Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Rysir]

Being at high % does not magically put lucario in a winning position.
Lucario at high % still has:
Crap frame data
Slow speed
Easily challenged attacks
Meh range

You can have the biggest muscles but they are not worth it if you cant get a solid hit on anything.

Because really if aura was all lucario needed to become such an overwhelming force then he would be top tier or winning events left and right and neither happen and thats without a type of "recoil".

Its hard enough trying to get things done without additional downsides.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Might as well call every grappler in 2D fighters bad design, sorry, philosophy, too. They almost always start their rounds on the back foot due to being at a distance and have to find holes in the opponent's defence to really begin playing.

First of all traditional grapplers are usually given more health as one compensation for being expected to get hit more as they make their way in. And for the most part, they eat the same combos as everyone else. So the extra health usually matters.

This doesn't really apply to Ganon because in any given disadvantageous situation because while he is a heavyweight, he's usually suspect to MORE damage than usual. Whether it being comboed longer, juggled longer or his really bad recovery being exploited (mostly this one). It doesn't matter how heavy a character is if they are so subject to getting gimped. And when he does get in, his reward isn't high enough to make up for it. He does't have early kill setups the way DK or Bowser does.

Secondly good grappler characters in fighting games tend to still have good normals on a top of everything else. A grappler can't threaten command grab much if they don't have other options you have to think about (since they need to convince you to sit in block/stop moving). Imagine if a grappler's normals were all very laggy and their jump ins had extra landing lag.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Did Ally really drown in pools? I know he was sent to losers, now according to some on twitter he's out of the tournament?

That would mean both Trela and Ally, who were favourites to win the entire tournament didn't even make bracket. Absolutely insane.

 

[Rizen]

Serious question: was everyone drunk or something? Having all these top players do so poorly, you know?

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Serious question: was everyone drunk or something? Having all these top players do so poorly, you know?

Well this isn't new. Top players get upset all the time these days in Smash 4.

Reasons might include but are not limited to:

1. Two stock format.
2. Rage
3. Matchup unfamiliarity. More viable low/mid tier characters than previous Smash games (outside of PM). So knowing these matchups is much more important.
4. Game is still relatively new.
5. Possible low skill ceiling of Smash 4 to the point where tons of players can reach it or at least get good enough to challenge the best.

 

[jespoke]

Being at high % does not magically put lucario in a winning position.
Lucario at high % still has:
Crap frame data
Slow speed
Easily challenged attacks
Meh range

You can have the biggest muscles but they are not worth it if you cant get a solid hit on anything.

Because really if aura was all lucario needed to become such an overwhelming force then he would be top tier or winning events left and right and neither happen and thats without a type of "recoil".

Its hard enough trying to get things done without additional downsides.

I just tried to outline the issues, any solutions (That could backfire for all i know) would have to be accompanied by some rebalances of the rest of the kit to accomodate it of course. It would be kind of like a featherweight with a playstyle closer to a heavyweight, with the early percent chip damage to set it all up. Not all that different actually.

It is just things i could see attempted in mods, or Smash 5 if Lucario makes it in.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Trela's match vs Bowser Jr. was clearly a case of MU inexperience, because jumping into Jr's disjoints when he throws the MechaKoopa at you is one of the worst things you can do.

 

[Rysir]

I just tried to outline the issues, any solutions (That could backfire for all i know) would have to be accompanied by some rebalances of the rest of the kit to accomodate it of course. It would be kind of like a featherweight with a playstyle closer to a heavyweight, with the early percent chip damage to set it all up. Not all that different actually.

It is just things i could see attempted in mods, or Smash 5 if Lucario makes it in.

Make lucario consistent and keep his whole moveset relevant from 0%-100%+ at the cost of aura ending at 150 ( 160%+ aura may as well not exist anyway) and Id be happy.

Just wish people acknowledged lucario's downsides instead of going "lol aura" whenever lucario does ANYTHING to progress in a match. Can only scream at brick walls for so long.

 

[thehard]

I'm done with this debate because hopefully the less attention it's given the sooner it'll die out but as a final thought:

People used to say Smash 4 had a low skill ceiling because ZeRo took every tournament, and thus it was a solved game.

Now it has a low skill ceiling because of the exact opposite reason

Lol!

