Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Shady Shaymin]

On the topic of counterplay to Ryu developing, what are some of his currenly-perceived disadvantageous match-ups? I've read and agree that he seems to lose (not terribly) to Sheik, Rosalina, and Yoshi. Anyone else?

I just don't know where to personally place the character atm. Part of me screams top 5 potential, the other clamors low top 10. Some helpful insight would go miles in clearing up my thoughts. Thank you ~

Die-hard yoshi player here, but very skeptical that he beats Ryu. I'll belive it when I see it at top level.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Megaman totally dictates the neutral, has good damage racking multihits, and a solid edgeguarding game based around items, bair, and his mobility which works very well vs Ryu. I think its Ryu's worst MU, but I don't have solid knowledge on Ryu's MUs vs Villager, Shiek, Cloud, and some others im probably forgetting that he doesnt like.


Edit: He can get that utilt confirm off of something that was supposed to be safe on shield-ish but got powershielded, such as an approaching fair. (Yes, you can space fair at the very tip and not get tilted for hitting a powershield, but then you aren't going to fair combo from that fair as well.)

Why are people jumping at Ryu?!?!?!?!

Also Ryu doesn't lose ANY match worse then 6/4 and imo he only has ONE match that is 6/4 his opponents favor and that is Megaman. All his bad matches are winnable. That's not my point. My point is picking ryu gives you no significant advantage over common tourney threats. You are not increasing your odds of winning by playing this character. That is not exactly a description of a top 5 monstrosity.

Smash 4 Ryu is similar to Vanilla SFIV Sagat. A character that does have real flaws, but his insane damage and comeback potential that everyone else simply lacks because they are so weak, makes this character scary. Ryu's burst damage and comeback factor DEMANDS respect and a match with Ryu isn't over until the announcer yells GAME!! Years ago people DEF felt Sagat was number 1 thanks to all his solid tools and damage. Now looking back he was probably 3rd at BEST. With Ryu its even more extreme because he is surrounded by neutral gods and more chars who can basically ignore disadvantage state. Interestingly Seth and Gouki are the two chars most say are stronger then Vanilla Sagat. They also had pretty free disadvantage thanks to invincible teleports that had very little recovery time.

Disadvantage State.

IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT, PLEASE UNDERSTAND!!!!

 

[MushroomKiller]

Trela smashes stubborn people that refuse to run from him.

How the hell does Ryu get an utilt confirm on someone with such mobility and options unless THAT character messes up?

This is a serious question.

Another serious question. How can a character be top tier if they only beat one top tier really and lose to several of the most popular and they are all in the running for top 3 in the game.

This is an obvious answer. That character can not be top tier.

Ryu loses to Sonic, Diddy, Rosalina, Megaman, Yoshi and Cloud.

Those matches pretty much all Ryus agree on. Sheik could be even, but imo he loses.

Losing to Sonic, Diddy, Rosa and Cloud? And Yoshi is SUPER common.

How the hell do you lose to several top tier threats and can still be considered a national threat?

Someone explain the hype to me. I am really waiting.

I won't answer your question or explain the hype to you, but I'll give you lots of hugs and kisses for answering my question ~ *MUACKS! *

Die-hard yoshi player here, but very skeptical that he beats Ryu. I'll belive it when I see it at top level.

I only just picked up Yoshi recently because my two co-mains can't handle Rosalina and Sonic very well, so you probably do know better than I do - but the general opinion seems to be that Yoshi does win the MU, though not a stretch by any means. Something I agree with after watching a few sets of The Wall vs Trela.

Maybe Emblem Lord can shed more light on the MU though.

 

[meticulousboy]

I still feel like if more Ike players can show how simply being heavily reliant on reads pays off consistently, then Ike would move higher up on the list of tiers.

 

[Pazzo.]

I still feel like if more Ike players can show how simply being heavily reliant on reads pays off consistently, then Ike would move higher up on the list of tiers.

Until the opponent pokes without making commitments? Right?

I mean, that's Sheik's game all day.

 

[Mr. Johan]

I think people really underestimate how potent simply SH Bairing with a slight tilt on the control stick is. Ryu's slowly creeping up, but not so much tho that he can't Dtilt or TSRK someone in the jaw if they try to cross past him on the ground.

A Ryu that also takes his time is a goddamn nightmare.

