Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Aaron1997]

Shuton got fruit and Tea literally couldn't do ANYTHING. As soon as Shuton was able to get a lead the match was over. Game 4 Tea went Bayo and got wrecked.

The Counter pick to DH was awful. You never go DH as Pac vs another zoner. Atleast on smaller stages, you can come back/ force them to use it

 

[MachoCheeze]

The Counter pick to DH was awful. You never go DH as Pac vs another zoner. Atleast on smaller stages, you can come back/ force them to use it

Yeah I didn't really understand that pick. Maybe he was trying to throw him off by picking a stage Japan usually doesn't play on? He was using the ducks to catch fruit and mix up his z drops, but it didn't really do anything (note: 'fancy' pac stuff like this usually leads to nothing lmao).

 

[Nu~]

Shuton got fruit and Tea literally couldn't do ANYTHING. As soon as Shuton was able to get a lead the match was over. Game 4 Tea went Bayo and got wrecked.

That has to be the worse way to go out as a pacman main. The opponent takes all of your versatility away and laughs as they either run away (sonic...) or perform better Z drop tricks on you.

 

[sedrf]

Do you sometimes feel that the top 15/20 are really easy out side certain characters compared to the rest of the cast

 

[Fenny]

So it looks like Bayo's capable of landing lagless after aerial specials provided she has a Side B or Up B in stock.

The mix-up it adds to her combo game is pretty damn great, and I only started trying this out an hour and a half ago rofl.

 

[verbatim]

Shuton got fruit and Tea literally couldn't do ANYTHING. As soon as Shuton was able to get a lead the match was over. Game 4 Tea went Bayo and got wrecked.

I think there was a big lack of matchup knowledge on Tea's part there (Zage is like 20-1 against Logic), but I can elaborate why it's not so cut in dry.

Olimar is unique in the way his Pikmin work (not projectiles). If any other character w/ a projectile except Fox I guess grabs fruit, Pacman can heal with his side b. Olimar does better against Pacman than most top tiers because of that as well as the bigger fact that Pikmin hitboxes invalidating fruits and hydrant.

Tea also has an issue in that he is by far and away the most trick focused of the high level Pacman's, and therefore the most susceptible to people figuring out his tricks. Sinji, Ginko, and Koolaid (was) are a lot better at using his standards and trampoline, which is where most of Pacman's gameplay should honestly be, especially in this matchup.

 

[BSP]

Shuton got fruit and Tea literally couldn't do ANYTHING. As soon as Shuton was able to get a lead the match was over. Game 4 Tea went Bayo and got wrecked.

What tournament?

 

[Nu~]

What tournament?

SHI-G
It's currently on right now

 

[Meru.]

Shuton's Olimar is really crazy, it's amazing what he does with this character. He racks up damage in the blink of an eye and kills people before you know it... I have no idea how he does it.

This is a pretty old post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/2r9mc3/smash_4_an_indepth_look_at_the_rage_and_how_it/

But according to it vertical knockback moves are affected significantly more by rage than horizontal knockback moves.

This is incorrect. Moves that have high base knockback are the ones that are most affected by rage. Ness Bthrow has a BKB of 15, Fox Fsmash 20, Fox Usmash 30, Lucina Uthrow 70. If you use these moves there's no wonder you find Lucina's Uthrkw and Fox's Usmash killing much earlier than Fox's Fsmash and Ness' Bthrow, but that doesn't have anything to do (directly) with the fact that one has vertical knockback and the other horizontal, it has to do with base knockback.

In this case, Ness Bthrow has a base knockback of 15 whereas Mewtwo Uthrow has a base knockback of 72, which is absurdly high, so clearly Mewtwo's Uthrow benefits more from rage.

 

[Nysyr]

There was a chart floating around showing Falcons rage kill %s showing side-b killing substantially earlier due to its 100BKB

like a year ago...

