I suppose the audience here wouldn't really matter , but don't want Lord Frieza getting mad).
After that I'll happily answer questions like those (if not already answered).

They were only roughly 10% of the vote though, so their impact would have mostly come down to order of placements more so than large shifts in positions.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

(...but don't want Lord Frieza getting mad)

@Marc

Can you confirm?

In all seriousness, I'm wondering about how things were compiled per region and how you guys are going to go forward.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Yikarur]

Sheik is more annoying in doubles because you have no space to retreat.
Ike is really strong. He has the very best doubles fthrow and bthrow and takes stocknso early. Pretty ridicoulus doubles character.

 

[Shaya]

@Marc

Can you confirm?

In all seriousness, I'm wondering about how things were compiled per region and how you guys are going to go forward.

Smooth Criminal

Let's start v2 RIGHT NOW.



I don't think there's any widespread disagreement with some of my strategy so hopefully keeping to the same format and asking our friends for updates some point in the future.
Bringing more people on board, discussing the results/issues, next thing you know we'll be worrying about evo.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Finally fought my first Bayo that actually knew what they were doing and, holy gilded cow, I'm salty as all get out. Did one match with Ness and one match with Megaman and I lost both to the exact same thing: Witch Time into Fsmash. It only took one to close out the matches. I don't think anything in the game fills you with as much dread as getting stuck in a fresh Witch Time when you're in kill range. I'd argue it's even worse than a shield break because with a shield break you at least realize, oops I dun shielded too much, but it just takes one, tiny mistake and you're dead just like that. Might need to just stick with Villager in this match up...

 

[Yikarur]

Last game last stock last hit
you get witch timed
terrible feeling...
"It's over... please mess-up somehow" *watch yourself slowly dying as the clock finishes his cycle*

 

[thehard]

Honestly, characters that are under Witch Time should probably take halved damage and knockback like with all the other immobilizing moves/items in the game.

 

[meleebrawler]

Honestly, characters that are under Witch Time should probably take halved damage and knockback like with all the other immobilizing moves/items in the game.

That would go against the whole "super-mode" aspect of it. In fact in Bayo 1 it INCREASES damage dealt to enemies.

 

[Yikarur]

Increased damage but reduced knockback during witch time would be legit in terms of her origins.

 

[Nobie]

Thats like saying Ryus downsmash being good for damage racking. No, I want the damn move to kill below 160% when I clip someones recovery right on the ledge.

Are you implying that Ryu's down smash isn't good? A frame 5 move that does 16% damage? Hell yeah, it's good for damage racking. It's not like Ryu wants for kill moves.

 

[Fatmanonice]

If they spam it than it's easy to avoid but if they get a good read near the edge, you're gone. Makes me feel awful for characters who can't reasonably kill with throws or projectiles because at least that gives you a way out of highly tense situation where you're just waiting for her to use it in close quarters. Okay, I totally need to know this now: on a scale from 1 to setting fire to your Wii U, how BS is this match up for Little Mac and Captain Falcon? Seems like Witch Time is a giant middle finger to both these characters.

 

[Browny]

Are you implying that Ryu's down smash isn't good? A frame 5 move that does 16% damage? Hell yeah, it's good for damage racking. It's not like Ryu wants for kill moves.

Everything is relative, people keep thinking of things in a vacuum

Yes Ryus dsmash is good, but just because a move does damage and has knockback doesnt make it 'good', its just usable.

Seriously before people start calling moves good, they first need to identify what is bad.

For single-side hitting dsmashes he is competing with

Now either they are all average or some are good and some are bad. You literally can not have 2 'average' moves and 2 'good' moves because then the 'average' is actually somewhere in between, and the 'average' moves are therefore bad by definition.

So then, if Ryu's dsmash is good, which of the above dsmashes is bad? Remember at least one has to be and then Ryus dsmash must be equal to or better than the remaining ones.

The only point im trying to get across is that you can not call a move 'good' in this game unless you define what 'bad' is. Its the exact same reason why good cannot exist without evil. I am completely aware this is arguing semantics and I shouldn't even be bothering, it just annoys me when people are so quick to go 'lol clouds recovery is so bad, bottom 2 in the game' yet apparently his throws, which are all bad, somehow passes off as ok. We might as well argue that because cloud actually has a recovery which can work sometimes, it has a use, and therefore he has a decent recovery.

ugh