 

[Strong-Arm]

A good Ryu in general is a nightmare itself. But he isnt some undefeatable demon. You can use the anit-this character meta development argument but that goes for everyone in general. Ryu is still seen but his player base is fairly small from what Ive seen (I could be wrong) which does make both his development and anti game development a little slow. If we get no patches from here on out I can totally see and agree with Ryu being number 1.
(Tho there is a rumor of a patch on the 17th so who knows)

 

[ShadowGuy1]

In fact I'd argue Ryu doesn't really lose any top tier matchup terribly going off results. He might be one of the best solo mains in the game.

Sonic? Venom has taken sets off SGK including recently.

Diddy? Go watch Venom vs Zero at GOML. He got 3-0ed but every match was close and he had crucial execution errors. That easily could have been a 3-2. Sometimes upon watching a match it is obvious the character just doesn't have the tools to win at that level, that wasn't the case here.

Fox? Trela has taken multiple sets off Larry recently.

Cloud? Recently at MidWest Mayhem 4, Renegade beat Ned (who usually places really well in the region and has wins over the likes of Ally).

Not sure about Rosa, Mario or ZSS, might be lacking data.

At any rate my point is Ryu players are far from their peak and already putting up a pretty good fight versus the best players and characters in the game. Who knows how good the character will become in a few years.

I think Kels best Venom in losers or GF iirc. Could be thinking about someone else

 

[Emblem Lord]

To be clear I lab **** everyday. Hell I know **** and do **** other Ryus dont and high level Ryus ask me stuff pretty frequently. Ryu will def get better. But there are some key matches that I do not think will improve. Actually I think they will get worse.

And again to clarify when I say Ryu loses a match or any match for any character I am always talking about my understanding of the match right now at this moment. Which is subject to change as the game evolves.

.....

GAME & WATCH BEATS RYU!!! GET MAD DUDES!!!

*runs away and hides.

 

[meticulousboy]

Until the opponent pokes without making commitments? Right?

I mean, that's Sheik's game all day.

Let's think. Sheik has...fast frame data, a recovery move that can be manipulated to avoid the 2 frame punish, lackluster KO power, and combo potential.
Ike has slow frame data, strong KO power, and range from Ragnell.

My point: if you really want more bang for your buck off of a read, opt for Ike.

Picture this. An Ike player knows his opponent will roll away from him as he approaches the opponent. Ike does a Dash Attack, and it's game. Sheik, in the same situation, won't be killing with a Dash Attack.

 

[meleebrawler]

Ryu's dthrow is quite possibly the most mystifying move in the entire game. I can't figure out for the life of me WHY SAKURAI WOULD MAKE A THROW A SHIELD BREAKER?!

Ofc this has almost no merit in a 1v1 format, but pretty hilarious/ridiculous nonetheless. Though it's application in doubles, while extremely situational, could be a great tool on an unsuspecting opponent.

Well, considering Makoto in SFIV has a similar armour-breaking karate chop, not to mention this little Satsui no Hadou-enhanced version of said chop...

 

[Pazzo.]

Let's think. Sheik has...fast frame data, a recovery move that can be manipulated to avoid the 2 frame punish, lackluster KO power, and combo potential.
Ike has slow frame data, strong KO power, and range from Ragnell.

My point: if you really want more bang for your buck off of a read, opt for Ike.

Picture this. An Ike player knows his opponent will roll away from him as he approaches the opponent. Ike does a Dash Attack, and it's game. Sheik, in the same situation, won't be killing with a Dash Attack.

Ike has to play top notch + be in the right position when Sheik makes a mistake.

Optimally, Sheik won't, but that's a bit unreasonable.

However, Ike must play optimally to win based on reads. That's also just a tad unreasonable.

Ike does, truly, get more mileage for reads, but he also has less to rely on once he makes a mistake. That doesn't make Ike a bad character (watch out when he gets that throw/read), but just a more challenging one to reach Sheik's level of coverage.

 

[dakotaisgreat]

If you're able to consistently make reads on your opponent then you'll be able to with with anyone, Ike isn't special in that regard. If "just make hard reads" was a viable strategy or even possible, then characters like Ganondorf and Jigglypuff wouldn't be so bad in this game.

Also **** off smug zelda poster, it's perfectly possible for Zelda to be good keeping her current design. It just isn't going to happen is what I'm saying. If she got better hitboxes, more movement speed, a kill throw, more combos, or whatever else makes a character good in this game then she would be better, all of which are 100% POSSIBLE through patches if whoever was in charge felt like doing that (they wont).

Do you think Jigglypuff has poor design also? Because 64 and melee would like to have a word with you.

