Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[PK Gaming]

What comes to the whole "game full of weaklings" argument, low tiers are actually on average way more interesting to play than top tiers because they lack the ridiculous tools that end up being their best option in 90% of situations. You have to utilize their entire moveset more than you do with top tiers. It's way more interesting than feeling some kind of oomph for hitting each other with the same overpowered move or two over and over.

I disagree, because the low tiers in this game are generally pretty limited in what they can do. They don't feel nearly as rewarding to play because of their flawed movesets.

Contrast that with mid/high tier characters like Marth who feel fun and rewarding to play. The argument that low tier characters are forced to utilize their entire moveset is totally off base considering many of them don't have entire movesets worth even using. (ie: Palutena).

 

[Mr. Johan]

Then clearly we need to bring customs back.

Cloud will be a thing of the past when Kong Cyclone, Jumbo Hoop, Super Speed, Meteor Bomb, Fast Fireball, and Tempest wreck him.

 

[Aaron1997]

Speaking of Cloud could we talk about Characters that would be thriving right now if they didn't have to worry about getting counterpicked every set?

 

[sedrf]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

dath made a tier list

 

[verbatim]

Then clearly we need to bring customs back.

Cloud will be a thing of the past when Kong Cyclone, Jumbo Hoop, Super Speed, Meteor Bomb, Fast Fireball, and Tempest wreck him.

100% support.


Either way, I feel like people (or at least me) aren't going deep enough when trying to edge guard Cloud. To bring up a personal example, when Cloud recovers low to get the ledge snap without poking his hurtbox above the ledge Pacman can do ledge grab -> drop zone Nair and it'll gimp him, even if he uses limit up b.

That's not going to apply to most people here but the point can be extended. Look at what you aren't doing with your characters and see if you can't find something.

 

[Aaron1997]

And another one puts Pac around low tier. Remember when we thought he was top 15?

 

[conTAgi0n]

What comes to the whole "game full of weaklings" argument, low tiers are actually on average way more interesting to play than top tiers because they lack the ridiculous tools that end up being their best option in 90% of situations. You have to utilize their entire moveset more than you do with top tiers. It's way more interesting than feeling some kind of oomph for hitting each other with the same overpowered move or two over and over.

I agree with most of what you had to say, but I'm not sure I'm convinced of the correlation between a character's power level and their utilization of their moveset. Palutena for example seems to build her game plan mostly around just a few of her moves which are really good, while the rest of her kit is fairly situational. Cloud on the other hand actually makes good use out of basically his entire moveset, since all of his moves are pretty great in at least some relevant scenario. Moveset utilization has more to do with how evenly tuned and differentiated a character's moves are relative to each other, and isn't so closely related to how effective that character's options are as a whole.

 

[Ninety]

Speaking of Cloud, he claims another soul.

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sopop6

RIP Raziek's Robin.

Well, ****. Lost one of our very best players. Can't blame him, though. I sincerely hope he can go the distance with Cloud, he deserves it.

 

[Wintermelon43]

Then clearly we need to bring customs back.

Cloud will be a thing of the past when Kong Cyclone, Jumbo Hoop, Super Speed, Meteor Bomb, Fast Fireball, and Tempest wreck him.

In exchange for adding more overtuned top tiers and making Dedede, Zelda, and Puff (Possibly Roy too) useless and almost unusable?

And another one puts Pac around low tier. Remember when we thought he was top 15?

People who say he'a low tier are hilariusly incorrect and just simply prove they know nothing about him. Pac-Man's easily top 30, I think he's 26 or 27.

 

[ARGHETH]

Guys, if you want to give an example of low tier characters not using their entire moveset, please use someone other than Palutena. Everybody knows about her moveset issues at this point, and honestly she (and Zelda?) are kind of unusual for the amount of crap moves they have.

 

[Routa]

I just love when people make tier lists and place Miis at the bottom without any reasoning what so ever. Also what also disturbs mii (HA PUN!) is that people forget to tell which ruleset they use regarding to Miis and tier list. Like are the Miis Guest 1111, Guest XXXX or Any size XXXX. I bet the Mii Swordspider is placed at the bottom 'cause "Lol he is the worst character in game since the start".

Anyways list from below the C tier is a mess, but like he said he basically just randomly placed them.

