Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Emblem Lord]

don't compare; let's look at it on its own (Ex. Link doesn't commit as hard as Ganon and therefore is low risk. Not true).

The risk for sheik getting her Fair PSed is a grab, no? Or a OOS boost kick. Or TSRK. Sonic getting his Spindash shielded has mix ups to reduce the risk, but all his setups have counter play. Jumping through the shield is %, or bad positioning, and staying on the shield is a grab iirc.

Tell me if I'm off.

Good luck consistently reacting to sonic everytime and consistently powershielding every time.

Look there is a REASON Ryu isnt as successful as those other chars. This is a huge part of it. Well really its his unique physics that make it so he commits so much not his normals themselves. But you get the idea.

 

[SaltyKracka]

blah blah but powershielding blah blah.

Nobody ****ing cares. If you can consistenly powershield unreactable options like Shiek's Fair, you're going to win anyways because you're a goddamn precognizant cyborg.

 

[HoSmash4]

What makes Vinnie's disadvantage game stand out compared to other sheiks? @Gheb

 

[EternalFlare]

Nobody ****ing cares. If you can consistenly powershield unreactable options like Shiek's Fair, you're going to win anyways because you're a goddamn precognizant cyborg.

Exactly.

It's not like Sheik has to fair at exactly the same point everytime within the short hop. If that were the case then maybe you could react to the SH and get ready to PS. But even very slight, barely noticeable timing changes on the fair (which might not even be intentional on their part) are going to completely mess up your PS timing.

So you have to react to the start up the fair itself which is not something humans can do. This is why you see players pre-emptively shielding expecting a fair and why empty jump grabs work so well with Sheik.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Nobody ****ing cares. If you can consistenly powershield unreactable options like Shiek's Fair, you're going to win anyways because you're a goddamn precognizant cyborg.

Why the hostility

PSing isn't hard anyway. But, You don't really even to power shield. Sheik's Fair before its range deductions was punished on shield when misspaced. Now, it's even harder and the move itself now loses to other pokes.

Good luck consistently reacting to sonic everytime and consistently powershielding every time.

Look there is a REASON Ryu isnt as successful as those other chars. This is a huge part of it. Well really its his unique physics that make it so he commits so much not his normals themselves. But you get the idea.

Power shielding and shielding a running spin dash kind of does the same thing when they're jumping through one, so on shield you're still branching off into a bad positioning that'll lead into damage on a ready opponent. One thing I'll secede on is a constant spin canceling patient sonic.

And I know somethings about Ryu, as I tried to main him once and got turned off by how his neutral was. Not my taste.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Sheik whiffs a fair and she will probably be ok.

Ryu whiffs anything he is getting hurt. Well, cept Nair really, but it has no range.

It's not comparable.

 

[|RK|]

According to Kurogane, that seems to be the case. Apparently, ledge get-up invincibility frames end 2 frames before the animation is complete.

I think that clarifies - so while the character is still climbing up the stage, their invincibility may have ended... thanks!

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Sheik whiffs a fair and she will probably be ok.

Ryu whiffs anything he is getting hurt. Well, cept Nair really, but it has no range.

It's not comparable.

Because sheik's Fair is an air jab. Ryu's aerials aren't like that

 

[Lavani]

According to Kurogane, that seems to be the case. Apparently, ledge get-up invincibility frames end 2 frames before the animation is complete.

But that says it ends 1 frame before you're able to act.

Taking Peach as an example, she's only vulnerable f32 and able to act on f33.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Because sheik's Fair is an air jab. Ryu's aerials aren't like that

PRECISELY!!!!!

 

[Jexulus]

How is (Mewtwo) NOT considered top 5 already?

Because up until recently, Abadango has carried him in terms of results. A lot of players have kept their characters even as the DLC has come out. Mewtwo's status out of the box was a lot worse than Cloud and Bayonetta, so players have been slow to adopt him. Abadango's continued tournament success with his patched glory has demonstrated his merits in recent times, not to mention his representation has increased. Rich Brown got 17th with him at EVO, and players like Mew^2, Wadi, Blue, and more are steadily showing what Mewtwo is made of.