 

[meticulousboy]

Between Sheik and Ike, at least one of them has a useful Dair. Not that this is about spikes.

Moving on, Ike can capitalize better off of an air dodge read, too. Sheik's Up Air is multihit, so you know, SDI becomes a worry for the Sheik player. Ike's Up Air is a one hit move that can KO reliably, ESPECIALLY when rage kicks in, even if it's the minimum 35% when it does.
Remember that Ike has Counter, which should be used to punish recoveries. I did this to KO a Fox who used Fire Fox to recover. See? Ike is still the better one at capitalizing, even in the gimping others department.

 

[ARISTOS]

If you're able to consistently make reads on your opponent then you'll be able to with with anyone, Ike isn't special in that regard. If "just make hard reads" was a viable strategy or even possible, then characters like Ganondorf and Jigglypuff wouldn't be so bad in this game.

Also **** off smug zelda poster, it's perfectly possible for Zelda to be good keeping her current design. It just isn't going to happen is what I'm saying. If she got better hitboxes, more movement speed, a kill throw, more combos, or whatever else makes a character good in this game then she would be better, all of which are 100% POSSIBLE through patches if whoever was in charge felt like doing that (they wont).

Do you think Jigglypuff has poor design also? Because 64 and melee would like to have a word with you.

No need to be hostile.

I don't think Zelda is a good design, not just as a bad character but a super flawed structure that leads itself to pretty eh gameplay.

- The nature of her sweetspots being so strong means she has to be finely tuned so she isn't just annihilating people at wtf percents
- Slow in movement, without any useful projectile options

Designing such a character to be good either means totally throwing away what makes Zelda Zelda- or what most fangames do and make her advantage state ridiculous, with moves chaining together into her sweetspot aerials that kill ~70-80%. This usually results in some pretty unfun gameplay.

Her entire concept needs to be retooled

 

[dakotaisgreat]

Not necessarily, even though Ike's up air hits a lot harder and kills earlier then Shiek's, Shiek can punish you with a long ass combo that deals 45% to you and drags you off stage where she can easily gimp you. Sure that isn't possible in *every* scenario, but it's still possible for a good amount of them. That's one thing holding heavies without combos back in this game, it doesnt matter if Dedede can punish you with an attack that does 20% when Mario can punish you with a 50% combo.

Saying all that, the hypothetical you're talking about still doesn't matter for the reason I said before. If you're able to consistently read your opponent you will win with anyone. Furthermore, you have to take endlag and lingering hitboxes into account. If you make a mistake or get read as Shiek the punish window will be significantly smaller then if you read and avoid an attack from Charizard.

Also ARISTOS I wasn't being hostile towards you.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Trela smashes stubborn people that refuse to run from him.

How the hell does Ryu get an utilt confirm on someone with such mobility and options unless THAT character messes up?

This is a serious question.

Another serious question. How can a character be top tier if they only beat one top tier really and lose to several of the most popular and they are all in the running for top 3 in the game.

This is an obvious answer. That character can not be top tier.

Ryu loses to Sonic, Diddy, Rosalina, Megaman, Yoshi and Cloud.

Those matches pretty much all Ryus agree on. Sheik could be even, but imo he loses.

Losing to Sonic, Diddy, Rosa and Cloud? And Yoshi is SUPER common.

How the hell do you lose to several top tier threats and can still be considered a national threat?

Someone explain the hype to me. I am really waiting.

In a perfect world Sheik would never fall into utilt. At a human level a Sheik is going to:

- Misplace aerials
- Dash attack/Dash grab
- Panic roll
- Ledge Jump
- Misplace an ftilt
- Have a Smash attack blocked (unsuccessful read).

Just to name a few examples where uptilt is going to work and that's just off my limited understanding of the meta. Even top level Sheiks occasionally make these mistakes.

I agree that beating lame Sheik (or campy players in general) is harder for Ryu but consider how risky that is as well for Sheik. If she just chills back and only tries to do needles and perfectly spaced fairs and nothing else, she's not going to secure a kill and Ryu will live to percents when rage starts becoming a huge issue.

And Ryu can potentially kill Sheik very early as it is, add even a bit of rage on top of that and Sheik dying at 50 or lower off a Ryu kill confirm is not rare. And Sheik will eventually have to be a bit more aggro to secure the kill giving Ryu more opportunities to kill confirm.

 

[Radical Larry]

No need to be hostile.

