Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[MistressRemilia]

I am getting tired of people saying Greninja has poor results. The character has had respectable tourney placements for a while now. He still needs improvement, but BEAST VI wasn't the first good tournament placing, nor was it the only one.

You're overstating what i've said. Greninja doesn't have bad results, he has dissapointing results for his theory, at least on a major scale. I'm not trying to discredit Istudying's great performance at Beast VI, but the Europe didn't haev enough strong competition for me to consider his placement here like something that will solidify Greninja's spot as one of the better high tiers forever, especially when other characters have breakout performances that are arguably more significant than Greninja's. I'd say it's about as significant of a breakout performance as Shuton's 2nd place at Umebura 22. Good, but we need more.
Out of state is where all the dissapointment comes into play: Istudying got 25th at Pound, and 17th at GOML. These are not BAD, but these are dissapointing. I'm in right to expect better from the best player, who seems fairly dedicated & accurate with the character, character that has among the strongest theory out of all non top tiers in the games, to reach higher spots, especially when, for example, at GOML, we've seen Shulk reach 13th with Darkwolf, and Little Mac reach 9th with Alphicans.

This may or may not happen, but the key word is that it hasn't happened on a global scale yet, that's why i'm sceptical.

 

[Murlough]

I am, honestly, loving how difficult it is for us to decide once and for all who the worst character is. Even if we did figure out who that was it would take forever to decide on a definite bottom 3.

It's cool that there is no melee kirby in this game. Every character is good in some way. Every character can be played at a high level. (not necessarily win a national but they can certainly be played.)

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

Mega Man top tier discussion:
Not yet. Mega Man has been dominating Japan, yes, but this is the first time he's really been brought to an international scale. "Oh but Scatt yada yada yada" Scatt's not as good as Kamemushi. Mega Man is good, he's certainly viable (why does that even have to be a point though? So much fixation on the word and how one character is suddenly 'viable' when in reality at least 70% of the cast is viable.), but we need to give it more time. Just as what happened with Mewtwo, we need to give time for counter play to develop, for more consistency world wide. We gave Mewtwo that time and he's still doing amazing, now we know he is definitely top tier without any doubts. There's no doubt that Mega Man is good, but we still need more.

 

[StaffofSmashing]

You JUST said that I was the only Ryu who got top 64 along with Trela and still say that I'm irrelevant? What the...

Didn't say you were irrelevant, but tbh 49th < 9th, and while I could argue Darkshad, eh. sry tho you're better than me :D

Aighty then:

I am, honestly, loving how difficult it is for us to decide once and for all who the worst character is. Even if we did figure out who that was it would take forever to decide on a definite bottom 3.

It's cool that there is no melee kirby in this game. Every character is good in some way. Every character can be played at a high level. (not necessarily win a national but they can certainly be played.)

Jigglypuff and Ganondorf's results say hi. Not every character.

Mega Man is a tournament viable character, most certainly. However, we'll see if Japan / America if Kame travels can adapt to Kamemushi and, by extent, Mega Man. We had that happen with Villager and Mewtwo when they traveled and messed up America, and they're still doing well, with Ranai getting 5th and Abadango doing the same. If Kame uses Evo money to travel to America more often, we'll be able to see if Mega Man is truly a top tier, but right now, I'd say at LEAST a high tier.

 

[Rizen]

Worst character? I'm surprised no one has mentioned yet.

 

[Murlough]

Jigglypuff and Ganondorf's results say hi. Not every character.

I said they can be played and they are. Hungrybox was doing surprisingly well with a character that occording to you can't be played at a high level. Ganon...I can't argue with that but I'm sure there are some ganon mains out there who are decent results wise.

 

[sedrf]

Worst character? I'm surprised no one has mentioned yet.

She wasn't that much of a character since recently

 

[Yoshister]

I've said it a bunch of times:

Jigglypuff having a f1 invincible kill move, which can be done out of the best SHAD in the game, puts a very significant lower bound on how bad she can ever truly be. No matter how bad or risky the other aspects of that move or the rest of her moveset is, or how bad-or-not the other "worst" characters are, that "potential floor" will not change.