That being said, I don't think Mewtwo is top 5. Though I don't like to talk in terms of cramming characters into a list like this, if we're having this discussion, then I'll go ahead and state my opinion that it's too early to say Mewtwo is THAT good. Sheik and Diddy are clearly more consistent, I think Fox and Mario are more consistent, and No. 5 is a toss-up with Rosalina, Sonic, and possibly Cloud. Top 10? Absolutely. But I don't think we've seen enough of Mewtwo that isn't Abadango to warrant saying he's that good.

 

[verbatim]

This also applies to Cloud. Re less optimization time, not less mains.

 

[Jaguar360]

What place did Some get? I didn't even see him in top 64...

Some placed 17th. Lost to Tsu~ in Winners and Nietono in losers.

Other cool stuff I noticed from Umebura while I'm here:

• Omunaoto apparently won his pool judging from the seeding (paging @juddy96 to check me on that), which had Eim and Nekon (Umebura pools where here btw) and got 33rd in the whole thing losing to Choco and Atelier. Not bad.
• Rom had a pretty nice run also placing 33rd and getting wins over Daiki and Kirihara.

Nexus is live now btw: http://www.hitbox.tv/E2C
Dabuz, Fatality, Shinjoebi, Tyroy, JJRockets, MJG and others here.

 

[arbustopachon]

Be smash 2016 top 8 is live.

 

[Shady Shaymin]

Mewtwo is like the super-villain of Smash 4, and his life up until 1.1.5 was his origin story. Woefully neglected by society. Universally agreed to be worthless, an outcast. Then daddy Sakurai blessed him with incredible power, and now he's out for blood. Old bullies from his past like and are now getting pounded (heh). The community has to team up with its old adversary if they hope to ever defeat him.

****posting aside I don't know if he's top 5. When he does well, he does really well, but his results are very thinly spread for a supposed top 5 character. I also don't know if he's better than ,,,,or .

 

[Kung Fu Treachery]

I'm really interested by how often I hear both of the following statements:

"Cloud can't be the best character because of his exploitable recovery."

"Diddy is the best character."

Is Cloud's recovery really that much worse? Leave aside all the other weaknesses of Cloud/strengths of Diddy for the moment. A lot of players say if/when the community gets better at edge-guarding, Cloud will be noticeably worse. Isn't the same true for Diddy, or am I severely underrating his recovery?

 

[NairWizard]

Sheik, Diddy, Mewtwo, Rosalina and Fox would be my top 5, in order.

I agree that Sheik has more room to grow than Diddy at this point. The main impulses I see for Diddy Kong's metagame in the future are technical and matchup specific optimizations. Sheik on the other hand sill isn't fully developed - the gap between Void's technical style, Mr r's neutral game and Vinnie's disadvantaged game is bigger than the differences between Zero's and Zinoto's play I feel. The main difference between them seem to be how they tackle certain matchups.

Learning to move differently/using different movement options in the neutral depending on the matchup is one of the hardest skills to master in this game, and the one that makes the most difference at top level imo, so those matchup-specific differences you're talking about may in fact end up making more of a difference for Diddy's tournament results than Sheik's remaining optimizations will.

That said, Sheik has a ways to go in terms of matchups too. Void is really bad at changing his neutral game based on the matchup and tends to play every MU the same way. Mr. R has a cleaner neutral game but seems bad at converting advantage into death on characters like Fox and Mario.

So you're probably right.

Mewtwo is extremely broken and underdeveloped. Fair and dtilt are much stronger pokes and walling tools than anything Cloud or Marth have to offer but Mewtwo also has Sheik's dash speed, the best KO throw in the game, one of the best projectiles in the game and the best airdodge in the game period.

Mewtwo is basically a sword character (replete with great neutral and advantage state) with an actually good disadvantaged state. His disadvantaged state beats the disadvantaged states of other prominent top tiers like Mario and Fox, yet he gets all the advantages of being a high-range character. This alone puts him in top 5. If you think Marth is good, Mewtwo is basically a vastly superior Marth. And as if that weren't bad enough, he gets a free answer to shield in the form of a kill throw. Character is mad overtuned in multiple ways. +1

MK isn't a terribly difficult matchup to cover

The problem is that Rosalina just gets hard-bodied by MK instead of soft-countered. The matchup is terrible. Even S2H gave Dabuz trouble. Having a counterpick option is nice, but ideally you should still have a fighting chance in any MU.

but Larry is actually the only player left to place outside of a major tournament's top 12 [and whenever he did end up placing 'only' 9th he'd lose to either dabuz or Void]./

ZeRo's lowest placing is 9th at CEO.