I don't think Zelda is a good design, not just as a bad character but a super flawed structure that leads itself to pretty eh gameplay.

- The nature of her sweetspots being so strong means she has to be finely tuned so she isn't just annihilating people at wtf percents
- Slow in movement, without any useful projectile options

Designing such a character to be good either means totally throwing away what makes Zelda Zelda- or what most fangames do and make her advantage state ridiculous, with moves chaining together into her sweetspot aerials that kill ~70-80%. This usually results in some pretty unfun gameplay.

Her entire concept needs to be retooled

No, it's not that her concept needs to be retooled, it's the fact that you guys don't know how to play Zelda, and in fact, no one really does considering people throw her under the bus because of their belief that she's bad in concept. The fact of the matter is that people just aren't used to her type of character whatsoever. People complain about her lack of a reliable projectile, her mobility and the sweetspots on her moves, but people ignore quite literally everything else about her.

I can tell you guys straight up that she has decent projectiles, but they're unconventional projectiles, much like Izaw showed in his Art of Zelda video. They're not meant to be used on stage most of the time, but Phantom Slash could be used for the 2-Frame Punish, and it's a pretty good kill move and a good move to keep opponents away from Zelda if uncharged. Then you have Din's Fire, which is not meant for on-stage play, and seems to be only for killing opponents with its epicenter.

But then her mobility, which people automatically call a problem. Okay, she has bottom 10 running speed, but her aerial speed is in the top half of the cast. That means her general mobility between those two things is above bottom 20, probably.

And then you focus on the sweetspots of Zelda's moves. Okay, if you think about it, it's reasonable to have Zelda have such attacks considering that they aren't her only kill moves, and considering that she has many moves that link into them. If you knew how to play Zelda, you'd disregard her "bad design" and do something with her! Her aerial mobility is there, her swift attacks are there, her other kill moves are there, her combos are even there, so don't just focus on the moves that you call "bad in design" and focus on literally everything else, especially the things that set up to those sweet-spotted attacks or projectile attacks.

I mean seriously, time and time again that Zelda's brought up, it's almost always followed by "her bad concept". No one should have the right to say a character has a bad concept if all the characters could be considered bad in concept for being too broken or too underwhelming, or just middle of the cast.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Get ryu off the stage and close the stock. Ryu has to take risks. Far more then Sheik. He is rewarded for his risk taking, but remember that Ryu will also make mistakes.

Ask yourself this.

Who controls neutral in Ryu vs Sheik?

Generally that answer will always tell you who wins the match in ANY match-up.

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

@Das Koopa If you want to see nicko beating or going toe to toe with Prd members higher than him, check out FAD games weeklys on thursday nights where he frequently beats and has close matches with people like zenyou, k9, and rich brown. The weekly is too small to be considered a C1, but Nicko still beats people who are higher than him on the PR. Honestly, most shulks im seeing lately barely make it outside top 16 at a tournament ( Truesapphire getting 17th at lvl up expo, and Nicko getting 17th at 2gg mexico saga).

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Get ryu off the stage and close the stock. Ryu has to take risks. Far more then Sheik. He is rewarded for his risk taking, but remember that Ryu will also make mistakes.

Ask yourself this.

Who controls neutral in Ryu vs Sheik?

Generally that answer will always tell you who wins the match in ANY match-up.

By that logic Sheik dominates just about every matchup outside of maybe Diddy.

But clearly post patch, Sheik hasn't exactly been dominating tournaments. So either all Sheik players suck or winning neutral isn't everything.

Even if Ryu only wins neutral 30 percent of the time, the match is probably even at that point or in his favour. He just needs a lot less than Sheik to close out a stock.

Sure Sheik can edge guard Ryu hard but Ryu unlike other heavy hitters has decent mixup potential with his recovery between focus attack dashes, different length tatsus and unreactable different height Shoryukens. If his recovery was as linear as DK, Ganon or Falcon, I'd agree with you.

 

[ARGHETH]

Between Sheik and Ike, at least one of them has a useful Dair. Not that this is about spikes.

Moving on, Ike can capitalize better off of an air dodge read, too. Sheik's Up Air is multihit, so you know, SDI becomes a worry for the Sheik player. Ike's Up Air is a one hit move that can KO reliably, ESPECIALLY when rage kicks in, even if it's the minimum 35% when it does.
Remember that Ike has Counter, which should be used to punish recoveries. I did this to KO a Fox who used Fire Fox to recover. See? Ike is still the better one at capitalizing, even in the gimping others department.