 

[Das Koopa]

Sumabato 12 (July 30th-31st) (Japan) (211 Entrants) (Category 2)
1st: Komorikiri , ,
2nd: Shuton
3rd: Taiheta
4th: Choco
5th: T
5th: Hayato.
7th: Kept
7th: Tea
9th: Songn ,
9th: Nietono ,
9th: HIKARU ,
9th: Shogun
13th: Taranito
13th: Ikep
13th: Gackt
13th: Pichi


also that Florida Monthly

Spoiler: Vitality

Vitality (July 30th) (Florida) (103 Entrants) (Category 1)
1st: Dath
2nd: StaticManny
3rd: MVD
4th: Xaltis
5th: Myran
5th: 8BitMan
7th: TNF|Child
7th: Eden
9th: Purple Guy
9th: Riot
9th: Hex
9th: WormyNugget
13th: Seibrik
13th: Tremendo Dude
13th: RoguePenguin
13th: Prince Ramen

 

[bc1910]

I know the discussion has moved on but just to throw in my two penneth, I think Palutena is the most overrated character in the game at the moment. We've seen it happen a million times with these characters, they get a couple of strong results (with the obligatory cries of "s/he's ACTUALLY been performing well for some time) and everyone calls them high tier. They then settle back down. Palutena has a couple of very good moves but she is a skeleton character in Customs Off.

Most underrated, in terms of characters whom can actually take names, is probably Robin. As the meta moves to favour consistency, people should value Robin's guaranteed high damage punishes from Dthrow and Arc Thunder. She can get kill confirms or true 50/50s (with no need to read DI) off both too. Her neutral game and mobility leave much to be desired and I'm not saying she's a hidden top or even high tier, but I feel she will develop very well if the meta continues in its current direction.

 

[soniczx123]

Sonic players are only using like 5-6 moves out of his kit.
I wish more Sonic players had as much of an understanding of his moves as SGK/Komo.

You mean like how Komo uses Spin Dash(Shield Canceling), Uair, Bair, Fsmash, Dthrow, Uthrow, Dthrow???

Sounds like a typical Sonic to me.

 

[SaltyKracka]

I know the discussion has moved on but just to throw in my two penneth, I think Palutena is the most overrated character in the game at the moment. We've seen it happen a million times with these characters, they get a couple of strong results (with the obligatory cries of "s/he's ACTUALLY been performing well for some time) and everyone calls them high tier. They then settle back down. Palutena has a couple of very good moves but she is a skeleton character in Customs Off.

Most underrated, in terms of characters whom can actually take names, is probably Robin. As the meta moves to favour consistency, people should value Robin's guaranteed high damage punishes from Dthrow and Arc Thunder. She can get kill confirms or true 50/50s (with no need to read DI) off both too. Her neutral game and mobility leave much to be desired and I'm not saying she's a hidden top or even high tier, but I feel she will develop very well if the meta continues in its current direction.

...Wow, you must have some actual memory problems or something.

Not-actually-News Update!

Palutena's not ****. And she's certainly not bottom tier. Good Palu players play her incredibly well. Good Palu players take a bunch of games off of even the highest level players with her. And most importantly, good Palu players place with her.

Stop mistaking her for Jigglypuff or Ganon, and blow your "people are saying she's high tier" strawman out your O-ring.

 

[Das Koopa]

the brackets at SF5 are interesting

MKLeo is slated to face Mr. R in Winner's Semis if all goes well. I think that set alone will determine the way the tourney goes in Top 8. If he wins, he fights Dabuz, which should be doable since Leo has a god-tier Meta Knight. Mr. R will have a very hard time if he's dumped into losers.

my opinion is

MKLeo loses to Mr. R > Dabuz wins.
MKLeo beats Mr. R > MKLeo wins.

 

[bc1910]

...Wow, you must have some actual memory problems or something.

Not-actually-News Update!

Palutena's not ****. And she's certainly not bottom tier. Good Palu players play her incredibly well. Good Palu players take a bunch of games off of even the highest level players with her. And most importantly, good Palu players place with her.

Stop mistaking her for Jigglypuff or Ganon, and blow your "people are saying she's high tier" strawman out your O-ring.

I laughed a lot at this so thanks for that.

Why Palutena is such a controversial topic is beyond me. This isn't the first time I've been insulted for sharing my opinion on her being a sub-par character. Not that I said she's bottom tier (although she is probably bottom of mid at best), so you can blow your false accusations right back.