 

[Nobie]

I'm done with this debate because hopefully the less attention it's given the sooner it'll die out but as a final thought:

People used to say Smash 4 had a low skill ceiling because ZeRo took every tournament, and thus it was a solved game.

Now it has a low skill ceiling because of the exact opposite reason

Lol!

People have a tendency to use data to support their existing point of view. We're all a little guilty of this.

Doesn't make it any less silly.

 

[Sleek Media]

Re: Lucario's Design

Just gonna throw this out there, I was once knocked out of a tournament by a Lucario countering one of Leaf Shield's passive 2% hitboxes. I was at thirty percent and at the bottom of Battlefield. Not quite what I would consider stellar design.

Of course, at least he has limitations and counterplay even with Aura. You can still outmaneuver, outbutton, outspace, and even gimp him with a bunch of characters. It's more manageable than Cloud's nonstop BS, or that of half the other high tiers for that matter. I just think Smash in general breaks down at high level play. Because of the large degree of freedom in movement, characters with superior mobility and frame data will always have an unfair advantage in the 1v1. Much of the design's balance goes toward FFA and team battles. Equipment was also included in the game to allow us to "soft patch" our characters to be how we want, but the competitive community never even gave it a chance because playing a few rounds of smash run to get gear you like is unfair and burdensome, but if you don't have time to practice perfect pivots and whatever, you're a scrub.

 

[HeavyLobster]

First of all traditional grapplers are usually given more health as one compensation for being expected to get hit more as they make their way in. And for the most part, they eat the same combos as everyone else. So the extra health usually matters.

This doesn't really apply to Ganon because in any given disadvantageous situation because while he is a heavyweight, he's usually suspect to MORE damage than usual. Whether it being comboed longer, juggled longer or his really bad recovery being exploited (mostly this one). It doesn't matter how heavy a character is if they are so subject to getting gimped. And when he does get in, his reward isn't high enough to make up for it. He does't have early kill setups the way DK or Bowser does.

Secondly good grappler characters in fighting games tend to still have good normals on a top of everything else. A grappler can't threaten command grab much if they don't have other options you have to think about (since they need to convince you to sit in block/stop moving). Imagine if a grappler's normals were all very laggy and their jump ins had extra landing lag.

Ganon's normals are pretty darn good. The challenge is getting into a position to utilize them effectively. You're right that his recovery is a big problem for him though, as shortened stocks due to gimps often nullify his weight and kill power. That's probably the most important issue to fix in terms of his risk/reward ratio, though a stock cap throw would also be appreciated against certain annoying characters who he can't effectively kill via gimps/techchasing.

 

[Kofu]

Re: Lucario's Design

Just gonna throw this out there, I was once knocked out of a tournament by a Lucario countering one of Leaf Shield's passive 2% hitboxes. I was at thirty percent and at the bottom of Battlefield. Not quite what I would consider stellar design.

Of course, at least he has limitations and counterplay even with Aura. You can still outmaneuver, outbutton, outspace, and even gimp him with a bunch of characters. It's more manageable than Cloud's nonstop BS, or that of half the other high tiers for that matter. I just think Smash in general breaks down at high level play. Because of the large degree of freedom in movement, characters with superior mobility and frame data will always have an unfair advantage in the 1v1. Much of the design's balance goes toward FFA and team battles. Equipment was also included in the game to allow us to "soft patch" our characters to be how we want, but the competitive community never even gave it a chance because playing a few rounds of smash run to get gear you like is unfair and burdensome, but if you don't have time to practice perfect pivots and whatever, you're a scrub.

Double Team doesn't scale with damage; it's a counter that does predetermined damage based on Lucario's percent. It's pretty insane at high percents though.

 

[TheGlove]

Re: Lucario's Design

Just gonna throw this out there, I was once knocked out of a tournament by a Lucario countering one of Leaf Shield's passive 2% hitboxes. I was at thirty percent and at the bottom of Battlefield. Not quite what I would consider stellar design.

Of course, at least he has limitations and counterplay even with Aura. You can still outmaneuver, outbutton, outspace, and even gimp him with a bunch of characters. It's more manageable than Cloud's nonstop BS, or that of half the other high tiers for that matter. I just think Smash in general breaks down at high level play. Because of the large degree of freedom in movement, characters with superior mobility and frame data will always have an unfair advantage in the 1v1. Much of the design's balance goes toward FFA and team battles. Equipment was also included in the game to allow us to "soft patch" our characters to be how we want, but the competitive community never even gave it a chance because playing a few rounds of smash run to get gear you like is unfair and burdensome, but if you don't have time to practice perfect pivots and whatever, you're a scrub.