It's frame 2, not frame 1. :V

Also, that's one of Jigglypuff's few strengths. Besides Rest, she's undertuned in almost everything.

Worst character? I'm surprised no one has mentioned yet.

I'm pretty confident most people have come to the conclusion that Zelda is not the worst character in the game.

 

[Rizen]

I'm pretty confident most people have come to the conclusion that Zelda is not the worst character in the game.

Who would you say is worse? IMO the bottom 2 are and (IDK about Miis). Even characters like , , , , ... seem at least a little better. :/

 

[Fatmanonice]

Zelda, Ganondorf, Samus, Mii Swordsman, and Jiggs were practically in a five way race to the bottom until March when the first three were finally made into semi functional characters thanks to buffs. Nowadays, I think most people agree that the worst of the worst is either Mii Swordsman or Jiggs. I dunno. Pretty much everything but top tier in this game is an ambiguous mess right now. High, mid, low, and even bottom have characters that can easily be argued to be better or worse than they're currently ranked with high and mid tier having a goofy number of characters that are questionably viable.

 

[ARISTOS]

It's frame 2, not frame 1. :V

Also, that's one of Jigglypuff's few strengths. Besides Rest, she's undertuned in almost everything.

I'm pretty confident most people have come to the conclusion that Zelda is not the worst character in the game.

It is likely because of Rest she is undertuned.

It's too powerful of a move tbh

 

[Deathcarter]

Who knows because the community can't agree what viable means. Does it only mean able to reasonably win major tournaments? Does it mean rank in top 8? 16? 32? Are we talking by region or are we talking globally? Depending on people's definitions, we're looking at lists only 10 characters long or edging on 40 because there really isn't a community standard.

Viability at its essential core essentially means "this character is largely worth my time to stick with as my main". Its a flexible notion that changes heavily depending on context due to various factors like the skill ceiling of a player, regional strength, and overall character usage within various regions.

Nationals/Internationals are the highest benchmark of viability but they can't be considered the only measurement of viability due to A) being a rare, special occurrences compared to the bread and butter of local and regional tourneys and B) Only winnable or even consistently placing in top 8 or 16 by the 0.001% of competitive Smash players. By comparison a high level player who's good enough to place top 32/64 at a national with a mid tier will likely be a dominate force in their local region as long as some other high level player in the same region doesn't use a character that counters their or they don't live in an absolute bloodbath of a region like SoCal/Japan/Tristate. Maybe said mid tier hero doesn't think he would see much more success if he switched to main a top/high tier to make such a switch worth it.

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

It is likely because of Rest she is undertuned.

It's too powerful of a move tbh

Honestly, because of how undertuned the rest (HAH oh damn it) of her kit is I don't think it's powerful enough. We all know it doesn't compensate for anything - it shouldn't have to - and it's not exactly overwhelming for your typical For Glory straggler or even a typical casual player (I remember not even knowing that rest did anything other than put Jiggs to sleep way back in 2002) so it definitely seems like something that if it doesn't get fixed in a potential 1.1.7, if that ever happens, that it might have to become something the community complains about a bunch in order for it to get noticed by the developers.

Add in:

- Poor mobility, kill power, and eats kill confirms for breakfast (Probably the best out of all of these).

Falco definitely doesn't lack kill power. Your point on him being low tier still stands, but his problems are definitely mobility, combo food, and the fact that he lacks a good way to force an approach, cause lasers sure as hell aren't good at it.

 

[Nobie]

It's frame 2, not frame 1. :V

The hitbox activates Frame 2 but the move is invincible on Frame 1.

@Thinkaman was emphasizing the Frame 1 invincibility.

 

[Yoshister]

Who would you say is worse? IMO the bottom 2 are and (IDK about Miis). Even characters like , , , , ... seem at least a little better. :/

Lmao.
, , , and are all significantly better than Jiggs or Zelda. I'd say they're all either low-mid or low tier.

I'd say the following are bottom 6 (Sans Miis).
- Poor mobility, kill power, and eats kill confirms for breakfast (Probably the best out of all of these).
- Poor approach options, poor range, combo food, surprisingly low kill power (Not bad, but not good enough considering how unsafe he is).
- Combo food, poor mobility, very few good moves, very few fast moves, oddly low kill power.