 

[SaltyKracka]

I'm really interested by how often I hear both of the following statements:

"Cloud can't be the best character because of his exploitable recovery."

"Diddy is the best character."

Is Cloud's recovery really that much worse? Leave aside all the other weaknesses of Cloud/strengths of Diddy for the moment. A lot of players say if/when the community gets better at edge-guarding, Cloud will be noticeably worse. Isn't the same true for Diddy, or am I severely underrating his recovery?

Monkey Flip means that recovering above the stage or to the ledge is generally pretty free with proper DI.

And it's not like rocketbarrels are the worst recovery, either.

 

[Frihetsanka]

It sounds like ZeRo has decided to drop Sheik and focus on Diddy Kong and Cloud, with Cloud as a secondary and Diddy as a main.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGVsnve1gjY

 

[EternalFlare]

Monkey Flip means that recovering above the stage or to the ledge is generally pretty free with proper DI.

And it's not like rocketbarrels are the worst recovery, either.

It's anything but free.

Monkey Flip is very interruptible and at long range such as when he's using it to recover, definitely something you can react to. So you swat him away with an aerial if he goes high or towards the ledge and do a run back upSmash/Fsmash if he tries to land on stage with it.

Rocket barrels require a large amount of time to charge to get big distance on it. And at any point if it's interrupted, Diddy is almost always dead as he's put in a freefall animation and can't up B again for a while unlike other characters.

Diddy's recovery isn't that good. It might not be as bad as limitless Cloud but it's just as exploitable as Rosalina or Fox.

 

[soniczx123]

@Greward Heard from a few peeps that Bayonetta is still banned in Spain. Can you confirm that?

Source: https://twitter.com/BiolizPrototype/status/757343199132262400

 

[Kofu]

Mewtwo is basically a sword character (replete with great neutral and advantage state) with an actually good disadvantaged state. His disadvantaged state beats the disadvantaged states of other prominent top tiers like Mario and Fox, yet he gets all the advantages of being a high-range character. This alone puts him in top 5. If you think Marth is good, Mewtwo is basically a vastly superior Marth. And as if that weren't bad enough, he gets a free answer to shield in the form of a kill throw. Character is mad overtuned in multiple ways. +1

I'm going to respectfully disagree with the bolded part, at least a little. Mewtwo is definitely better than Marth and the two share a lot of the spacing playstyle. I see a difference, however, in how the two are rewarded for spacing, and personally feel like Marth actually edges Mewtwo out. Mewtwo's tail attacks are weaker at the ends and his main poking tool, DTilt, has significantly less followup potential if hit at max range. Marth, on the other hand, is designed to get greater reward from spacing and can kill much sooner than Mewtwo can by spacing. His arcing aerials also have a greater coverage/speed ratio at the cost of higher cooldown.

Mewtwo's superior movement specs make the spacing difference less important, but I still feel like Marth has an edge there.

 

[NairWizard]

I'm going to respectfully disagree with the bolded part, at least a little. Mewtwo is definitely better than Marth and the two share a lot of the spacing playstyle. I see a difference, however, in how the two are rewarded for spacing, and personally feel like Marth actually edges Mewtwo out. Mewtwo's tail attacks are weaker at the ends and his main poking tool, DTilt, has significantly less followup potential if hit at max range. Marth, on the other hand, is designed to get greater reward from spacing and can kill much sooner than Mewtwo can by spacing. His arcing aerials also have a greater coverage/speed ratio at the cost of higher cooldown.

Mewtwo's superior movement specs make the spacing difference less important, but I still feel like Marth has an edge there.

Mewtwo's d-tilt outranges Marth's grounded poking tools so the comparison between max-range Mewtwo d-tilt and Marth tipper anything is not quite right I think. It's a tool that Mewtwo has that Marth wishes he had.

Still, I see where you're coming from. If your argument is that Marth has higher reward than Mewtwo, that's an interesting one, since tippers are difficult to take into account, but with edgeguarding also on the table it may be feasible. Regardless, I don't think that slightly better reward alone makes Marth that much different from Mewtwo. They play the same game. Mewtwo is better at playing it, and has tools besides.