This opens the same problem as when people suggest giving low tier characters access to custom moves. If I give Charizard access to dragon rush then someone gets mad and is like why does charizard get that but x doesnt get anything . How bad do they have to be to get access to customs. Considering how many characters people argue are at least mid tier this a maddening prospect. The smash community has shown itself to not be particularly united so instituting united customs access would be really hard on a national scale. Custom equipment s even harder because then you have to ask exactly how much of a buff is appropriate. We dont have some sort of balancing council to make "objective rulings" and even if we did nobody would follow it because it lacks the legitimacy being a game dev gives you when making changes. add that to the fact that equipment is completely random so getting the proper numbers for each character for each setup would be difficult.without power saves, and since we are trying to play nice with Nintendo we don't really want to be caught hacking their game. If people cant be bothered to grind customs then equipment is extra impossible.

On a more meta game related note I would recommend watching DjJack vs Scatt at CEO when you get the chance it basically shows how megaman can limit ry's movemnet and frstrate his approaches over and over without putting himself at too much risk.

 

[conTAgi0n]

So you want a generic boxer?

If the only thing separating Little Mac from being a generic boxer is a bunch of super armor and the KO punch, then yes, I'd prefer a generic boxer. Marth is a generic fencer. Nothing about his moveset is particularly suggestive of Fire Emblem. Yet people generally like his design, myself included. And if we are being honest, Little Mac really is pretty much just a generic boxer in his games anyway.

Little Mac's design would still be quite unique and even pretty extreme, given that his ground game would still be awesome and his air moves worthless. He would probably need some retuning if he were given these changes, but that's okay and this is all hypothetical anyway.

Finally I should acknowledge that this is somewhat subjective. I don't like Little Mac's design at all, at least how extreme it is, but I don't know that I can go so far as to say it's objectively bad, or that there even is such a thing as objectively bad design.

 

[Nysyr]

Honestly the jankiest part of Smash 4 is the number of match-ups. Since the top tiers are by no means auto-win against the rest of the cast, unless you have someone to lab against for every character that mains said character, an upset is gonna happen sooner or later.

Whether or not this is a good thing is up for debate. If you had these players play a long series like a best of 15 (this is just theory, chill), do you honestly think these upsets would ever happen?

 

[Dinoman96]

I don't like the idea of taking away Mac's KO punch. I mean, filling a meter of sorts (whether it'd be the power meter from the arcade games/Super Punch-Out!! on SNES or the stars from the NES/Wii games) to unleash a powerful KO attack has always been a crucial part of Punch-Out!!'s gameplay.

That'd being said I think it's a bit stupid that Mac's power meter can be filled by being attacked, even though the actual games encourage the player not to get hit or else their meter goes down or they lose a star depending on what game they're playing. It's also pretty especially stupid that getting hit in Smash seems to fill Mac's meter way quicker than dealing damage to opponents.

 

[SaltyKracka]

I don't like the idea of taking away Mac's KO punch. I mean, filling a meter of sorts (whether it'd be the power meter from the arcade games or the stars from the NES/Wii games) to unleash a powerful KO attack has always been a crucial part of Punch-Out!!'s gameplay.

That'd being said I think it's a bit stupid that Mac's power meter can be filled by being attacked, even though the actual games encourage the player not to get hit or else their meter goes down or they lose a star depending on what game they're playing. It's also pretty especially stupid that getting hit in Smash seems to fill Mac's meter way quicker than dealing damage to opponents.

I can see what Sakurai and co. were trying with it, making it a comeback mechanic and giving Mac threat even when he's losing, but...

But it really just means that absolutely nobody wants to engage with Mac in neutral, or even wants to get close to him. It means that absolutely everybody has to double down on the "get Mac offstage and then gimp him" strategy, because oh lol you actually bothered to do damage to him? Whoops, here he comes with the practically unpunishable dtilt, fishing for a ridiculously early KO.

It just makes his kit even more toxic and binary than it already is, and for a kit that was already pretty extreme in those ways, that's not a good look.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Rob is one of the worst designed characters in the game.
You get beaten up all the time, get juggled, but is fat and hard to kill for that reason and then you get dthrow upair at 60-70 for the stock.