- I feel that this needs no explaination.

- Poor mobility, lacking frame data, poor approach options, lack of disjoints.
-Undertuned on nearly everything besides Rest.

It is likely because of Rest she is undertuned.

It's too powerful of a move tbh

> Rest
> too powerful of a move

Goodness no.
It's incredibly risky, as it's highly punishable on whiff and can be punished on hit if Rest ends up blast KOing.
All for a Frame 2 move that kills Mario in training mode at 65% or so.

Rest is pretty decently balanced imo.

 

[C0rvus]

I can't help but wonder about Jigglypuff. In a 2 stock game, Rest is so incredibly risky, it may not be worth it most of the time. Perhaps she would fare better in a 3 stock environment? Just a thought. And to be quite honest, I have my doubts about Puff being worse than Zelda. She seems more like a complete character than Zelda, despite being pitifully undertuned in many areas. I think there is merit to that.

I also think spending much effort trying to figure out/come to a consensus on who the worst character is may be a pointless and fruitless task.

 

[Rizen]

You didn't answer my question.

I'm pretty confident most people have come to the conclusion that Zelda is not the worst character in the game.

Who would you say is worse?

 

[Yoshister]

You didn't answer my question.

Yes I did. That bottom 6 list was ordered from top to bottom.

 

[Shady Shaymin]

So, what's the plan for the tier list now? EVO's over and we still have a lot of gray area.

Outside of die-hard character optimists, I think we can all agree that top ten looks something like . That much at least seems commonly accepted, although ordering within this tier is still very, very much up for debate. But after that, it's still one big mess aside from the straight up garbage characters like .

I think we should wait more before updating the tiers. I know the current one is so outdated that it almost hurts to look at, but we really don't have enough data to decisively organize everyone into traditional tiers. If we used the ESAM method, that would make a lot more sense right now because something something small tier gaps something something Smash 4 is balanced.

 

[PK Gaming]

I don't think Falco and Roy are bottom 6 material.

I know that someone has to be at the bottom, but those 2 characters in particular seem a cut above the absolute worst of the worst.

 

[Rizen]

IMO 's better than but not by much. Ganon has good reach on his attacks, he's like a stupidly slow and powerful sword character (remember it got buffed). He also can kill in 5 reads onstage and 1 read offstage.

 

[Jexulus]

Who would you say is worse? IMO the bottom 2 are and (IDK about Miis). Even characters like , , , , ... seem at least a little better. :/

The Miis have an entirely unique problem in that the way they are accessed/constructed/positioned in the game's menu system makes them difficult to implement properly in wide scale competitive play. The point that tips them over the realm of infeasibility is that their weight is determined by an app outside of the game itself, and because the definition of a "valid" build is so obtuse, there's no way for large-scale tournaments to reasonably set up so many builds. Miis are beyond fixing via traditional patches; their only chance to see the light of day competitively is the rumored NX port and whatever UI changes come with that and hope those changes make their way to the Wii U version.

Jiggly and Zelda don't have the results, and therefore any proof, to justify a claim that they're competitively viable. At least not yet. Everyone else has enough of a player base that we have seen good results come from them. They have issues holding them back, but their players are good at adaptation and counter-adaptation like every other skilled competitive player in the scene (this ties into my budding notion that MU inexperience and theory are given too much weight in comparison to results, but that's for another time). Ganon has "results" because he and Jigglypuff have swagger. Zelda has no such swagger; she's usually played not because of said swagger, but because she's "trash lol."