Anyways about the customs being used. I have always been a fan of customs and the counterplay and strategies they bring along with new playstyles and diversity within the characters (these are also the reasons why I enjoy using Miis). It is kinda sad that customs kinda died after Evo 2015. Very few customs were problematic in the end and thous being Villager's Explosive Balloons and Sonic's Stomp. Wind Dong was never an issue. Yes the windbox was "jank", but you were able to AD within the move along with interrupting it with a quick sex kick. There are other moves and combination of moves which people complained about. For example Shulk with Hyper Arts and Power Vision has been claimed to be too powerful. How to beat this Shulk? Don't throw out attacks at random, use grab/command grab and keep him at bay. Many of the problematic customs movesets can be countered by changing the playstyle or character. I mean character counterpick is there for a reason.

But then again no one enjoys using customs right guys? ...guys?
*gets kicked from Custom Moves discord*

And sorry for my poor english once again. I hope you guys got what I meant.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Then clearly we need to bring customs back.

Cloud will be a thing of the past when Kong Cyclone, Jumbo Hoop, Super Speed, Meteor Bomb, Fast Fireball, and Tempest wreck him.

who needs meteor bomb when you have 2 giant bombs that control platforms, a great offstage game, and toon links boomerang?

 

[Emblem Lord]

Customs ftw and freethemiis

Plz give me back Crescent Slash Marth.

plllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

[Kofu]

Customs ftw and freethemiis

Plz give me back Crescent Slash Marth.

plllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllzzzzzzzzzzzzz

If they patched out its grab release confirms sure.

 

[Djent]

A lot of Pac-mains have a love-hate relationship with the character. Tea, Ginko, and Abadango have all used other characters seriously, and of those three only Tea uses Pac frequently. With more characters raking in good results in 1.1.6, it's hard to see him ranking above low-mid. The situation would be different if he had hidden potential, but we've already seen the nutty things he's capable of and apparently it still isn't enough.

People only liked customs because they hated the early-game balance. Once people realized we'd get regular and effective patches, interest kind of died off quickly. I still think some of the justifications for not using them are weak, but OTOH they're kind of annoying to implement and haven't received the same degree of tuning that the base game has. In fact, some of the changes the dev team has made (DK...Marth...) don't synergize well at all with custom movesets. Which of course makes them a tough sell.

 

[Trifroze]

not at all


Seeing low tiers players heavily limited because of their character is sad. Forget the whole "they use their entire moveset" argument because it ignores history. Melee fox used to be "Uthrow Uair the character" and now you see him use every facet of his gameplay and you can see even brawl MK go from tornado spammer to shuttle loop, Fair, Nair, Uair, Dair, Bair, Ftilt, Dtilt, Utilt, tornado, Drill rush, Shuttle loop canceling, Fsmash, and Dsmash MK (just listed his entire moveset).

You guys keep forgetting competition fuels the motivation to evolve and when these low tier characters use their entire moveset THIS early on, once competition evolves (like how it is now with ally becoming stronger and trela), you'll really see just how flipping bad and limiting these characters are. Raziek just left robin to the side for cloud because of this and you guys considered robin fine. I just totaled to dunnobro and he said raito, Brood, and yusan gets inconsistently good results because DHD is a inconsistent character and you guys considering him fine from a few results. this is why I suggest we make every character strong, not leave characters who need buffs to the side and keep shooting down the best characters until they get down to the lower levels.

I disagree, because the low tiers in this game are generally pretty limited in what they can do. They don't feel nearly as rewarding to play because of their flawed movesets.

Contrast that with mid/high tier characters like Marth who feel fun and rewarding to play. The argument that low tier characters are forced to utilize their entire moveset is totally off base considering many of them don't have entire movesets worth even using. (ie: Palutena).

I consider Palutena bottom tier along with the rest of the characters who don't have anything close to a full moveset. Palutena is also probably the most extreme example you could've picked: she's a character with very niche specials, tilts and smashes but then a few really good moves like dash attack, bair and fair. You might as well use Sonic as an example of top tier moveset versatility, and without all the nerfs he's gotten, it would be even worse.

I do agree that whereas top/high tier movesets are mainly split into really good, good and average moves, mid/low tiers can have the same kind of imbalance, just swapped into good, average and bad moves. Yet the reason they're not that good usually lies in their mobility stats and/or a lack of options in disadvantage rather than bad movesets, and you can't ignore the fact that top tiers have always become more versatile when they've been nerfed. Most of them are in a really good state now in this regard, but we should remember that it wasn't always this way.