Except if I get touched, that's my fault, being heavy with no challenging normals (except Nair and situational Fair) makes my disadvantage state worse than bowser who has threatening moves for People chasing him a lot, being floaty Is being prone to being juggled, and to compensate for all this, I get a great advantage state (not to mention ROB is a very diverse character with a strong fundamental moveset and options to handle pretty much any situation).

And being the worst designed character in the game? I'm extremely confused on this (just gonna assume you don't like rob at all for some reason).

 

[Yoshi Kirishima]

People mentioned that the venue was hot, and there was no setups to warm up on. Those are a couple of the reasons why players performed badly.

 

[Radical Larry]

So can anyone keep me to speed? Any notable players who got eliminated in the tournament? And any notable characters that are still in the tournament that...well...aren't high or top tier?

 

[Ghostbone]

People used to say Smash 4 had a low skill ceiling because ZeRo took every tournament, and thus it was a solved game.

If anyone actually said that, they don't know what they're talking about.

And it's certainly not the same people saying smash 4 has a low skill ceiling now.

A game with a skill ceiling anyone can reach is rock paper scissors, the best choice is to just pick each one 33.33% of the time. The winner is completely random.
A solved game is checkers, which computers at their best will tie every time because there's always a right move, however it's hard for players to reach this standard. If people were able to reach this level, results would be random among them.

Anyway, the point is that the lower the skill ceiling is, the more variance there will be in results, because it's easier for mid level players to challenge top level players if there's less of a gap between them.

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

If the only thing separating Little Mac from being a generic boxer is a bunch of super armor and the KO punch, then yes, I'd prefer a generic boxer. Marth is a generic fencer. Nothing about his moveset is particularly suggestive of Fire Emblem. Yet people generally like his design, myself included. And if we are being honest, Little Mac really is pretty much just a generic boxer in his games anyway.

You're just straight up wrong about that. Shieldbreaker is Smash's version of Tomebreaker, Axebreaker, etc. Dancing Blade and counter are both skills as well. A lot of his normals are based off Marth's different attack animations in game and his victory poses are based on the poses he makes after killing an enemy. Marth is very similar to how he is in his own games. If you had said Lucina I'd have agreed a little bit, but Marth, no.

Mac stuff though. Mac's really only kinda scary if you're afraid of him. You have to respect his smash attacks, and they're pretty easy to avoid too. He struggles a bit vs shields, but what does that mean? We constantly hear that said about Fox or Cloud, but there's a difference: Fox and Cloud have much better range, start up, and end lag on their grabs. Mac doesn't have that, even then his throws don't yield him anything close to as much positional advantage either. Tbh, I'm sometimes more inclined to just pummel and grab release into ftilt than I am going to throw. Depends on how and where you land the grab though. But for the most part you're safe in shield against Mac. Not only that but he gets juggled to hell, counter's not the most reliable thing for getting down when you're above the stage, he can't contest you with aerials so you can just hit him over and over and over and push him towards the edge. For example, while the Mac v Falcon MU is even, that's because they can both **** on each other. Falcon's dash grab release at the edge shenanigans are very potent against Mac: if he jumps he gets down tilted and dies, if he waits he's usually forced to recover low and because he doesn't snap to the ledge you can punish him. Either way you kill him, you still feel sad...

So can anyone keep me to speed? Any notable players who got eliminated in the tournament? And any notable characters that are still in the tournament that...well...aren't high or top tier?

http://smashboards.com/threads/summer-of-smash-week-4-ceo-karisuma-8-xanadu.438506/ You wanna check here for that stuff.

 

[TheGlove]

So can anyone keep me to speed? Any notable players who got eliminated in the tournament? And any notable characters that are still in the tournament that...well...aren't high or top tier?

Top 64!!!!

Winners Side

Prince Ramen vs False Prediction - False wins

Tweekvs Hyuga Prediction - Hyuga wins

Antivs Nick Riddle Prediction - Anti Wins

Voidvs RainPrediction - Void Wins

Jtails vs C3POPrediction - C3PO Wins


True Bluevs Nakat Bold Prediction - True Blue Wins

Mr.E vs Mr.R Prediction - Mr.R Wins

Nietono vs Dath Prediction - Nietono

Nairovs Dkwill Prediction - Nairo wins

Fow vs Scatt Prediction - Scatt Wins

LingLingvs DabuzPrediction - Dabuz

Wrathvs EsamBold Prediction - Wrath

Abadagovs Pink FreshPrediction - Abadango

BrawlMan1000vs TheReflexWonderPrediction - Reflex

Character diversity breakdown of the top 64. Credits to /u/duckhunttoptier on Reddit and @juddy96.