If ZeRo hadn't lost to Prince Ramen (incidentally I'd bet he knew, and still knows, diddly-squat about the MU) you'd have nothing out of the ordinary to back this up, by the way. Plenty of sub-par characters take games and even sets off good players, particularly in Japan.

Ah well, I don't mind waiting a couple of months to be proved right.

 

[Illuminose]

I laughed a lot at this so thanks for that.

Why Palutena is such a controversial topic is beyond me. This isn't the first time I've been insulted for sharing my opinion on her being a sub-par character. Not that I said she's bottom tier (although she is probably bottom of mid at best), so you can blow your false accusations right back.

Ah well, I don't mind waiting a couple of months to be proved right.

Don't post such snide and disagreeable posts without backing them up, or expect people to dump all over you. It's fully deserved and has very little to do with whether you're 'right'. In fact, I don't think you disagree with anyone here and in this case you're accomplishing nothing other than being an ass for the sake of it. No one has said Palutena is great, but simply that she isn't gutter trash and probably a low tier or low mid tier which you agree with -- so there's no argument to be had.

 

[bc1910]

Don't post such snide and disagreeable posts without backing them up, or expect people to dump all over you. It's fully deserved and has very little to do with whether you're 'right'. In fact, I don't think you disagree with anyone here and in this case you're accomplishing nothing other than being an *** for the sake of it. No one has said Palutena is great, but simply that she isn't gutter trash and probably a low tier or low mid tier which you agree with -- so there's no argument to be had.

I'll respond in kind, thanks. There was nothing aggressive or snide in my original post, I simply expressed an opinion which happened to go against someone else's. I'm happy to give additional reasoning and explanations but I wasn't met with anything constructive.

I don't think there was any need for you to weigh in, actually.

EDIT: On second thought this is a public forum and you are free to speak your mind so please disregard the last sentence.

 

[Djent]

I haven't been posting in here as much, so forgive me for asking, but since when has Palutena become the poster child for overrated characters? I've seen several people say this, but last I checked people were still trying to explain away the continued results of Prince Ramen / TLTC / IceNinja while chiding others for relying too heavily on theory. lol

 

[Blobface]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but IIRC (Max) Rage is a simple 1.15 knockback multiplier, which probably doesn't sound like a lot until you realize that higher knockback likely means a longer travel time on top of increased velocity. So if a move caused 28 knockback in a certain situation with no rage, in the same situation with max rage it would cause 32 knockback.

Moves with high BKB seem disproportionately affected because additively, they do get more knockback at low percents, and that becomes much more noticeable the closer you get to the blastzone where most "jank" kills happen. Further away from the blastzone, KBG will be much more noticeable.

 

[Nobie]

I wonder what it says that a character with subpar frame data but strong mobility (Palutena) seems to do better than characters with good frame data but subpar mobility (Falco, Corrin?).

 

[paperchao]

So looking at the results of umebura, it seems link has snuck in once again to top 8, good job T, what's this guy doing differently that's not getting him roflstomped?

 

[Illuminose]

So looking at the results of umebura, it seems link has snuck in once again to top 8, good job T, what's this guy doing differently that's not getting him roflstomped?

One of the main things is that he's living for long periods of time, which enables him to utilize rage. Rage Link is ridiculously strong and scary to deal with because he can easily kill you before 100%, even with stray hits. He's also very good with oos usmash and up b so he doesn't get locked in shield like other Links and people are more careful around his shield in general. Other than that stuff it's mainly patience and mixups when he applies pressure. For instance, one thing I saw T do at Umebura was do a jab on shield and then catch a roll behind with an up smash to kill. He does a lot of small reads and things like that to cover options and catch his opponents off-guard.

Other stuff:
- Tea and Ginko (who only used Pac Man) both doing well is a good sign for Pac Man in general. These infrequent attendees always seem to do well when they come to tournaments, so I think the Pac meta is doing fine. I generally feel that people ranking Pac super low are underrating him just because they aren't seeing him. I'd still say that Pac is somewhere in the lower section of mid tier which doesn't seem unreasonable.