On the other hand, whereas a few low tiers have been appropriately fixed (Marth/Lucina, Mewtwo, Samus to an extent), most have been "fixed" by creating imbalances in their movesets (Ike, DK, Bowser) by making one option really stand out from the rest relative to pre-buff versions of said characters.

Sure, there's the argument of buffing every move to the same insane level of the best moves in the game, but why would that make the newly buffed moves powerful? The best moves have only ever been powerful because the majority of moves in the game aren't like that. If they were, we would call all of them normal or average. It's a completely silly discussion. It's easier to create balance by nerfing a few moves than buffing 500, and the end result would still be the same, balance. Power is ****ing relative. You either have balance or you have power, you can't have both because balance removes relativity. The only power that should be kept at the cost of balance in my opinion is every character having a couple or few moves/attributes that makes them stand out from the rest.

You might think now that the characters would feel more powerful if they did more damage for instance, and they would compared to now, but when everyone did that you'd quickly get used to it and hope for the same over and over if you didn't learn yet.

 

[Nu~]

A lot of Pac-mains have a love-hate relationship with the character. Tea, Ginko, and Abadango have all used other characters seriously, and of those three only Tea uses Pac frequently. With more characters raking in good results in 1.1.6, it's hard to see him ranking above low-mid. The situation would be different if he had hidden potential, but we've already seen the nutty things he's capable of and apparently it still isn't enough.

People only liked customs because they hated the early-game balance. Once people realized we'd get regular and effective patches, interest kind of died off quickly. I still think some of the justifications for not using them are weak, but OTOH they're kind of annoying to implement and haven't received the same degree of tuning that the base game has. In fact, some of the changes the dev team has made (DK...Marth...) don't synergize well at all with custom movesets. Which of course makes them a tough sell.

But when we did use them, the dev team did their best to balance what people cried hardest about. Exploding balloons' hitbox was shrunk and a fuel mechanic was added, for example.

As soon as we stopped, they focused more on balancing the customs off meta

 

[outfoxd]

Duck Hunt. Most underrated. That's a first.

 

[Emblem Lord]

If they patched out its grab release confirms sure.

YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH!!!!!

 

[Nu~]

In exchange for adding more overtuned top tiers and making Dedede, Zelda, and Puff (Possibly Roy too) useless and almost unusable?

Customs have built in, obvious Counterplay.
**** like limit does not.

And you act like dedede, Zelda, and puff weren't already bad.

 

[paperchao]

Customs ftw and freethemiis

Plz give me back Crescent Slash Marth.

plllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllzzzzzzzzzzzzz

guest XXXX pls, the best and most feasable fix for the miis. as for customs, probs gunna be relegated to side events.

 

[Kofu]

YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH!!!!!

I don't mind the throw combos from it, but since nearly all grab release combos have been patched out (I actually can't think of any aside from niche Luma shenanigans) it just seems fair. Especially since it works on like, what, half the cast?

Dashing Assault and Iai counter are pretty good customs for Marth too.

 

[sedrf]

In exchange for adding more overtuned top tiers and making Dedede, Zelda, and Puff (Possibly Roy too) useless and almost unusable?

Bad characters get screwed over by increasing power curve. Those guys are bad for a reason not just the higher tiers being good.

 

[Wintermelon43]

A lot of Pac-mains have a love-hate relationship with the character. Tea, Ginko, and Abadango have all used other characters seriously, and of those three only Tea uses Pac frequently. With more characters raking in good results in 1.1.6, it's hard to see him ranking above low-mid. The situation would be different if he had hidden potential, but we've already seen the nutty things he's capable of and apparently it still isn't enough.

People only liked customs because they hated the early-game balance. Once people realized we'd get regular and effective patches, interest kind of died off quickly. I still think some of the justifications for not using them are weak, but OTOH they're kind of annoying to implement and haven't received the same degree of tuning that the base game has. In fact, some of the changes the dev team has made (DK...Marth...) don't synergize well at all with custom movesets. Which of course makes them a tough sell.

Lol. Pac-Man is five times better than low mid. All you really did was admit you know nothing about the character. The nutty stuff hasn't been fully optimized and 100% found I'm sure, and that isn't the ONLY potential anyway. Pac-Man has low results because he is under-represented; he is EXTREMELY hard to use, and pac-mains take a lot of breaks; this and Abadango dropping him (Which I should mention: Abadango said he dropped him because of how hard he was to play, NOT because of viability) makes people not want to use him, as they feel like the challenge will be bad and not worth it due to him not being a top tier. The few people that DO use him and are notable have disappeared. Tea's disappeared as much as Some has, Ginko is inactive and triple mains him with Rob and Mewtwo, Koolaid and Zage are taking a break, idk about Sinji. NO notable Pac-mains have dropped the character due to viability; it has all been due to his difficulty to play.