Spoiler

Tyroy is the only person counted as a dual main, playing MK and Sheik.

9
6
4
4
3
3
3
3
3
3
2
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

29 different characters total.

Comments:

• is the only notable absentee that had solid representatives in attendance. Ryo, Waldo, and Rango all drowned in pools.
• East coast is land, but it's really just another example of how prominent this character is.
• and continue to have impressive showings for perceived lower tier characters. is kind of in the same boat.

There's the character diversity and as for upsets check out https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/4pnkud/ceo_2016_smash_4_singles_upsets_day_1/

Biggest one being ZeRo losing 2-0 to Prince Ramen's Palutena

 

[Deleted member 269706]

What CEO has taught me:

"We want to see more character diversity!"
> Top level player loses to lesser known "low-tier" player
"This is unacceptable! Two stock is too inconsistent! We must move onto 3 stocks!"

What the hell do you guys even want?

 

[blackghost]

most of the upsets (not zeros) looked like matchup knowledge just wasnt there. trela missed some openings and lost because of it (IMO at least)
zero was outplayed plain and simple he airdodged repeatedly and was punished repeatedly. and palutena has a great upair.
so the belief is now that smash 4 has no skill becausetoo many top players are losing? dear god i hate people.
we've discussed on this page how it may not be long term visble to play one character. the roster is too big and too even to do that. everyone has a counter or at the very least a check.
the other option about these upsets is that Florida is really just that good. these are all Florida players pulling these off so far right?

 

[HeavyLobster]

If anyone actually said that, they don't know what they're talking about.

And it's certainly not the same people saying smash 4 has a low skill ceiling now.

A game with a skill ceiling anyone can reach is rock paper scissors, the best choice is to just pick each one 33.33% of the time. The winner is completely random.
A solved game is checkers, which computers at their best will tie every time because there's always a right move, however it's hard for players to reach this standard. If people were able to reach this level, results would be random among them.

Anyway, the point is that the lower the skill ceiling is, the more variance there will be in results, because it's easier for mid level players to challenge top level players if there's less of a gap between them.

A quick count of the listed upsets has 14 out of the 21 upsets being from characters who aren't consensus top 10. While not all of these cases are necessarily MU inexperience, I suspect that it played a role in a good number of these. Far from being indicative of a solved game, these results show how much even the best in the game have yet to learn.

 

[ARGHETH]

You're just straight up wrong about that. Shieldbreaker is Smash's version of Tomebreaker, Axebreaker, etc. Dancing Blade and counter are both skills as well. A lot of his normals are based off Marth's different attack animations in game and his victory poses are based on the poses he makes after killing an enemy. Marth is very similar to how he is in his own games. If you had said Lucina I'd have agreed a little bit, but Marth, no.

Uhh...
The breakers were introduced in Awakening, Counter originated from Path of Radiance (GC), and Dancing Blade (in Fates) was based on the Smash move, not the other way around. Counter, though, was supposed to represent counterattacking after the enemy phase/after an attack misses, so there's that. SB is likely more to represent certain weapons doing bonus damage against some units, since it does additional shield damage instead of giving additional hit or whatever. Dolphin Slash may or may not be based on a sword crit in FE5, since it has a similar animation and FE5 was the most recent game to come out when Melee was released. Fsmash, Utaunt, and maybe Usmash are also based on Marth's animations in his games.
Most of his tilts and aerials are just sword stuff Sakurai decided probably fit a sword-based character.

 

[Radical Larry]

What CEO has taught me:

"We want to see more character diversity!"
> Top level player loses to lesser known "low-tier" player
"This is unacceptable! Two stock is too inconsistent! We must move onto 3 stocks!"

What the hell do you guys even want?

But you want to know what's funny?
If it happens when 3 stock is active, and a top level player loses to another lesser known low tier player again...

People will be screaming for 4 stocks.

