Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Minordeth]

Lancer, dude, I like a lot of the content you post, but you get a massive case of myopia when you go down the rabbit hole of your pet topics. It gets pretty Radical, if you will.

I mean, really. Watch False play Marth. Literally all his buttons are used at some point. Dancing Blade, Dtilt, even Dsmash. Same with Pugwest and Mr. E. I mean, it's not even difficult to pull out their individual styles. Marth is a solid, varied character that can be spiced up in a variety of ways. This whole "Marth is boring" or whatever trip you are on is bizarre.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Marth's boring.

Falco's the most honest character btw.

 

[Deleted member 269706]

There's nothing honest about tippers. Like, seriously, what game are you playing?

I'm not saying Marth is OP. He's dumb to fight for reasons similar to prepatch Bayo and Luigi, but he's just not OP. He's very linear and one-dimensional. If Marth had his current design and was good enough to be a top 15 character people would be complaining all ****ing day about him. Honestly he only gets a pass because he sucked for most of the game's lifespan... All the sympathy can turn to hate overnight as we've learned with Mewtwo.

Also Pit's the most honest character. Just sayin'.

So being rewarded for good spacing isn't honest? Well you can make that argument I suppose but I'd hardly call it dishonest.

Either way, I still disagree with your following statement. Honestly I can't even comprehend your argument here. How can you compare Marth to someone like ppLuigi or ppBayo? Luigi could kill you off of like 3 grabs, Bayonetta only needed like 4 openings in neutral (often times less) and your stock was gone. Marth is nothing like that. No projectiles, meh frame data at best, meh mobility at best, poor grab game, a significant lack of combos...Seriously, what basis do you have for making this argument? You're going off of an "if he was top 15". In what world is that a reason to hate a character?

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

Yeah, so? Marth's design in Smash 4 is just completely dumb and unsatisfying for both players involved. Do you really look at Marth and think he's a good design for a competitive fighting game?

Didn't say Melee Marth was better designed. Didn't say anybody in Melee was better designed... Melee is just more consistent, and a big reason is the poor balance.

SSB4 Marth is largely just spacing the same few moves until you win. That's it. You don't have significantly more or less safe moves to use, no calculation beyond wether or not you can reach, nothing hype or amazing past an Fsmash read... He does the same few things from beginning to end.

No, he's not poorly balanced. Is he fun or interesting beyond the novelty of killing off of a spaced tilt? Not really.

What are these few moves you speak of? Because to me spacing with Jab, all 3 tilts, dancing blade, fair, nair, bair, and occasionally dair doesn't seem like a few moves, that seems like most of his kit to me. I'd have to disagree with fighting with or against Marth being fun. I certainly enjoy using Marth, and I also enjoy fighting Marth. And is being rewarded for spacing well suddenly dishonest? What? Every character needs to properly space moves.

I have a serious question for you: do you ever actually play these characters you go on long tirades against? Corrin is a notable one that comes to mind, and in this case Marth. Do you play them to verify your thoughts, or do you just stick to Pit and assume things?

 

[ARISTOS]

Marth is not dishonest, please stop this awful conversation.

I think there's an honest argument for >. In this case, would the best dual character combo be ?

 

[LancerStaff]

Lancer, dude, I like a lot of the content you post, but you get a massive case of myopia when you go down the rabbit hole of your pet topics. It gets pretty Radical, if you will.

I mean, really. Watch False play Marth. Literally all his buttons are used at some point. Dancing Blade, Dtilt, even Dsmash. Same with Pugwest and Mr. E. I mean, it's not even difficult to pull out their individual styles. Marth is a solid, varied character that can be spiced up in a variety of ways. This whole "Marth is boring" or whatever trip you are on is bizarre.

*deep breath*

Okay. It's not that Marth doesn't use everything he has, it's that it's all practically the same thing. Fair, Ftilt, Jab, Dtilt, and the rest generally all fill the same purpose with slight differences. Hits hard, difficult to challenge directly, usually kills, safe when spaced and punishable on whiff. The entire match is dealing with what's practically the same thing over and over, and yet it's built in a way that, yes, you're going to get hit at some point and die because of it.

Compared to Pit you guys really expect a different example come on you really don't do anything different at any point just short of an impending LCS to the face. Pit has a variety of different tools that fill completely different roles with little overlap, and even then many of them can be used in multiple ways. His dash attack can either be used in conjunction with his dash grab for a mixup from a dash, can be fairly safe with a cross-up or used as a solid challenging/punish tool for example. There's almost no overlap at all besides as a punish from a dash but it's a good deal safer then dash grab.

So being rewarded for good spacing isn't honest? Well you can make that argument I suppose but I'd hardly call it dishonest.