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

I think it's starting to get to the point where we're underrating Zelda again. Like, she's bad, but she's actually got some things going for her, whereas Jiggs really doesn't for the most part. Zelda is similar to Falco in my book, some good moves just trapped on a not so good character. I'm personally of the thinking that the list Yoshister made is for the most part accurate with the exeption of Zelda who I believe is just under Falco. Usage charts by Das Koopa seem to resemble this a bit as well, with the exceptions being Ganondorf and King D3 being higher, with Charizard and Samus lower as well as the obvious cases like Lucina, Doc, and Dark Pit who are just clones of characters who are for the most part seen as better, and the Miis (who at this point I hardly count as characters, seeing as how few tournies allow them and even when they are allowed they don't really tend to make any splashes).
EDIT:

... Zelda doesn't have the results

Zelda does have "results" however. She's actually got more common (not gonna say better necessarily) results than Samus, Roy, and Lucina (Lucina is an exception for obvious reasons). While they're not the most notable or frequent, they do exist. In fact, I think it might be a good idea for us to take a look at Das Koopa's last chart again. http://smashboards.com/threads/4br-...ive-impressions.429826/page-508#post-21294396
Puff ain't got **** tho lol

 

[Daymaster]

My bottom 5 are Charazard, Samus, Zelda, Ganon and Puff. Zard has enough speed to at least have a fighting chance but still suffers from a huge hurtbox, combo food and end lag. Samus' projectiles are pretty strong but rather easy to powershield, and she lacks a good get-off-me move and thus struggles very much up close when he opponent does get in. Zelda has no good approach tools or ranged moves and her only good ways of racking up damage up close are extremely situational. She basicly only has good kill power. Ganon is so pathetically slow and huge that if you pay attention one win in neutral basicly nets you the stock. Puff has no offense whatsoever that can't be torn apart by shield and is extremely easy to approach with almost no risk.

 

[Jexulus]

Zelda does have "results" however. She's actually got more common (not gonna say better necessarily) results than Samus, Roy, and Lucina (Lucina is an exception for obvious reasons). While they're not the most notable or frequent, they do exist. In fact, I think it might be a good idea for us to take a look at Das Koopa's last chart again. http://smashboards.com/threads/4br-...ive-impressions.429826/page-508#post-21294396
Puff ain't got **** tho lol

Thanks for the call out. You're right, I didn't look at the facts; I was going off the consensus from the last page or so. Not a good idea to try a post dependent on facts at 11:00 pm-ish my time if I'm not going to bother fact checking.

 

[Yoshister]

I attempted to make a tier list, but it's somewhat unconventional.
This tier list is based on how good I think each character is.

With the exception of the bottom three rows (Which are ordered), each row is ordered alphabetically.
This is because I feel the characters in each tier are (mostly) interchangeable.

If you want any explanations, feel free to ask me.

 

[LRodC]

So how about Hyuga? Surprised nobody's talking about it.

 

[Yoshister]

So how about Hyuga? Surprised nobody's talking about it.

Everyone's already discussed it in other places. There's no reason to talk about it here.

Spoiler: My opinion if you want it

I personally feel terrible for everyone involved. Whoever he sexually assaulted (I forgot her name) is most likely scarred for life. Hyuga's lost his dream job and is now hated by everyone.

Everyone loses here.

I don't wish to go into more detail.

Hopefully this doesn't hurt Toon Link's meta, because I'm confident he could be an amazing character.

 

[Shady Shaymin]

So how about Hyuga? Surprised nobody's talking about it.

Hate to interject in the CCI thread about something unrelated to the game itself but what happened is disgusting and Smashboards needs to bring it to more people's attention by putting it on the news page. We can't ignore this. That's all I'm going to say on the matter.

I attempted to make a tier list, but it's somewhat unconventional.
This tier list is based on how good I think each character is.

With the exception of the bottom three rows (Which are ordered), each row is ordered alphabetically.
This is because I feel the characters in each tier are (mostly) interchangeable.
View attachment 112512
If you want any explanations, feel free to ask me.

Good explanations but some very questionable placements, particularly sonic being way too low and Marth, Metaknight and Megaman being a bit too high.

EDIT: it's alphabetical, doof. Still think sonic, Fox, ryu and maybe mewtwo should move up to top tier row.

 

[Yoshister]

sonic being way too low

He can only go up one placement though.

 

[ARGHETH]

Hate to interject in the CCI thread about something unrelated to the game itself but what happened is disgusting and Smashboards needs to bring it to more people's attention by putting it on the news page. We can't ignore this. That's all I'm going to say on the matter.