 

[FeelMeUp]

But you want to know what's funny?
If it happens when 3 stock is active, and a top level player loses to another lesser known low tier player again...

People will be screaming for 4 stocks.

No they won't lol.

 

[Radical Larry]

You know, a lot of matches don't even last two minutes, so why do we have a rule that makes them last up to 8?
How was that a good idea again?

 

[FeelMeUp]

You know, a lot of matches don't even last two minutes, so why do we have a rule that makes them last up to 8?
How was that a good idea again?

Dude, what are you even talking about?

 

[jespoke]

Uhh...
The breakers were introduced in Awakening, Counter originated from Path of Radiance (GC), and Dancing Blade (in Fates) was based on the Smash move, not the other way around. Counter, though, was supposed to represent counterattacking after the enemy phase/after an attack misses, so there's that. SB is likely more to represent certain weapons doing bonus damage against some units, since it does additional shield damage instead of giving additional hit or whatever. Dolphin Slash may or may not be based on a sword crit in FE5, since it has a similar animation and FE5 was the most recent game to come out when Melee was released. Fsmash, Utaunt, and maybe Usmash are also based on Marth's animations in his games.
Most of his tilts and aerials are just sword stuff Sakurai decided probably fit a sword-based character.

Just gonna add that F-Tilt is directly Marths standard hit from the NES original, and Dancing Blade is probably based on the Brave Sword (and general double-hit) animations of the SNES games

 

[Sleek Media]

This opens the same problem as when people suggest giving low tier characters access to custom moves. If I give Charizard access to dragon rush then someone gets mad and is like why does charizard get that but x doesnt get anything . How bad do they have to be to get access to customs. Considering how many characters people argue are at least mid tier this a maddening prospect. The smash community has shown itself to not be particularly united so instituting united customs access would be really hard on a national scale. Custom equipment s even harder because then you have to ask exactly how much of a buff is appropriate. We dont have some sort of balancing council to make "objective rulings" and even if we did nobody would follow it because it lacks the legitimacy being a game dev gives you when making changes. add that to the fact that equipment is completely random so getting the proper numbers for each character for each setup would be difficult.without power saves, and since we are trying to play nice with Nintendo we don't really want to be caught hacking their game. If people cant be bothered to grind customs then equipment is extra impossible.

On a more meta game related note I would recommend watching DjJack vs Scatt at CEO when you get the chance it basically shows how megaman can limit ry's movemnet and frstrate his approaches over and over without putting himself at too much risk.

Yeah I can see why only allowing certain characters to get customs would be janky, and certainly, some customs are ban-worthy (lol HSB), but that's not what my post is about. It's this one-ruleset-master-race thing that burns so many players out and gives us these tedious mobility-dominated metas. There doesn't have to be one format with one rule set that nobody is ever allowed to deviate from. That's stupid, arbitrary, and self-serving for its proponents. We have weeklies, so why can't we mix things up at least once a month with 2v2v2v2, Items, BYO Equipment, etc? Only put up a dollar or two for entry and let people unwind a little from last week's 1v1 and have a good laugh. It'd be nice if occasionally people could remember that this game is designed for parties and shenanigans, and not to replace Street Fighter as the premier elitist tryhard MLG fighter.

 

[Ffamran]

When talking about character design, there's so many factors to take into account. The usual is concept and execution. Still got to add in stuff like the game itself. A character can have bad concept, but be well-executed like Jigglypuff and Pichu, the joke characters. At the same time, a character can have good concept, but poor execution like most of the heavyweights not being strong enough in raw power in previous games.

When I think of "bad design", I think of really poor decisions and only one character comes to mind because of his conceptually broken tools throughout Smash: Falco. Others might say characters like Brawl Meta Knight or Smash 4 Little Mac and Lucario, but I'd say their designs are fine, but they were executed poorly, especially Brawl Meta Knight who was overloaded with power.

If character design is discussed, "bad design" should not be thrown around just because a character is bad, too good, has too many weaknesses, has too many strengths, etc. Take Bowser; yes, he has problems landing, dealing with... I don't know, Bowser problems, but what is Bowser? That takes some studying and yes, people don't have all the time or desire to study even one character, but Bowser's pretty much a Zangief, a heavyweight grappler. Characters like that will have problems in neutral and disadvantage, by make up by having an insane advantage. Is that really bad? No, conceptually, it's fine, but execution? Smash 4 Bowser is probably the most well-executed and it shows even if it had to take some patches. Now, for the game itself, so game concept, mechanics, and the other characters, and how Bowser interacts with it, well, that's a bit tough since I don't know Bowser.