Either way, I still disagree with your following statement. Honestly I can't even comprehend your argument here. How can you compare Marth to someone like ppLuigi or ppBayo? Luigi could kill you off of like 3 grabs, Bayonetta only needed like 4 openings in neutral (often times less) and your stock was gone. Marth is nothing like that. No projectiles, meh frame data at best, meh mobility at best, poor grab game, a significant lack of combos...Seriously, what basis do you have for making this argument? You're going off of an "if he was top 15". In what world is that a reason to hate a character?

It's *** backwards in Smash, actually. Having that much power at a range via disjoint isn't healthy. Look at PM, where they nerfed Ike and buffed Pit by giving them Roy hitboxes. Really they all should be Roy hitboxes, though not as extreme as the actual Roy is.

Either buffing Marth up or nerfing everybody else down would leave you with a character that could do a lot of things for free, comparatively. He'd quickly become the new Cloud. It's just not a good design.

I have a serious question for you: do you ever actually play these characters you go on long tirades against? Corrin is a notable one that comes to mind, and in this case Marth. Do you play them to verify your thoughts, or do you just stick to Pit and assume things?

Yes, of course. I play and test everything.

It's not some sin that I think Marth is ****, guys.

 

[BunbUn129]

It's *** backwards in Smash, actually. Having that much power at a range via disjoint isn't healthy. Look at PM, where they nerfed Ike and buffed Pit by giving them Roy hitboxes. Really they all should be Roy hitboxes, though not as extreme as the actual Roy is.

Either buffing Marth up or nerfing everybody else down would leave you with a character that could do a lot of things for free, comparatively. He'd quickly become the new Cloud. It's just not a good design.



Yes, of course. I play and test everything.

It's not some sin that I think Marth is ****, guys.

Marth has that power at range because he needs to be rewarded for proper spacing. It's funny because a common complaint of Marth pre-buff was that he wasn't rewarded for playing his game. Gasp are you upset that Marth actually gets properly rewarded for executing his gameplan? For the matter, why don't we complain about Ike because he also has long disjoint with equal power on his most important moves (fair, bair, up air), moves that are also safe when spaced and difficult to contest?

Who tf cares if nerfing everyone above Marth or buffing him himself would make him problematic? Why are we worrying about some imaginary scenario that most probably won't become a reality?

Edit: actually I think we might be getting b8ed.

 

[Fatmanonice]

So, either Zero's Diddy is as stale as a sack of croutons in the Sahara or the character isn't as good as we thought it was. Kind of seems weird that Zero's confidence in his Sheik has tanked but his Diddy has been slapped around for nearly two months, including getting dunked on by a Palutena. If we were to go into tinfoil hat mode, people could make the argument that Zero's blowing tournaments with Diddy to make people forget how to play against his Sheik for EVO but what are the odds of that being remotely true?

 

[BunbUn129]

So, either Zero's Diddy is as stale as a sack of croutons in the Sahara or the character isn't as good as we thought it was. Kind of seems weird that Zero's confidence in his Sheik has tanked but his Diddy has been slapped around for nearly two months, including getting dunked on by a Palutena. If we were to go into tinfoil hat mode, people could make the argument that Zero's blowing tournaments with Diddy to make people forget how to play against his Sheik for EVO but what are the odds of that being remotely true?

It's all scripted I tell ya.

 

[Deathcarter]

Marth's boring.

Falco's the most honest character btw.

If by honest you mean just straight up mediocre then I'd agree.

 

[UberMadman]

So, either Zero's Diddy is as stale as a sack of croutons in the Sahara or the character isn't as good as we thought it was.

Well seeing as Zinoto is sitting comfortably in Winner's side top 8 right now with solo Diddy and that the man that eliminated ZeRo was sent to losers by Zinoto to begin with, I'm going to make a call here and say that it's on ZeRo more than Diddy.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Zero's Diddy is as stale as a sack of croutons in the Sahara

his Diddy has been slapped around for nearly two months

getting dunked on

Zero's blowing tournaments

You should probably stop posting, bro.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Which is why I'm confused as to why Zero still has so much confidence in his Diddy and until recently proclaimed himself to be "the best Diddy in the world." I'm still predicting the full on Cloud switch and I'll bet he's been putting it off because he knows that virtually everyone will judge the hell out of him if/when he does.

@~Gheb~ Am I wrong though? His Diddy has been shut out several times in the past two months.

 

[UberMadman]

I mean, his Diddy still could be the best in the world. Zinoto is his only competition right now really, and though he is performing better right now, it remains to be seen if ZeRo just have a problem vs. Larry and Ally or if his Diddy really is worse overall. I'm not counting ZeRo out just yet.

His Sheik, however, has clearly dipped in my eyes. Mr. R is almost inarguably the best Sheik in the world at the moment, followed by VoiD.