So we're comparing two completely different characters again? Great.
This conversation is especially weird considering it's apparently asking if read-heavy characters are better than characters with better frame data.
And uhh....Counter shouldn't be that much of an argument for good edgeguarding lol. Fair, Bair, and Dair all outdamage anything below 11% (Fire Fox's weak hit does 8%) that gets Countered. Sheik's edgeguarding is safer anyways.

By that logic Sheik dominates just about every matchup outside of maybe Diddy.

But clearly post patch, Sheik hasn't exactly been dominating tournaments. So either all Sheik players suck or winning neutral isn't everything.

Wins MU =/= dominates MU =/= dominates tournaments

 

[sedrf]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Is smash inherintley imbalanced

 

[PK Gaming]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Is smash inherintley imbalanced

That seems like an incredibly myopic viewpoint. He's just grasping at straws.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Is smash inherintley imbalanced

Smash can be played a number of ways, not all ways are balanced. But the way competitive players choose to play it is fairly balanced. Granted with the addition of Smash 4 you have rage and random missed techs and Brawl had tripping. These mechanics serve to imbalance the game and go against fair play but the core gameplay of Smash is fairly balanced.

Even Tekken and MK have party modes, doesn't mean they can't be competitive games as well.

 

[Radical Larry]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Is smash inherintley imbalanced

Sometimes yes, and sometimes for the most unorthodox reasons.

Smash can be played a number of ways, not all ways are balanced. But the way competitive players choose to play it is fairly balanced. Granted with the addition of Smash 4 you have rage and random missed techs and Brawl had tripping. These mechanics serve to imbalance the game and go against fair play but the core gameplay of Smash is fairly balanced.

Even Tekken and MK have party modes, doesn't mean they can't be competitive games as well.

But these things don't specifically make things unbalanced. Rage is meant to aid various characters who don't do well with it otherwise, and the "random missed techs" thing isn't at all bad considering it's easily avoided.

However, people do not mention the current stage list as a problem because they believe it's not a problem, even though it's fact that some of the stages outright give characters advantages and some disadvantages for others, like Lylat, where characters who let go of the ledge and jump up can't input an attack at risk of missing the ledge or going under, all because the stage shifts. Or Duck Hunt, which technically has the lowest vertical blast zone due to the tree, and you can kill at around 20% to 30% with some characters.

But the ways Smash Bros. is currently played can also be seen as unbalanced. There are people whom prefer Customs, there are people whom prefer Time Only, Coin, Stamina and various other ways of playing the games. And really, those ways of playing the game aren't bad, but due to people not giving time to them, they're horribly misunderstood and mistaken for things that the competitive scene can't utilize, when really, you can play these all competitively, it's just that you have to give time to them.

So is Smash unbalanced? Probably yes or no, depending on who you ask.

 

[Ulevo]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Is smash inherintley imbalanced

Who is this exactly?

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Oh and I guess Smash also has dumb RNG stuff like GnW's 9 hammer and Peach's bombs.

I definitely wish it didn't have these or at least had the option to turn them off.

 

[Solfiner]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Is smash inherintley imbalanced

I dont even get what he's talking about in this tweet. Items? Stage bans?

Smash can be played in a multitude of ways, why does that mean that the competitive way is wrong?

 

[Radical Larry]

I dont even get what he's talking about in this tweet. Items? Stage bans?

Smash can be played in a multitude of ways, why does that mean that the competitive way is wrong?

It's not wrong, but it's not right as well. First off, don't ever call it THE competitive way, because it's just A competitive way that is so far the only competitive way due to the fact that people aren't capitalizing competitive aspects of having items, customs, equipment, coin, time, etc. I think if one capitalizes on those, we'd have significantly more competitive aspects of the game that we can utilize in various tournaments, and that increases tournament count, too.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Why the **** do you people give a flying **** about what someone outside of your community thinks about the game you love?

Stop being so disgustingly weak.

 

[Nobie]

1) Re: Zelda talk

Zelda does have a kill throw, her back throw. It's maybe not the best in the game, but it's roughly as strong as Mario's.

2) Chris G stuff

While his point is flawed, I want you to think about how the Smash community can come across from the outside, especially to the FGC.

We see stages with walls, and we freak out over how they can be abused. Meanwhile games like Virtua Fighter and Tekken also have walls that can lead to big combos, but they keep 'em in.