 

[Y2Kay]

Trust me, Aba's Mewtwo is only the beginning. Plenty of stuff is getting discovered about the character still. He'll be a real monstrosity by the end of the year, promise!

What has happened also has solidfied something for me: pre patch Mewtwo was never bottom tier.

 

[NairWizard]

Actually prepatch Mewtwo was pretty garbage.

If you gave Dr. Mario the mobility buffs and hitbox adjustments (and knockback adjustments on certain moves) that Mewtwo was given he'd be top tier too.

Just a thought.

 

[Y2Kay]

Actually prepatch Mewtwo was pretty garbage.

If you gave Dr. Mario the mobility buffs and hitbox adjustments (and knockback adjustments on certain moves) that Mewtwo was given he'd be top tier too.

Just a thought.

But Mewtwo was never that slow though. He run and walk speeds where only average pre patch, Doc's mobility is barely better than Zelda's.

The buffs still where huge, don't get me wrong.

 

[NairWizard]

But Mewtwo was never that slow though. He run and walk speeds where only average pre patch, Doc's mobility is barely better than Zelda's.

The buffs still where huge, don't get me wrong.

The difference is that Doc also has stellar frame data and knockback (like if you've ever hit a Doc d-smash on someone you know just how much better it is than Mario's). For Doc to be good, having about average or above average mobility would be more than enough.

The jump from low->average mobility is relatively speaking the same as the jump from average->high mobility.

Giving Doc high mobility with his crazy damage and frame data would totally break the character since he also has one of the best defense games in the entire game (and the best reflector by far since he can cape so freely). I can't imagine a single character in the game being able to claim an advantaged matchup against Doc with Sheik-level mobility specs, that would be worse than prepatch Diddy since he'd also ooze kill confirms.

With average or slightly above average mobility, he'd be a solid contender for top 5/10.

 

[arbustopachon]

Be smash 2016 Grand finals here.

Sharpy vs DigitalStrider

 

[Yoshister]

And at any point if it's interrupted, Diddy is almost always dead as he's put in a freefall animation and can't up B again for a while unlike other characters.

Actually prepatch Mewtwo was pretty garbage.

If you gave Dr. Mario the mobility buffs and hitbox adjustments (and knockback adjustments on certain moves) that Mewtwo was given he'd be top tier too.

Just a thought.

Of course he would. He'd become better Mario.
Mario is top tier.[/QUOTE]

 

[verbatim]

Be smash 2016 Grand finals here.

Sharpy vs DigitalStrider

Do they put vods on YouTube after the fact?

 

[Shady Shaymin]

Yeah, that's another thing about Mewtwo: his frame data is mediocre. His fastest ground move is his frame 6 jab which is pretty bad compared to all these other amazing frame 3 or less jabs the top tiers in this game have. His fastest aerial button comes out frame 6 which is ok, but when coupled with his 5 frame jumpsquat isn't that great. His range is even kind of overrated, too. Granted, dtilt and ftilt have nice ground zoning ability but he doesn't actually get much out of spacing them at the tip, besides stage positioning. Fair is decently disjointed but it's still smaller than most swordie aerials. Bair big but slow, and Nair is tiny.

So why is Mewtwo so good? My answer: his punish game. I think his punish game is the best in this entire cast. In a vacuum, the rewards he gets off of reads and punishes are probably not as good as Ryu (and possibly not better than ZSS either), but unlike those two, he actually has the ability to force approaches. That's a huge, essential part of his gameplan and imo is what overall makes his punish game better holistically than the two I mentioned. Ryu may kill you at 60, but a smart player can lame him out and in some matchups just refuse to play his game. This applies to ZSS to a lesser extent; her mobility helps her deal with projectiles and zoning better than Ryu, but her awkward neutral can still leave her susceptible. Mewtwo having a chargeable versatile projectile on top of one of the best reflectors in the game AND amazing mobility makes his crazy punishes (footstool disable shenanigans, fair near the ledge, surprise full shadow ball, upthrow/backthrow, any of his smash attacks) all the more deadly, because he has the best ability to actually consistently put his opponent in positions where he can land those punishes. Ryu and ZSS don't have that, not to the extent that Mewtwo does.