I know everyone here loves to use as the poster child of bad design, and I agree that his design is horrible. But if I had to pick the hands down most poorly, utterly **** designed character in the entire game, or possibly even the entire series, I'd have to go with . As polarizing as Lucario is, at least he has a gameplan. At least he is somewhat viable. At least he doesn't have an objectively superior counterpart in the roster that outclasses him in every way. Falco is the epitome of **** tier design and if I made a tier list for character designs, he'd be right in the bottom of the barrel. This guy...has absolutely no gameplan. His moves don't flow together and don't combo into each other in any meaningful ways. His mobility is slow for absolutely no reason, and he's not even compensated for being a snail whatsoever. I've never gotten into the starfox franchise myself, but I'm doubtful that his design has any relevance to a pilot in an on-rails sci-fi shooter either. It's almost disgustingly obvious how Falco was designed. The devs made Fox (and to be fair, they did an excellent job with him). Then, they looked at Fox's tools and said, "let's just make Falco have opposing strengths." So they took Fox, butchered his ground speed, butchered his autocancel aerials, neutered up smash, and compensated for all of this by giving him a higher jumps and some hitstun on his lasers. Then they made him blue, birdlike, and named him Falco.

For the most part, his moves flow; he is after all, based on, in my opinion, one of the most well-designed characters in Smash. The problem is the developers making extremely poor decisions regarding some of his moves that made him overwhelming to the cast (Edit which had the consequence of giving him bad history. Falco is supposed to be a Guile, a zoner with good, close-range normals, but not really good jump-ins or approach normals rather than the SNK-esque boss or "do everything, kill everything", flames Iori Yagami.

Falco's concept is fine, but the execution is not. The TLDR version is that he's supposed to be Luigi with a longer ranged (and good) projectile, but in practice he's a worse Ryu in almost every aspect.

I still have no idea where the hell this comparison comes from or why people believe it. It's like saying, hypothetically, a butchered Guile is supposed to be Ken. I'm sorry, but what? Falco is defensive; he has no jump-ins and no and shouldn't have any approach tools, but the developers screwed up with Melee and Brawl Falco making it seem like Falco's supposed to be a SFV Nash or a Ken. Anyway, he's supposed to make you feel like you have to approach allowing him to make use of his normals to setup in any way he can; versatile normals like Guile and of course, like Fox. Luigi is more offensive; he can pressure by going in and using his normals, has some jump-ins, and can try to zone or challenge zoning, but prefers to be in with more "linear" setups; tons of bread and butters that do their job.

I swear if it's just because they combo... Really, people? Really? At this rate, we might as well say Zelda is an inferior Marth because her tippers aren't as versatile. Oh, wait, they're entirely different characters.

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

Uhh...
The breakers were introduced in Awakening, Counter originated from Path of Radiance (GC), and Dancing Blade (in Fates) was based on the Smash move, not the other way around. Counter, though, was supposed to represent counterattacking after the enemy phase/after an attack misses, so there's that. SB is likely more to represent certain weapons doing bonus damage against some units, since it does additional shield damage instead of giving additional hit or whatever. Dolphin Slash may or may not be based on a sword crit in FE5, since it has a similar animation and FE5 was the most recent game to come out when Melee was released. Fsmash, Utaunt, and maybe Usmash are also based on Marth's animations in his games.
Most of his tilts and aerials are just sword stuff Sakurai decided probably fit a sword-based character.

None of this is really important so:

Spoiler: FE stuff

Marth's ftilt is FE3, Fsmash in FE1, Shieldbreaker from brawl onwards is the normal stab animation from the old games and it acting similar to using a rapier on an armored unit (even though he's using Falchion), dancing blade is the brave/hero weapon animations and also similar to the old astra animations, counter is a skill now which makes it somewhat more relevant but it's also similar to blocking and counter attacking, dash attack is from a game though I can't seem to remember which, and there's even little subtle things like his double jump backwards and his walking animation. While Marth doesn't jump in his games, some of is attacks resemble a fair, just grounded. So that leaves us with utilt, uair, dtilt, dair, and bair as basic sword swings. so overall I think he represents himself and a few other FE characters fairly well.