Other games have super powerful characters, and when they dominate a meta, the players will either switch to that character, reject them out of some other desire, or just straight up abandon the game as being too imbalanced to be enjoyable. The breaking point is very different for different players, but in Smash's history we've seen a lot more modification of the game to fall in line with our desires.

For whatever reason, Smash players are really loyal to their game, which can be both good and bad. We'll willingly stick with a game even if it isn't to our satisfaction, and pound it into a mold that is. We'll purposely play "aggressively" because "defensive play is lame." Chris G is FAMOUS for being lame, and for people saying his style ruins Marvel vs. Capcom 3, but he's still afforded a great deal of respect by players and commentators, and guys like Hungrybox are only now getting something similar.

I remember someone in this forum saying a long time ago that it's possible for items to be competitive, but the community itself would never accept it so there's no point in trying. I think that says a lot. I think it says even more that we quickly ban stages as being inherently uncompetitive because of past games with different physics without testing them out on a big stage first, all because it should cater to our idea of what fairness and compeitiveness mean. For example, Gamer is a stage that's banned because "oh no stage hazard, oh no it might kill," when the hazard is reactable and avoidable, and doesn't kill until relatively high percents. A different community would try to make it work, but we don't.

That's not to say Smash is the only community that does this. The Starcraft Brood War and Starcraft 2 competitive scenes revolve around the production of new maps that help to balance the game by mitigating the extreme strengths of individual races. If those games were still played on their default maps from release, they would be inherently broken, but customization and selectiveness helped them out.

 

[BJN39]

Also **** off smug zelda poster, it's perfectly possible for Zelda to be good keeping her current design. It just isn't going to happen is what I'm saying.

I'm not sure why you felt the need to tell me to **** off when it looks like from this post we're actually on the same page.

Yeah, you can sweeping buff Zelda in her current design and she could be viable, and...yeah. It isn't going to happen by the hand of patches.

I think we're good

No, it's not that her concept needs to be retooled, it's the fact that you guys don't know how to play Zelda, and in fact, no one really does considering people throw her under the bus because of their belief that she's bad in concept. The fact of the matter is that people just aren't used to her type of character whatsoever. People complain about her lack of a reliable projectile, her mobility and the sweetspots on her moves, but people ignore quite literally everything else about her.

I can tell you guys straight up that she has decent projectiles, but they're unconventional projectiles, much like Izaw showed in his Art of Zelda video. They're not meant to be used on stage most of the time, but Phantom Slash could be used for the 2-Frame Punish, and it's a pretty good kill move and a good move to keep opponents away from Zelda if uncharged. Then you have Din's Fire, which is not meant for on-stage play, and seems to be only for killing opponents with its epicenter.

But then her mobility, which people automatically call a problem. Okay, she has bottom 10 running speed, but her aerial speed is in the top half of the cast. That means her general mobility between those two things is above bottom 20, probably.

And then you focus on the sweetspots of Zelda's moves. Okay, if you think about it, it's reasonable to have Zelda have such attacks considering that they aren't her only kill moves, and considering that she has many moves that link into them. If you knew how to play Zelda, you'd disregard her "bad design" and do something with her! Her aerial mobility is there, her swift attacks are there, her other kill moves are there, her combos are even there, so don't just focus on the moves that you call "bad in design" and focus on literally everything else, especially the things that set up to those sweet-spotted attacks or projectile attacks.

I mean seriously, time and time again that Zelda's brought up, it's almost always followed by "her bad concept". No one should have the right to say a character has a bad concept if all the characters could be considered bad in concept for being too broken or too underwhelming, or just middle of the cast.

I said it elsewhere and I'll say it here. Izaw's Art of Zelda was nice, but it misadvertised Din's and Phantom to make them look far more impressive than they really are. Also, every single cut is followed by a DBZ combo that is going to be hilariously hard to land outside of training.

All of her mobility stats are bad with 1 aerial stat being alright. I'll even say it's decent. It is far from redeeming her whole mobility kit though. And she gets danced around by a bunch of characters.

I'm not really sure why you're suggesting we don't know how to play her and citing a video whose author had to stop by the Zelda boards to get every piece of info there was on specials in his vid because he didn't know anything about her either. We told him plenty of the "cool" things they do (and also mentioned their downsides, which are mysteriously absent from the comprehensive 30 minute presentation)

I'm knee-deep in ha data all the time. I've compared mounds of her things to a lot of other characters' strictly better moves. Citing the Art of Zelda alone doesn't hold as credible argument knowledge, and Din's and Phantom have near to no utility, even when used in the correct situations. (Other options are better at the ledge than spending 100 frames to aim a fireball with smaller hitboxes than Bayonett's FAir1) You aren't arguing with just the next crazy CCI user, you're arguing with the crazy Ffamran-of-Zelda, Zelda main tyvm. If I throw her under the bus it's with the full knowledge that Zelda's data is true basement-tier work, even after the patches.