The price for all this bull****? Dying at 50 against rage. I think that's pretty fair.

 

[arbustopachon]

Do they put vods on YouTube after the fact?

Yep, here.

 

[Ninety]

Improving sluggish characters' mobility specs to even average would catapult almost all of them to high tier without touching anything else about them -- that's how the game is balanced (using that term loosely). Giving Falco, Ganondorf or Robin some actual agility would likely put them in top 15.

...Well, Roy's pretty fast, but he still has other issues.

 

[arbustopachon]

Sharpy won! All the way from losers!

 

[Mr. Johan]

Be smash 2016 Grand finals here.

Sharpy vs DigitalStrider

Looks like the Dominican Republic doesn't do DSR.

Every single game that Cloud won on in GFs was on Smashville.

 

[Das Koopa]

Be Smash 2016 (July 23rd-July 24th) (Dominican Republic) (212 Entrants) (Category 1)
1st: Sharpyzard
2nd: Digital Strider
3rd: Stark
4th: Papin
5th: 0mart ,
5th: Capitancito
7th: Keekay
7th: Naranja
9th: Javon
9th: SS Cabellito
9th: SS Rikar
9th: Xelim
13th: FDC Monra
13th: DantelinkX
13th: Don Neko
13th: Shaka

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Yeah, that's another thing about Mewtwo: his frame data is mediocre. His fastest ground move is his frame 6 jab which is pretty bad compared to all these other amazing frame 3 or less jabs the top tiers in this game have. His fastest aerial button comes out frame 6 which is ok, but when coupled with his 5 frame jumpsquat isn't that great. His range is even kind of overrated, too. Granted, dtilt and ftilt have nice ground zoning ability but he doesn't actually get much out of spacing them at the tip, besides stage positioning. Fair is decently disjointed but it's still smaller than most swordie aerials. Bair big but slow, and Nair is tiny.

So why is Mewtwo so good? My answer: his punish game. I think his punish game is the best in this entire cast. In a vacuum, the rewards he gets off of reads and punishes are probably not as good as Ryu (and possibly not better than ZSS either), but unlike those two, he actually has the ability to force approaches. That's a huge, essential part of his gameplan and imo is what overall makes his punish game better holistically than the two I mentioned. Ryu may kill you at 60, but a smart player can lame him out and in some matchups just refuse to play his game. This applies to ZSS to a lesser extent; her mobility helps her deal with projectiles and zoning better than Ryu, but her awkward neutral can still leave her susceptible. Mewtwo having a chargeable versatile projectile on top of one of the best reflectors in the game AND amazing mobility makes his crazy punishes (footstool disable shenanigans, fair near the ledge, surprise full shadow ball, upthrow/backthrow, any of his smash attacks) all the more deadly, because he has the best ability to actually consistently put his opponent in positions where he can land those punishes. Ryu and ZSS don't have that, not to the extent that Mewtwo does.

The price for all this bull****? Dying at 50 against rage. I think that's pretty fair.

That's why I think Mewtwo's kill power is actually better than characters who are known for it like Ryu or Cloud. Ryu's kill power is only good if the opponent does something very unsafe right next to him. Cloud's is only good if he has limit which he gets one chance to use before it runs out or they run into his Forward Smash (which is very punishable as well so he can't just constantly throw it out).

But Mewtwo has great kill power by just playing his regular game, he doesn't have to force or fish to get access to it. A stray nair to footstool in neutral, a fair stuffing aerial approaches, shadow Ball stuffing grounded approaches, a lingering up Smash to catch landings and of course his up throw. His kill power is a threat no matter what situation you are in.

In fact when I look at the top tiers in this game they tend to have 2 out of 3 things:

1. Reliable kill power (I define good consistent kill power as being able to kill below 130 without it being forced or too situational)
2. Great neutral
3. Excellent recovery

Sheik and Sonic have 2 and 3 but not 1. Diddy, Rosa and Fox have 1 and 2. but not 3

But Mewtwo is the only character I can think of that has all 3.