 

[NotLiquid]

I'm not sure what going Cloud would actually do to him considering his status as #1 by lack of contention in the past has been attributed to his mentality more than anything else, which is clearly being ousted by the severe underestimation on everyone's part for how much players have been improving and developing the meta without him. It's not as if he's the only Diddy reaping top results here. ZeRo's own response in service of his current mentality is making the actual situation look far worse than it really is.

 

[Fatmanonice]

The guy won 60+ tournaments in a row and has lost 5 since the end of May. There's clearly a difference in performance, especially since a lot of the sets lost have been shut outs and how simply taking a set from Zero used to be seen as a far flung miracle. Remember the days when top players regularly talked about dropping their characters because Zero ran them around so hard by the nose? These observations are hardly hyperbole.

Add in: Also, yes, patches have happened but it's easy to argue that Diddy has been one of the high tiers that has benefitted the most from the ceiling being lowered three times since February. Again, we're talking about someone who is still one of the best players in the world and an EVO champion but has a very obvious dip in performance recently. "But FMOI, it's only second place and 9th for this tournament." Sure, but we're talking about a player who lost literally ONE tournament between November 2014 and February 2016.

 

[NotLiquid]

Hm.

Feel like posing a question to you all. With the exception of Cloud, who would you like to see nerf and why? If you don't want to see any nerfs towards any character, please explain why.

The colloquial top tier, for the most of the part, are all about as good as they need to be. The problem isn't that any of them are too good but that a lot of characters below them just aren't good enough; even if asking the question of "who should get buffed" is a lot more of an extraneous and more boring question to answer because half the time we don't expect certain players to bring characters like Toon Link all the way to the finals.

 

[HeavyLobster]

The guy won 60+ tournaments in a row and has lost 5 since the end of May. There's clearly a difference in performance, especially since a lot of the sets lost have been shut outs and how simply taking a set from Zero used to be seen as a far flung miracle. Remember the days when top players regularly talked about dropping their characters because Zero ran them around so hard by the nose? These observations are hardly hyperbole.

Add in: Also, yes, patches have happened but it's easy to argue that Diddy has been one of the high tiers that has benefitted the most from the ceiling being lowered three times since February. Again, we're talking about someone who is still one of the best players in the world and an EVO champion but has a very obvious dip in performance recently. "But FMOI, it's only second place and 9th for this tournament." Sure, but we're talking about a player who lost literally ONE tournament between November 2014 and February 2016.

Being out of the game for 3 months is a big deal. The overall skill level for this game has been increasing quickly as players improve, and people have caught up with him in the meantime.

 

[paperchao]

Eh... ya see... I don't think Cloud is an absolute monster and whatever remaining jank is in this game is primarily isolated moves.

-Cloud's uair
-Cloud's limit cross slash
-Rosa's uair
-Ryu's true Sure You Can (debatable)
-Mario's usmash (debatable)
-Mewtwo's foot stool disable (debatable)

That's pretty much it unless you want to get indignant about things on low high/mid tier characters with blatant counterpicks like Ness's bthrow, DK's Ding Dong, and Marth's tippers or super situational jank like Fox's fast fall fair to footstool, Mario's off the top Super Coin Punch kills, and Megaman/Sonic's Rush Coil/Spring off the top kills. Cloud's limit cross slash is the only thing on this list that I think really ought to change because it's too good for a character like Cloud. It's like a mini Final Smash that kills off stage at like 50%, safe on shield, does 33% (to get an idea of how dumb this is, Ganondorf's reversed Warlock Punch does 37%), and is very difficult to outright punish.

Clouds up air is overhyped, its not the monster that it used to be through the nerfs, it's a pretty good juggle tool, but it will never kill you unless you're at 125+, and as for limit cross slash, didn't someone here point out that you can spot dodge before the final hit and punish?
The only thing that needs a nerf in your list is rosa up air

 

[soniczx123]

Mmm, of course there is. Which you can of course expand on.

Walk up to him. By walking up to him, your forcing him to release early. Walk up shield, taking the Spindash on shield and then punishing his options after that, which is only jump or go through.

 

[SaltyKracka]

Walk up to him. By walking up to him, your forcing him to release early. Walk up shield, taking the Spindash on shield and then punishing his options after that, which is only jump or go through.

Fair enough. I'm of the opinion that said scenario more often than not ends up resetting to neutral anyways due to the very point of contention amongst other things, but you at least have a scenario.

 

[soniczx123]

Fair enough. I'm of the opinion that said scenario more often than not ends up resetting to neutral anyways due to the very point of contention amongst other things, but you at least have a scenario.

Thanks for understanding.