Customs have built in, obvious Counterplay.
**** like limit does not.

And you act like dedede, Zelda, and puff weren't already bad.

But they aren't as bad compared to the rest of the cast as melee bottom tiers were. Customs will put them around that level

 

[Appledees]

If the character requires that much work to actually get any results than maybe the character isn't actually that good.

and if you're using that argument then why has characters like Peach,Greninja or Megaman who honestly have less players than Pacman arguably has had more higher placings than Pacman but are still hard to use compared to other characters.

Like I understand difficulty is a factor but have you wondered even with all of Pacman's tricks its still not enough to place consistently high?

 

[HeavyLobster]

Lol. Pac-Man is five times better than low mid. All you really did was admit you know nothing about the character. The nutty stuff hasn't been fully optimized and 100% found I'm sure, and that isn't the ONLY potential anyway. Pac-Man has low results because he is under-represented; he is EXTREMELY hard to use, and pac-mains take a lot of breaks; this and Abadango dropping him (Which I should mention: Abadango said he dropped him because of how hard he was to play, NOT because of viability) makes people not want to use him, as they feel like the challenge will be bad and not worth it due to him not being a top tier. The few people that DO use him and are notable have disappeared. Tea's disappeared as much as Some has, Ginko is inactive and triple mains him with Rob and Mewtwo, Koolaid and Zage are taking a break, idk about Sinji. NO notable Pac-mains have dropped the character due to viability; it has all been due to his difficulty to play.

Pac also has a ton of counterplay that's underdeveloped. He's not awful but if he ever gained a foothold in the meta I doubt it would last too long because then people would actually take the time to learn the MU in depth. He probably could pull out a few wins out of nowhere due to MU unfamiliarity, but if he really had staying power I think we'd see more of him. Mega Man is also hard to play but has still been able to find representation and get results.

 

[Wintermelon43]

If the character requires that much work to actually get any results than maybe the character isn't actually that good.

By that logic, (And whatever other top/high tier characters in brawl were difficult to play) can't be that good.

Pac also has a ton of counterplay that's underdeveloped. He's not awful but if he ever gained a foothold in the meta I doubt it would last too long because then people would actually take the time to learn the MU in depth. He probably could pull out a few wins out of nowhere due to MU unfamiliarity, but if he really had staying power I think we'd see more of him. Mega Man is also hard to play but has still been able to find representation and get results.

This is what people said about Mega Man and he still ended up high tier.

 

[Nu~]

This conversation pains me.

I want to say that pacman is underrated and has a ton of potential...but he really is a flawed character.

He BLEEDS counterplay.

 

[Wintermelon43]

This conversation pains me.

I want to say that pacman is underrated and has a ton of potential...but he really is a flawed character.

He BLEEDS counterplay.

The only thing that's really badly flawed is his grab.

 

[sedrf]

But they aren't as bad compared to the rest of the cast as melee bottom tiers were. Customs will put them around that level

Melee bottom tiers were bad because they had no good moves Also the needs of the many out way the needs of the few blah blah blah
Even then customs/mii will never be legal due to japan and the higher lv NA players showing a disdain for them.

 

[BunbUn129]

By that logic, (And whatever other top/high tier characters in brawl were difficult to play) can't be that good.


This is what people said about Mega Man and he still ended up high tier.

And all the effort you could put into Pacman could be put into most of those characters for greater return. A learning curve has to be justified for a character to be a relevant force.

Also are you really saying that Brawl MK was a hard character to play? Hell ****in no, Brawl MK was anything but.

 

[TurboLink]

The only thing that's really badly flawed is his grab.

Well he doesn't exactly have the best kill power or the most vast array of killing options in the game either.

 

[HeavyLobster]

This is what people said about Mega Man and he still ended up high tier.

Mega Man shenanigans isn't as big as Pac shenanigans. Every single one of Pac's specials can be used against him in some way, shape, or form, and he relies on them far more than Mega Man does with his. Plus they've both had the same amount of time to prove their worth, and MM has been able to leave a dent, albeit not a high tier one, while Pac has failed to leave a lasting impression after Abadango did some early work with him.