- Shuton makes Olimar look so good in the way he takes situations and racks up damage extremely quickly. Some of the other things I notice are Pikmin management (getting lineups he wants and Pikmin he wants to use very efficiently) and in general that he's more active than other Olimars, primarily through the use of purple to interrupt stuff.

- Really excited to see Komorikiri at Big House. His brackets at Genesis and EVO were just unfortunate -- this time I really think he can make a splash.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I made a tier list based on results.

The data is taken from Das Koopa's excellent thread: http://smashboards.com/threads/tournament-placing-database-scoring-project.437773/

Based on top 16 weighted.

Is Captain Falcon underrated? #11 going by results. Little Mac has surprisingly decent results, as does Robin. I wasn't sure where I would draw the line between high tier and high-mid tier, so Mega Man, Pikachu, and R.O.B. are potentially high tier, going by results.

 

[Rizen]

So looking at the results of umebura, it seems link has snuck in once again to top 8, good job T, what's this guy doing differently that's not getting him roflstomped?

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpu15uRsvI2opP78cdslj3A/search?query=T
This is the best I could do to find his games. Other Links like Scizor have ranked well in 200+ entry tournaments too. The thing about SSB4 Link is he can play safe and hits like a heavyweight. SSB4 shields are not as strong and Link's sword attacks do high damage per-hit and thus shieldstun. Shielding projectiles isn't as good and Link has safer projectiles, 3 of them, than most of the cast. He also can plant bombs, has the best overall item toss data in the game and has very little landing lag. He can play a walling/frame trap game with little commitment. I see T is good at playing safe with Link. Against most of the cast Link can control the space between his sword and projectiles and keep passively attacking until he gets a hit confirm. Bombs are really, really good as we know from TL and Link can use them too. Link has worse mobility but better footsies than TL, he also has bombs with better damage/hitstun and longer disjointed reach to help him combo. See here for item toss data btw:
http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/ItemData
Link isn't as bad at escaping CQC pressure as most people think either. Rolls are considerably better in SSB4 than before, Link just needs to drift out of attack range for a second to bombpull>Zair/bomb drop and rushdown ground followups are stopped. He does suffer when being comboed but he can tank a lot of damage and kill early. Link's recovery is mid-tier and not total trash (look at the recovery rankings or Kurogane's Link page), people need to stop thinking he has his Brawl weakness. Because these improved factors Link doesn't lose super hard. Here's Cat's MU chart for reference (make what you will of it).
http://puu.sh/poNYW/d118c45a39.jpg
Fox and sheik are really good at getting and staying in Link's face and are probably his worst MUs at 4/6.

The tl;dr is Link players need to play safe and Link has good reward. Almost any character can preform well because SSB4 is well balanced. Link's not great but not trash. IMO Link has a chance to win large events and is better than the low tiers like Ganon or Jiggs so I put him at the low end of mid tier. He belongs more with characters like G&W and Robin.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I wonder what it says that a character with subpar frame data but strong mobility (Palutena) seems to do better than characters with good frame data but subpar mobility (Falco, Corrin?).

It says that mobility is king. Most high/top tiers are above-average in this regard, so it makes sense. Rosalina and Ryu are the main exceptions, neither is particularly known for being mobile. Rosalina has Luma to make up the difference, which probably says something about how strong Luma is as a tool, but Ryu is way outside my knowledge zone so no comment there.

Do autocancels fall under frame data or mobility? I'd assume the former.

 

[Yoshister]

Do autocancels fall under frame data or mobility? I'd assume the former.

I feel good autocancels and frame data help mobility.

 

[Piipp]

I feel good autocancels and frame data help mobility.

It does, but if we were to categorize autocanceling, then it would go under frame data.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Links can space and play safe extremely well with a combination of high damage, high range, and ridiculously low landing lag aerials (10 frames of landing lag in bair/nair, 12 in fair), and strong projectiles that can be used to start high damage combos or confirm into kills

His combo game is underdeveloped but once players start to incorporate footstools into things more often its going to get strong and stronger, I've seen bomb -> footstool -> nair -> arrow lock x2 followed up by the reverse hit of up tilt -> bair -> up b and all of a sudden you're in kill % off of one conversion. Of course that is a rather risky thing to go for, but its insane reward is sometimes worth it.