 

[Radical Larry]

Dude, what are you even talking about?

Spoiler: What I'm Talking about is This

I'm talking about the fact that the current competitive rules have it to where the Time in two stock, singles matches, is around 6 to 8 minutes long. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a ridiculous amount of time for two stocks? I would understand if we went For Glory with the stocks and time being 2 stocks, 5 minutes. Or hell, not even that as it could be 2 stocks and 4 minutes long.

Look at it this way; six to eight minutes or four to five minutes? Which one would seem better competitively? Would it be the longer amount of time that would allow for stalling? Or the shorter amount of time that would make sure players play more optimally?

If you chose the first choice, where are your brains? Six to eight minutes not only would allow for stalling, but it's like Brawl's rules where it's usually 8 minutes long, only that it's two stocks and not three. Secondly, not only would it allow people to stall, it's also redundant to have that much time when matches can literally last around twenty seconds with two stocks. Thirdly, that's just bad for the tournament because no one wants to watch eight minutes of camping and stalling, and the tournament doesn't move fast at all unless the players can make the matches last around a minute or two.

With shorter time, you don't even have all those problems. Tournaments would generally go a lot quicker, people would be invested in it, the players would do less campy plays, and it's not as slow as Brawl. Seriously, it's either two stocks and four or five minutes, which should be in place, or three stocks and six or seven minutes. Never have an option for two stocks and 6+ minutes. Having less time would make the tournament, at maximum, move a lot faster, and it's fitting for TWO stocks.

So again I ask, why is it even a good idea to have between 6 to 8 minutes for TWO stock SINGLES matches? Who's bright idea was it to do that? I mean, if you really think about it, having that long of a time for two stocks is just not optimal, and it's ridiculous. It might have been a "good" idea in the past, but come on.

TL;DR Version: Two stock matches with time between 6 to 8 minutes is too long, has many faults and needs to be shortened to 4 or 5 which fix the faults.

 

[verbatim]

That makes getting a stock lead and intentionally committing to a time out 3 minutes into a match the optimal strategy for like half of the cast.

 

[SaltyKracka]

Spoiler: What I'm Talking about is This

I'm talking about the fact that the current competitive rules have it to where the Time in two stock, singles matches, is around 6 to 8 minutes long. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a ridiculous amount of time for two stocks? I would understand if we went For Glory with the stocks and time being 2 stocks, 5 minutes. Or hell, not even that as it could be 2 stocks and 4 minutes long.

Look at it this way; six to eight minutes or four to five minutes? Which one would seem better competitively? Would it be the longer amount of time that would allow for stalling? Or the shorter amount of time that would make sure players play more optimally?

If you chose the first choice, where are your brains? Six to eight minutes not only would allow for stalling, but it's like Brawl's rules where it's usually 8 minutes long, only that it's two stocks and not three. Secondly, not only would it allow people to stall, it's also redundant to have that much time when matches can literally last around twenty seconds with two stocks. Thirdly, that's just bad for the tournament because no one wants to watch eight minutes of camping and stalling, and the tournament doesn't move fast at all unless the players can make the matches last around a minute or two.

With shorter time, you don't even have all those problems. Tournaments would generally go a lot quicker, people would be invested in it, the players would do less campy plays, and it's not as slow as Brawl. Seriously, it's either two stocks and four or five minutes, which should be in place, or three stocks and six or seven minutes. Never have an option for two stocks and 6+ minutes. Having less time would make the tournament, at maximum, move a lot faster, and it's fitting for TWO stocks.

So again I ask, why is it even a good idea to have between 6 to 8 minutes for TWO stock SINGLES matches? Who's bright idea was it to do that? I mean, if you really think about it, having that long of a time for two stocks is just not optimal, and it's ridiculous. It might have been a "good" idea in the past, but come on.

TL;DR Version: Two stock matches with time between 6 to 8 minutes is too long, has many faults and needs to be shortened to 4 or 5 which fix the faults.

...Larry, I don't know quite how to explain this to you so that it penetrates your skull.

But I'll try.

Shorter match timers mean that stalling and timing out matches is much more viable, not less.

 

[FeelMeUp]

I had always skipped over Larry's posts because of the negative stigma and Link spamming, but this......definitely takes it. You spent all that time typing up paragraphs on a subject you didn't even present properly dude :/