In other news, Bayo's Ftilt1 connecting into grab is actually really strict o_o the target has to be grounded and hit by the inside hitbox.

Also her Ftilt has a hitbox that is literally 100% useless lol. It's completely eclipsed by another hitbox with identical size/coordinates that also has the same ground/air target modifier.

 

[sedrf]

Maybe there is bad blood between fanbases and we shouldn't step on any other toes

 

[Radical Larry]

1) Re: Zelda talk

Zelda does have a kill throw, her back throw. It's maybe not the best in the game, but it's roughly as strong as Mario's.

2) Chris G stuff

While his point is flawed, I want you to think about how the Smash community can come across from the outside, especially to the FGC.

We see stages with walls, and we freak out over how they can be abused. Meanwhile games like Virtua Fighter and Tekken also have walls that can lead to big combos, but they keep 'em in.

Other games have super powerful characters, and when they dominate a meta, the players will either switch to that character, reject them out of some other desire, or just straight up abandon the game as being too imbalanced to be enjoyable. The breaking point is very different for different players, but in Smash's history we've seen a lot more modification of the game to fall in line with our desires.

For whatever reason, Smash players are really loyal to their game, which can be both good and bad. We'll willingly stick with a game even if it isn't to our satisfaction, and pound it into a mold that is. We'll purposely play "aggressively" because "defensive play is lame." Chris G is FAMOUS for being lame, and for people saying his style ruins Marvel vs. Capcom 3, but he's still afforded a great deal of respect by players and commentators, and guys like Hungrybox are only now getting something similar.

I remember someone in this forum saying a long time ago that it's possible for items to be competitive, but the community itself would never accept it so there's no point in trying. I think that says a lot. I think it says even more that we quickly ban stages as being inherently uncompetitive because of past games with different physics without testing them out on a big stage first, all because it should cater to our idea of what fairness and compeitiveness mean. For example, Gamer is a stage that's banned because "oh no stage hazard, oh no it might kill," when the hazard is reactable and avoidable, and doesn't kill until relatively high percents. A different community would try to make it work, but we don't.

That's not to say Smash is the only community that does this. The Starcraft Brood War and Starcraft 2 competitive scenes revolve around the production of new maps that help to balance the game by mitigating the extreme strengths of individual races. If those games were still played on their default maps from release, they would be inherently broken, but customization and selectiveness helped them out.

Oh, let me hit a double standard real quick:

Arena Ferox for 3DS games, tournament counterpick despite having caves of life and disruptive transformations.
Gamer for Wii U games, tournament banned despite sometimes having no caves of life and having a predictable hazard.
Town and City for Wii U games, tournament legal despite having platforms that can and will kill you if you don't jump or run.
Duck Hunt for Wii U games, tournament counterpick despite having a ceiling very low relative to highest platform.
Mario Circuit 8 for Wii U games, tournament banned for predictable hazards, cave of life that is extremely high up and only a few walk-offs.
Delfino Plaza for Wii U games, tournament banned for walk-offs and semi-low ceiling.

Our standards for what is banned and not is a problem.

Spoiler: On My End

Look, I'm going to highlight this in the penultimate competitive thread outlining the possible treatise and solution to everything there is competitive and outline some possible issues.

 

[Nu~]

1) Re: Zelda talk

Zelda does have a kill throw, her back throw. It's maybe not the best in the game, but it's roughly as strong as Mario's.

2) Chris G stuff

While his point is flawed, I want you to think about how the Smash community can come across from the outside, especially to the FGC.

We see stages with walls, and we freak out over how they can be abused. Meanwhile games like Virtua Fighter and Tekken also have walls that can lead to big combos, but they keep 'em in.

Other games have super powerful characters, and when they dominate a meta, the players will either switch to that character, reject them out of some other desire, or just straight up abandon the game as being too imbalanced to be enjoyable. The breaking point is very different for different players, but in Smash's history we've seen a lot more modification of the game to fall in line with our desires.