 

[Appledees]

The high tiers you mentioned in have overall stronger tools than Pacman and honestly they're much easier to use than Pacman cause there's less counterplay involved and their strengths are much more overwhelming and developed than anything Pacman has

Like why would I use Pacman for that much effort when I could use Toon Link, Megaman,Villiager for that same zoning role for much better results and less effort cause of their stronger tools

Also Megaman isn't high tier...not yet his results are too scattered despite being solid when he shows up.

 

[conTAgi0n]

Guys, if you want to give an example of low tier characters not using their entire moveset, please use someone other than Palutena. Everybody knows about her moveset issues at this point, and honestly she (and Zelda?) are kind of unusual for the amount of crap moves they have.

The fact that everyone knows about her moveset issues is exactly why she makes such a good example though. If you just want a quick counter example to demonstrate that low tier doesn't necessarily translate to good moveset utilization, then it's a lot easier to give Palutena as a clear-cut and well-understood example than potentially get sidetracked into an argument about how much of a role Dedede's dair and jab or whatever play in his usual game plan.

I think the real problem though is trying to discuss whether nerfs for top tiers make the game "better" or "worse" for competitive play in general terms. Aside from what kind of a meta you like being mostly a subjective preference, nerfs to top tiers have completely different effects on the meta depending on the particulars of the individual nerf. Instead of saying you liked the 1.1.4 meta better, it's more helpful to say what specifically you liked better about it. Maybe you think pre-patch Sheik was a more interesting character to watch? Pre-patch ZSS? What about their play got less interesting? Maybe the set of characters common in competitive play was preferable to the current set? If so, why? On the other side of the argument, if you want to make the case that the game has gotten more interesting as a result of nerfs, pick an example. Are Bayonetta and Sheik more interesting in competitive play now? How so?

Least helpful I think is arguing for or against a nerf on the basis of general principles. "Cloud shouldn't be nerfed because nerfing top tiers makes the game less interesting." Well what sort of changes to Cloud would make him and his matchups less interesting from a competitive standpoint? For example, would lowering knockback on LCS affect him in a way that makes his role in the meta less interesting? Would matches with Cloud become less fun to watch? How so?

Also I am sympathetic to the feeling that discussing nerfs and buffs is unproductive since we aren't choosing them anyway and there's a good chance there aren't anymore patches on the way, but discussing what should or shouldn't be nerfed/buffed is really a proxy for arguing about how powerful certain characters and tools are, and how healthy or unhealthy this is for the meta game. Those certainly are relevant discussion topics for a competitive impressions thread.

 

[Wintermelon43]

Melee bottom tiers were bad because they had no good moves Also the needs of the many out way the needs of the few blah blah blah
Even then customs/mii will never be legal due to japan and the higher lv NA players showing a disdain for them.

No no I don't mean , I mean.

And all the effort you could put into Pacman could be put into most of those characters for greater return. A learning curve has to be justified for a character to be a relevant force.

Also are you really saying that Brawl MK was a hard character to play? Hell ****in no, Brawl MK was anything but.

So I guess you can't use Rosalina, Sonic, Fox etc, because Diddy, Sheik, and Cloud are the clear best.

The high tiers you mentioned in have overall stronger tools than Pacman and honestly they're much easier to use than Pacman cause there's less counterplay involved and their strengths are much more overwhelming and developed than anything Pacman has

Like why would I use Pacman for that much effort when I could use Toon Link, Megaman,Villiager for that same zoning role for much better results and less effort cause of their stronger tools

Also Megaman isn't high tier...not yet his results are too scattered despite being solid when he shows up.

I hate the "why use X when you can use Y" argument. How about enjoyment? There. All the reason you need. Pac-Man woudn't be used if you just want to use a top tier, nor would all but 10-11 characters.

 

[TDK]

Watching Dath put Charizard Below Jigglypuff is interesting, because he's last, Miis nonwithstanding.

Also, in terms of skill level to play the character, who's got the highest amount of skill required?

come to mind, not sure who else.

 

[Nu~]

The only thing that's really badly flawed is his grab.

And the fact that every special he has has obvious counterplay and lacks consistent kill setups

 

[TDK]

And the fact that every special he has has obvious counterplay and lacks consistent kill setups

Bell -> Whatever kill move you want. Same sort of principle as ZSS.

 

[Aaron1997]

If Pacman got a normal grab he would crawl back into mid-high. Most of his killing problems exist because he cant threaten Shields unless he has Key in hand. A lot of his Hydrant set-ups become a lot more reliable. Also he can Stock cap people with Rage Up-throw or back throw at the leadge.