He's also vulnerable for 34 frames between every shield cancel.

Now I hope everyone else will.

 

[williamsga555]

Really I don't want much of anything outright nerfed. There are characters I'd like to see slightly reworked through nerfs+buffs, but no one I'd outright just cut down.

Top of my list is actually Luigi of all people. I'd like him to be made into a more consistent character without relying on fireballs for his neutral so hard. Think he should be a little more flexible, though I'm not entirely certain how I'd go about doing that.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Hm.

Feel like posing a question to you all. With the exception of Cloud, who would you like to see nerf and why? If you don't want to see any nerfs towards any character, please explain why.

Cloud

Uh...Rosalina Luma knockback adjustments, mostly on Jab 3 and uair, I guess. I use her and still think it's silly that I can kill with gentleman.

Really, most of the nerfs I can think of are more or less slaps on the wrist than anything else. The broad strokes of the game are pretty well balanced IMO, it's just a few of the details that stand out now.

 

[TurboLink]

Really I don't want much of anything outright nerfed. There are characters I'd like to see slightly reworked through nerfs+buffs, but no one I'd outright just cut down.

Top of my list is actually Luigi of all people. I'd like him to be made into a more consistent character without relying on fireballs for his neutral so hard. Think he should be a little more flexible, though I'm not entirely certain how I'd go about doing that.

Buffs you say? You asked for it.

Link:

+1.6 - 1.72 dash speed buff.
+1.28 air speed. (Revenge for draining his air speed in Brawl.)
+0.04 air deceleration.
+0.05 air friction.
+0.01 air acceleration.
+4 frame jumpsquat.
+Jab loses two frames of startup going from 7 frames to 5 frames.
+Higher full jump.
+Return the almighty jab cancel.
+Buff Jab 1's FAF from 28 to 25.
+Buff Jab 2's FAF from 21 to 19.
+Buff Jab 3's FAF from 37 to 25.
+Buff forward tilt's FAF from 38 to 30.
+Buff down tilt's FAF from 29 to 25.
+Down tilt's startup 11 frames to 9 frames.
+Forward smash's first hit FAF 52 to 45.
+Forward smash's second hit FAF 68 to 47.
+Forward tilt's startup 15 frames to 10 frames.
+Side special/Gale Boomerang's startup 27 (What a disgusting amount of startup!) frames to 10 - 15.
+Down special/Bomb pull's startup 17 frames to 1 frames.
+Higher full double jump.
+Give side special transcendent priority.
+Take off the sweet/sour spot on grounded spin attack and give it 60 BKB and 86 KBG all throughout the move.

Whew. I'm tired. That's all I have for now. Any opinions?

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

Zinoto vs ANTi in Grand Finals for those who are interested. Definitely been a great tournament.

 

[Ethan7]

Zinoto just beat Dabuz (again). Can we discuss the Rosa VS. Diddy MU?

 

[Quantumpen]

Zinoto is an absolute terror right now. Making Diddy look unbeatable. He's been so dominant the entire tournament in almost every match. As soon as Abadango had to play him in Losers I despaired -_-.

 

[Yikarur]

rip the "Cloud gets no points"-dream

 

[UberMadman]

You guys wanted Cloud to win a major, right? There you go.

 

[Ethan7]

Looks like Cloud will get something out of CEO 2016.

 

[SaltyKracka]

So, ~ Gheb ~ ...about that lack of Cloud in the top CEO brackets...

 

[Ninety]

Yo, is this the first time a DLC wins a major? 5.99 NEVER DIES

 

[Frihetsanka]

So, one of the best Mario mains loses with Mario vs Diddy, so he switches to Cloud and proceeds to win three games in a row, with a good margin. If he had stayed Mario, then it's somewhat likely that he would've lost. What does this say about Cloud?

 

[C0rvus]

That his Diddy matchup is better? Or that changing characters helped Anti approach Zinoto in a new way. Or Zinoto has less Cloud experience than Mario experience. Many things, my friend, and I am not going to say what you're thinking.

 

[wedl!!]

it says that cloud is a top tier?

 

[Zannabluke]

hold the phone, cloud is a really good character? what the

 

[BunbUn129]

inb4 community outcry towards Cloud.

This CCI is gonna have another 10 pages of suggested Cloud nerfs.

Sigh.

 

[Zean]

Yo, is this the first time a DLC wins a major? 5.99 NEVER DIES

Mewtwo

 

[Trifroze]

After reading this topic for the past couple days and facepalming at the usual hasty judgments, in this case about Cloud not being that great, I'm almost enjoying how in the end it's a pocket Cloud that takes the biggest tournament of the year so far when absolutely nothing else works. And if that didn't happen, EVO would likely have proven otherwise.

Will anything be learned from this?

no