Another thing that I think is extremely underutilized is Link's walk. Its fast, especially for how slow Link's run speed is, and everything but jab and d tilt (which can be used to set up 50/50s instead) is a kill move with decent speed for how strong it is

*cough*givehimbackhismeleeairspeedsakurai*cough*

 

[EternalFlare]

Shuton's Olimar is really crazy, it's amazing what he does with this character. He racks up damage in the blink of an eye and kills people before you know it... I have no idea how he does it.



This is incorrect. Moves that have high base knockback are the ones that are most affected by rage. Ness Bthrow has a BKB of 15, Fox Fsmash 20, Fox Usmash 30, Lucina Uthrow 70. If you use these moves there's no wonder you find Lucina's Uthrkw and Fox's Usmash killing much earlier than Fox's Fsmash and Ness' Bthrow, but that doesn't have anything to do (directly) with the fact that one has vertical knockback and the other horizontal, it has to do with base knockback.

In this case, Ness Bthrow has a base knockback of 15 whereas Mewtwo Uthrow has a base knockback of 72, which is absurdly high, so clearly Mew-two's Uthrow benefits more from rage.

Thanks for clearing that up, this is interesting. I had no idea BKB is what determined how effective rage was.

I wonder if that means for some characters, their best kill options completely change depending on how much rage they have.

 

[PK Gaming]

I wonder what it says that a character with subpar frame data but strong mobility (Palutena) seems to do better than characters with good frame data but subpar mobility (Falco, Corrin?).

Aren't Corrin's tournament results a lot better than Palutena's?

Anyway, I see the point you're trying to make; mobility is extremely important and it can make up for some serious shortcomings. Conversely, it's easier for top tier to run circles around slower characters.

 

[Ffamran]

It says that mobility is king. Most high/top tiers are above-average in this regard, so it makes sense. Rosalina and Ryu are the main exceptions, neither is particularly known for being mobile. Rosalina has Luma to make up the difference, which probably says something about how strong Luma is as a tool, but Ryu is way outside my knowledge zone so no comment there.

Do autocancels fall under frame data or mobility? I'd assume the former.

Just popping in here to ask: how is Rosalina not mobile? At worst, she's average in everything, but fall speed where she's below, a floaty, and air acceleration where she's queen alongside queens Jigglypuff and Peach and super fighting butler robot Mega Man. Also, jump height where she's like third or fourth... Anyway, Rosalina's is definitely mobile, especially in the air where she boasts pretty average air speed with high air acceleration to move about while on the ground, she's slightly above average with her run speed. Maybe it's because she's big and it doesn't seem like she's moving fast, maybe it's because Rosalina players tend to not run around with her much, maybe it's because fellow glide-runners Cloud, Charizard, Meta Knight, Mewtwo -- definitely post-patch for this rabbit-thing --, and Palutena that she seems slower, or maybe it's something else.

For Ryu... yeah, pretty much outside of his run speed. If you consider Ryu's run speed which is average as an "exception", then add in Bayonetta and Mario. Bayonetta's iffy, but I doubt she's any lower than (high) mid-tier. Anyway, Bayonetta's only really mobile through her fall speed, she's fast faller, and run speed which is average, tied with Mario and Ryu. Air speed slightly below average if you consider 1 to be average and not 1.15, Mario's air speed which is more like above-average in Smash 4, but she's also got good air acceleration. What really makes her move is her burst movement options, Afterburner Kick and Heel Slide for horizontal and Witch Twist for extra vertical movement. Mario at this point being called slow or whatever compared to other top tiers is kind of... silly. Dude's Mr. Average and in this game, he's more like Mr. Not-Average. He's not the I kind of hit hard, but I kind of hit weak too like he was in previous games; Mario's pretty much Ken who doesn't hit as hard as Ryu, but hits fast and pressures hard. He's not average in mobility, especially in the air; Mario's air speed seems more like above-average or even high than average and his run speed would be considered above-average in previous games, but for the sake of things, let's consider 1.6 to be average run speed in Smash 4.