For whatever reason, Smash players are really loyal to their game, which can be both good and bad. We'll willingly stick with a game even if it isn't to our satisfaction, and pound it into a mold that is. We'll purposely play "aggressively" because "defensive play is lame." Chris G is FAMOUS for being lame, and for people saying his style ruins Marvel vs. Capcom 3, but he's still afforded a great deal of respect by players and commentators, and guys like Hungrybox are only now getting something similar.

I remember someone in this forum saying a long time ago that it's possible for items to be competitive, but the community itself would never accept it so there's no point in trying. I think that says a lot. I think it says even more that we quickly ban stages as being inherently uncompetitive because of past games with different physics without testing them out on a big stage first, all because it should cater to our idea of what fairness and compeitiveness mean. For example, Gamer is a stage that's banned because "oh no stage hazard, oh no it might kill," when the hazard is reactable and avoidable, and doesn't kill until relatively high percents. A different community would try to make it work, but we don't.

That's not to say Smash is the only community that does this. The Starcraft Brood War and Starcraft 2 competitive scenes revolve around the production of new maps that help to balance the game by mitigating the extreme strengths of individual races. If those games were still played on their default maps from release, they would be inherently broken, but customization and selectiveness helped them out.

Yeesh, if I could like this post thrice I would do it.

The smash community over time has developed a fear of change. The community banned customs after one tournament (which went well and showed the diversity that customs could add...but whatever), they limited themselves to 6 stages, they ban mii customs because "no one else has that option" (What a terrible argument), they fear a transition to 3 stocks because they assume that ABSOLUTE worst...

It deeply, deeply upsets me...


My theory is this:
The smash community has been through so much to finally become an esport, that any "radical" change is cast out due to a fear of being once again, unsupported.

 

[Luco]

Oh and I guess Smash also has dumb RNG stuff like GnW's 9 hammer and Peach's bombs.

I definitely wish it didn't have these or at least had the option to turn them off.

Randomness in e-sports isn't inherently a bad thing IF you can manage it in certain ways, that myth probably needs to die.

This computer is bad but check Extra Credits' video on it if you want to learn why.

 

[sedrf]

Also anything that makes the game more 'janky' or longer might get ire from other people at smash game taking too long.

Like for example some guys I talk to show their discontent of ceo smash 4's top 8 taking too long. One guy suggested that they make the top 8 bo3. Imagine if they made customs or increase the stage list.

Really the problem is less more on change but the top players in our community and other fgc games dislike it. In Reality smash is a squalor in another home and in somebody's house you obey their rules.

If Wizard says customs at evo we do it.
Customs/Saturday finals
Alright

You either accept it and be grateful or get told to **** off and without the lashing by other people.

This also doesn't help on how confrontational you guys are.

TLDR: Life isn't fair.

also extra credits is overrated and only one of the guys there knows about vidya design.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Most of those things have logical reasons for being banned though. It has little to do with preference or fear of change.

We don't play timed only because then the optimal strategy would become to get a kill or 2 and then run away the entire match making matches anti-climactic and extremely one dimensional. Most matches would be over long before the timer ran out as it would become impossible after a certain point to get enough kills in time.

Smash 4 unfortunately didn't introduce any new stages outside of Duck Hunt that could be viable in competitive play without things like massive RNG effecting matches or once again the ability to time out opponents becoming too easy.

Some customs are clearly nonsense and it would become too difficult to standardize legal ones.

3 stock matches while being better for competitive play would take too long making running big tournaments a logistical nightmare. You think tournaments like CEO would stream Smash 4 if it were 3 stocks? When Smash 4 already goes overtime on 2 stocks? It'd be Brawl all over again. Sonic alone is enough proof of this as he's already prone to timing out people on 2 stocks even and some argue it's an optimal strategy in some or even all matchups. Now imagine that for 8 minutes.

 

[ARGHETH]

Oh, let me hit a double standard real quick:

Gamer for Wii U games, tournament banned despite sometimes having no caves of life and having a predictable hazard.
Town and City for Wii U games, tournament legal despite having platforms that can and will kill you if you don't jump or run.
Duck Hunt for Wii U games, tournament counterpick despite having a ceiling very low relative to highest platform.
Mario Circuit 8 for Wii U games, tournament banned for predictable hazards, cave of life that is extremely high up and only a few walk-offs.
Delfino Plaza for Wii U games, tournament banned for walk-offs and semi-low ceiling.

I'm not seeing the problem here. Stages with hazards/walk-offs are banned, stages without aren't.