It's at the front page of r/smashbros already.
That, and news articles generally take time so that the journalist can gather all the facts. The last thing we need is another majpr incident. I'm sure the writers have already seen it.

Hopefully this doesn't hurt Toon Link's meta,

It gonna hurt. Aside from Hyuga (who isn't going to American tournaments anymore), there's a couple Japanese TLs (who haven't done much lately) and, like, Zan. TL's placings are going done a lot for a while until someone takes his place.

 

[Yoshister]

Still think sonic, Fox, ryu and maybe mewtwo should move up to top tier row.

Eh, I feel they aren't as good as everyone I put in top tier.
If they continue to get great results, I may consider putting Fox, Ryu, and/or Sonic in top tier.

 

[Emblem Lord]

I attempted to make a tier list, but it's somewhat unconventional.
This tier list is based on how good I think each character is.

With the exception of the bottom three rows (Which are ordered), each row is ordered alphabetically.
This is because I feel the characters in each tier are (mostly) interchangeable.
View attachment 112512
If you want any explanations, feel free to ask me.

Glad someone else knows CF is overrated unworthy garbage.

 

[C0rvus]

Edit: I don't want to come off as a jackass, didn't realize how insensitive this post may seem. Forget it.

 

[Yoshister]

Glad someone else knows CF is overrated worthless unworthy garbage.

I think he's overrated, but still good (Not "worthless unworthy garbage").

He's a good character, but he has notable flaws that keep him from being better (Gimpable recovery, combo food, and lack of disjoint).

 

[Shady Shaymin]

Fox in my opinion is up there with Diddy/sheik/zss. He has such a solid matchup spread, losing solidly only to rosa, with everything else being more or less even with some oddballs like Kirby. His results are definitely on par with the other top tiers, and he has good rep at almost every level of play.

Ryu and Mewtwo are a bit more debatable bc of the more "extreme strengths with extreme weaknesses" deal that makes them harder to be consistent with, and their results at spread more thinly, but they are definitely there.

 

[Emblem Lord]

I think he's overrated, but still good (Not "worthless unworthy garbage").

He's a good character, but he has notable flaws that keep him from being better (Gimpable recovery, combo food, and lack of disjoint).

Douglas is garbz. He is literally playable because he is the embodiment of the Smash series meta. Abusing an overtuned option all the way to victory. But he is one dimensional and not even the best rushdown character. Tons of losing match-ups. Who does he beat thats even relevant?

 

[FeelMeUp]

Fox in my opinion is up there with Diddy/sheik/zss. He has such a solid matchup spread, losing solidly only to rosa, with everything else being more or less even with some oddballs like Kirby. His results are definitely on par with the other top tiers, and he has good rep at almost every level of play.

Ryu and Mewtwo are a bit more debatable bc of the more "extreme strengths with extreme weaknesses" deal that makes them harder to be consistent with, and their results at spread more thinly, but they are definitely there.

Agreed.
I main Sheik, secondary Fox and pocket Diddy and believe the former 2 are kinda busted. Fox's damage output is absolutely insane for his frame data and combo length(Melee uair does the same damage as the Smash 4 one, lmfao).
Though tbh, I'm starting to think that Diddy's really not as good as we all thought.
Characters like Rosa and ZSS have fast growing counterplay but Diddy's counterplay is extremely underdeveloped for how long he's been a threat.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Fox in my opinion is up there with Diddy/sheik/zss. He has such a solid matchup spread, losing solidly only to rosa, with everything else being more or less even with some oddballs like Kirby. His results are definitely on par with the other top tiers, and he has good rep at almost every level of play.

Ryu and Mewtwo are a bit more debatable bc of the more "extreme strengths with extreme weaknesses" deal that makes them harder to be consistent with, and their results at spread more thinly, but they are definitely there.

Ryu isnt hard to be consistent with. That is not his issue.

His issue is all his bad matches are vs good chars that are common.

Such a thing is going to be real barrier to you getting respectable and consistent results.

 

[FeelMeUp]

I just had a very interesting thought.
What do you guys think the top level reps of your character should implement more/less in order to reach higher levels of success?