Spoiler: Run and walk speed spiel

On horizontal mobility in general, there's just a really large gap between who's fast and who's slow in run speed -- with and without factoring in Sonic who you could consider as an outlier because of the jump from first to second-fastest -- and walk speed. With run speed, it's kind of simple. The fastest is 3.5 with Sonic or 2.32 with Captain Falcon and the slowest is 1.15, Robin. There are characters who walk as fast or even faster than the slower runners. It's like the fastest walkers are jogging and the slowest runners are jogging... I remember posting about this where if you start at the lowest run speed, there are 27 characters who walk as fast or faster than Robin and by the time you get up to the fastest walkers, 2, Lucina and Marth, of them match the 1.5 crew of runners which isn't as insane, but still pretty bad that your run speed is not even faster than a few characters' walk speed. I feel like run speed and even walk speed have too low of a floor where run speed should probably have a floor of 1.4 or at least 1.3 rather than 1.15. At 1.4, only 6 characters would walk as fast or faster; at 1.3, only 9 would walk as fast or faster. Would it really make a difference? Maybe not, but it would be a quality of life change. Take Ganondorf. Would a run speed of 1.3 or his Melee run speed of 1.35 really break him? No. He's still slow, but not as slow. Now, Ganondorf with a run speed of 1.6 or something stupid like a run speed of 1.9. Okay, that's when King of Evil became Demigod of Evil. Crank it up to 3.5 and he'd definitely be a God of Evil.

Speeds around 1.6 to 1.5 aren't really that noticeable in difference. You could even extend it to 1.45. It's when you get lower and lower or faster and faster that things do make a difference, especially since the characters who have fast run speeds aren't as clustered together compared to the ones who have slower run speeds. There's 1 in the 3.5 range, 1 in the 2.3 range, 1 in 2.2 range, 2 in the 2.1 range, 4 in the 2.0 range, 3 in the 1.9 range, 4 in the 1.8 range, and 6 in the 1.7 range. For average, there's 8 in the 1.60 range. Going down, there's 12 in the 1.5 range, 7 in the 1.4 range, 4 in the 1.3 range, 2 in the 1.2 range, and 2 in the 1.1 range.

I guess the other thing is that compared to other games, sustained movement isn't as fast as in Smash. When you see characters move in games like The King of Fighters, Street Fighter, Tekken, etc., even with runs which is way more commital, they aren't like in Smash where you have Captain Falcon, Cloud, Sheik, or Yoshi blazing on through or even Mario running in. Most of them are done through walking which is also slower or dashing which... is kind of the same, but not really since nobody has a dash like SFV Nash's not even Fox or Little Mac.

Spoiler

Here it is repeated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3pQ0WB2NaM. Could you imagine someone with this kind of dash in Smash?

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

So according to that Link MU chart, he basically just beats heavies and low tiers. Then goes even with some characters (some of which I really don't think he goes even with, like Falcon and Yoshi for starters.), mostly mid tiers and a few high tiers like Mega Man and Bayonetta, while also losing to almost all high tier characters and a few other mid tiers. Tbh, that doesn't sounds very good seeing as more people are gonna use the mid and high tiers. Sheik and Diddy aren't exactly uncommon either.

 

[Jalil]

Rosa's eighth in jump height. Top 4 are Falco, Geninja, Zss and Luigi in that order but that's still really good.

 

[verbatim]

A high jump plus 3rd worse (fast) full-speed is a benefit with real downsides wrt mobility.

 

[EternalFlare]

The shield stun patch is rarely talked about but I think it's the most significant meta changing thing that has ever happened with Smash 4.

Take Marth for instance. Previous with Brawl shields in Smash 4, since nair didn't auto cancel on shield it was highly unsafe. Now despite it still not auto cancelling a well spaced nair is perfectly safe on shield in most matchups. And Marth has been performing extremely well lately, I don't think that's a coincidence.

What other characters do you guys feel benefit a lot from shield stun buffs?

Links can space and play safe extremely well with a combination of high damage, high range, and ridiculously low landing lag aerials (10 frames of landing lag in bair/nair, 12 in fair), and strong projectiles that can be used to start high damage combos or confirm into kills

His combo game is underdeveloped but once players start to incorporate footstools into things more often its going to get strong and stronger, I've seen bomb -> footstool -> nair -> arrow lock x2 followed up by the reverse hit of up tilt -> bair -> up b and all of a sudden you're in kill % off of one conversion. Of course that is a rather risky thing to go for, but its insane reward is sometimes worth it.