 

[420quickscoper]

Yeah, that's another thing about Mewtwo: his frame data is mediocre. His fastest ground move is his frame 6 jab which is pretty bad compared to all these other amazing frame 3 or less jabs the top tiers in this game have. His fastest aerial button comes out frame 6 which is ok, but when coupled with his 5 frame jumpsquat isn't that great. His range is even kind of overrated, too. Granted, dtilt and ftilt have nice ground zoning ability but he doesn't actually get much out of spacing them at the tip, besides stage positioning. Fair is decently disjointed but it's still smaller than most swordie aerials. Bair big but slow, and Nair is tiny.

So why is Mewtwo so good? My answer: his punish game. I think his punish game is the best in this entire cast. In a vacuum, the rewards he gets off of reads and punishes are probably not as good as Ryu (and possibly not better than ZSS either), but unlike those two, he actually has the ability to force approaches. That's a huge, essential part of his gameplan and imo is what overall makes his punish game better holistically than the two I mentioned. Ryu may kill you at 60, but a smart player can lame him out and in some matchups just refuse to play his game. This applies to ZSS to a lesser extent; her mobility helps her deal with projectiles and zoning better than Ryu, but her awkward neutral can still leave her susceptible. Mewtwo having a chargeable versatile projectile on top of one of the best reflectors in the game AND amazing mobility makes his crazy punishes (footstool disable shenanigans, fair near the ledge, surprise full shadow ball, upthrow/backthrow, any of his smash attacks) all the more deadly, because he has the best ability to actually consistently put his opponent in positions where he can land those punishes. Ryu and ZSS don't have that, not to the extent that Mewtwo does.

The price for all this bull****? Dying at 50 against rage. I think that's pretty fair.

His startup frame data is mediocre, you can't disagree with that, but you can't forget the other parts of his frame data. He has overall low landing lag on his aerials, 3 SHACs, and we can't count the fact that some of his most used moves, down tilt, forward air and neutral air are some of his fastest moves.

That's why I think Mewtwo's kill power is actually better than characters who are known for it like Ryu or Cloud. Ryu's kill power is only good if the opponent does something very unsafe right next to him. Cloud's is only good if he has limit which he gets one chance to use before it runs out or they run into his Forward Smash (which is very punishable as well so he can't just constantly throw it out).

But Mewtwo has great kill power by just playing his regular game, he doesn't have to force or fish to get access to it. A stray nair to footstool in neutral, a fair stuffing aerial approaches, shadow Ball stuffing grounded approaches, a lingering up Smash to catch landings and of course his up throw. His kill power is a threat no matter what situation you are in.

In fact when I look at the top tiers in this game they tend to have 2 out of 3 things:

1. Reliable kill power (I define good consistent kill power as being able to kill below 130 without it being forced or too situational)
2. Great neutral
3. Excellent recovery

Sheik and Sonic have 2 and 3 but not 1. Diddy, Rosa and Fox have 1 and 2. but not 3

But Mewtwo is the only character I can think of that has all 3.

I think forward air's probably one of the best kill moves in the game. It's so safe on shield that you can just throw it out without worrying.
Up throw's probably in that category too. Having a grab that kills is already huge. Couple that with Mewtwo's really fast dash, and DI having little effect on it's kill percentages, it's really scary. Especially for characters that are light fastfallers, like Sheik and Fox who are being threatened by it at around 105%.

 

[JustSomeScrub]

Seriously the more I think about it, the more Mewtwo's kill power seems broken.

No other character in this game can kill as reliably imo.

The closest you have is maybe Diddy but that's only if the opponent remains grounded and gets caught by banana or downtilt. If the opponent just platform camps him...none of Diddy's aerials are going to kill before 140 and that's assuming the opponent is near the edge/near the top and/or Diddy has massive rage. Else not even at 160+ do you have to worry about dying to his aerials.

With Cloud, once he's wasted limit you're in the clear. Or you can just block, not like he can kill off throws.

But with Mewtwo it literally does not matter where you are on the stage or what you are doing, you're always in danger if you are above 110ish.

And I don't think Mewtwo dying so early himself balances him out. Mewtwo's health bar might be lower but he also doesn't get comboed very hard being a floaty and he doesn't have to worry about too much damage in juggle/recovery situations either.

 

[Rizen]

If you gave Dr. Mario the mobility buffs and hitbox adjustments (and knockback adjustments on certain moves) that Mewtwo was given he'd be top tier too.

Just a thought.

That's true; you just described