Another thing that I think is extremely underutilized is Link's walk. Its fast, especially for how slow Link's run speed is, and everything but jab and d tilt (which can be used to set up 50/50s instead) is a kill move with decent speed for how strong it is

*cough*givehimbackhismeleeairspeedsakurai*cough*

Let's not forget how much better his recovery is in this game compared to all previous Smash games thanks to no ledge hogging. Even in top 8 iirc T didn't get gimped once. And that was always one of Link's biggest weaknesses. It's still not the best recovery but it's so much better than it was before.

 

[juddy96]

Sumabato 12 (July 30th-31st) (Japan) (211 Entrants) (Category 2)
1st: Komorikiri , ,
2nd: Shuton
3rd: Taiheta
4th: Choco
5th: T
5th: Hayato.
7th: Kept
7th: Tea
9th: Songn ,
9th: Nietono ,
9th: HIKARU ,
9th: Shogun
13th: Taranito
13th: Ikep
13th: Gackt
13th: Pichi


also that Florida Monthly

Spoiler: Vitality

Vitality (July 30th) (Florida) (103 Entrants) (Category 1)
1st: Dath
2nd: StaticManny
3rd: MVD
4th: Xaltis
5th: Myran
5th: 8BitMan
7th: TNF|Child
7th: Eden
9th: Purple Guy
9th: Riot
9th: Hex
9th: WormyNugget
13th: Seibrik
13th: Tremendo Dude
13th: RoguePenguin
13th: Prince Ramen

Xaltis beat Riot with Lucina, Manny won a game with Roy and a game with Fox

 

[Deleted member 269706]

Dunno if anyone cares, but at the Colorado tourney there are 3 Yoshi's in top 8, all of which on losers side. Let's see how they do.
(Notable attendees include Vinnie, Falln, JJRockets, among a few others)

EDIT: YOSHI RESULTS

Spoiler

Mr. Doom and Regralht got 7th
JFK got 5th

 

[BunbUn129]

Let's not forget how much better his recovery is in this game compared to all previous Smash games thanks to no ledge hogging. Even in top 8 iirc T didn't get gimped once. And that was always one of Link's biggest weaknesses. It's still not the best recovery but it's so much better than it was before.

I think we should put less emphasis on the qualities of a character's recovery when discussing their ability to reset to neutral from an offstage position, and when discussing viability in general. No matter how good a recovery is, the offstage game is still a series of interactions; you need to read your opponent's recovery in order to properly punish them--something that cannot be done consistently because of human limitations--or opt to cover multiple options with a lingering hitbox but often for sub-optimal punishment. Now there are a few recoveries that can be punished on reaction, an example being Little Mac, but in such cases you usually have to send them flying far enough offstage in the first place, which often won't happen until higher percentages when Little Mac would've only lived a little longer before dying to a confirm or smash attack read anyway. With air dodges being quite safe and top-tiers having very good aerial drift overall, I think we should focus a lot more on a character's ledge options, rather than the 2 or so different ways they can get to the ledge.

"Meta Knight is such a difficult character to edge guard" has long been a cliche of commentary on matches involving the bat. What they don't tell you is that getting off the ledge is a not entirely easy. His get-up attack is tied for the slowest (and get-up attacks as whole are considered bad already). His ledge roll is relatively fast, but ledge rolls are 50-frame-long actions that can be punished on reaction. His normal get-up is average. Ledge jumps are largely standardized; however, MK's ledge jump is counter-balanced by mediocre air speed, poor range and active frames on his aerials, and his aerials that have moderately high landing lag without favorable auto-cancels. While challenging MK offstage is difficult, his trouble getting off the ledge means he should not return to neutral without taking a bit of percent and possibly being forced back offstage. Mr. R exploited this all the way when fighting Ito's MK. MK isn't heavy so even taking 5% off of a ledge punish is non-trivial.

Fox, Diddy, and Ryu demand a lot of respect when you're trying to get back onstage; this is despite all of them having limited aerial mobility, with Fox in particular having long-duration aerial attacks, and overall these three aren't renowned for offstage edge-guards. But getting off the ledge is where the struggle lies. Fox has a frame 3 up tilt that leads into his threatening juggle game and can sometimes lead into a back air; Ryu has lighting-fast tilts that confirm into his best KO move or open up high-damage combos; Diddy has his Bananigans and his amazing d tilt.

Out of more than 10 games between Ranai and Taihara, Ranai only managed to secure one pocket gimp on Lucas (credit to @warionumbah2 for getting this neat little statistic). This is despite the combination of Villager's exceptional edge guard tools and Ranai's talents--because even if character x ****s on y's recovery in theory, the player of character y can still mix-up their recovery to avoid such scenarios.

Having a good or bad recovery is less important than we often make it out to be considering Smash 4 removed edge hogging and improved recovery moves. The removal of regrab invincibility and ledge trumping put far more emphasis on ledge play with regards to edge-guarding.

What I'm trying to say is that we shouldn't be surprised when characters like Dr. Mario, Ganondorf, Link, and Little Mac get back to the stage more often than not--offstage play is frequently discussed as though it's a one-sided affair when in practice it's a guessing game and the edge-guarder's attempt will fail most of the time.

 

[ARISTOS]

Nothing gets this thread more active than ****ting on characters, lol

In regards to this



I tend to look towards results because I think common conceptions of MUs are very nebulous and short sighted. How often did we hear "Rosa gets shafted by Cloud,"? How often did we hear "Pikachu has a great MU spread"?

We make these MU spreads, and they are often colored by common perceptions. Majority opinion can sometimes lead to great solutions but it can often lead to massive groupthink as well.

If Cloud's MU spread is as good as in reality as it is in theory, then we should be seeing that reflected in his results. As is, we only see Cloud dominating at the low-mid level (highlighted in the peewee tournament Nintendo threw last week).

Going back to what I wrote here because even though it's right in technicality it isn't the complete picture it should have been.

Raw results are our observable data, and collected directly from tournament outcomes. It can never be wrong.

However, our assumptions based off of that data can be very wrong. For example, early Smash 4 had as big tyrants, and we thought of them as top tier characters. In actuality, we just didn't know enough about the game. The same holds true for .

It is correct to say that X character wins more tournaments than Y.
However, we must be careful in then taking that statement and making it into "X character is better than Y".


Because we can not set up a scenario where 58 top level players of equal skill can go at each other infinitely without fatiguing, we end up with tournament data that has a ton of extraneous variables:

1. Representation (Who showed vs who didn't)
2. Brackets (Who did you have to play?)
3. Out of game factors (Fatigue, family/relationship/personal stress, etc.)
4. Talent (How good is X vs the competition)
5. Rulesets (Miis, 2 vs 3 stock, 3 starter vs 5 starter, etc.)

and so on.

This all has to be considered when trying to figure out relative character placements and MUs.

As such, really think about the metrics and processes done to make sure that we are dealing with these variables properly. Das Koopa does a good job in regards to #1,2, and especially 4 (Large sample size+weighing the individual tournaments), but figuring out the rest remains a challenge.

From experiences against other characters, we start creating our theory (MU charts, possible options that can be used, etc.). This is useful as it allows us to predict things that may take awhile to happen (ie the rise of after buffs). However, it is important to note that our theory might not hold, or even that theory may only hold for a certain point in time. There was a time in the world that people believed economic prosperity = holdings of gold. Can you imagine that today?

As we learn more about Smash 4, and mains learn to use things other than and , our theories and results should change. Remember, if a theory doesn't match the results, it becomes a bad theory. Much like the theory of trickle-down economics, repudiate bad ideas. They are not helpful in our understanding of Smash. Reflect on what we got wrong and how to think things through in the future.

TL'DR: Rambled a bit, but in general just be careful in holding to tightly to both results and theory. Both can only paint incomplete pictures.

In other news, what has happened with recently? Haven't seen him since San's performance at GOML.

PS: Don't take that extra shot of tequila, not worth it