Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[C0rvus]

Definitely a cool place to be in the meta game right now. So many characters have the sauce to come out of the woodwork and impress spectators and players alike, and they are. Toon Link, Lucario, Corrin, Greninja, etc have been showing their strength lately. Link, Mewtwo, Marth, and others are building up steam, it's just a matter of time.

What a time to be playing the game and not having a main

 

[Luig]

I think if Link's jab was actually fast (not frame 7) he'd benefit a ton from it. His setups would be much easier and he'd have a better up close option.

 

[Nysyr]

I think if Link's jab was actually fast (not frame 7) he'd benefit a ton from it. His setups would be much easier and he'd have a better up close option.

Can't you say this about every characters Jab? Like, except maybe Samus.

Lucario's Jab is basically F7 as well due to hitbox placement, and it a ****-tastic disaster to accidentally use (get you killed bad). Least Link's has some use lol.

Like it's so bad it only exists to get you killed really, if you'd delete the move Lucario would be a better character. Even Doubleteam has more uses.

 

[momochuu]

isnt exactly mobile lol. ties with for run speed and is between for air speed, and doesnt have notably good acceleration.

she has burst mobility which you can shield and punish.

she has fantastic mobility. not counting witch twist and ABK for her moblity would be the same as not counting hydro pump, zss down b, diddy side b, etc for those characters' mobility. bayonetta is absolutely safe while doing these options, where with the other characters there is at least some minor risk in using it in the wrong spot.

 

[Megamang]

'Only having burst mobility' is fine, since she can sit outside that range and chip damage you. This chip damage is scary because you are still in the burst mobility range, so you have to do something about it. If you do something about it wrong, or the bayonetta calls your choice, you eat a divekick and 50%+ damage. The character could totally exist with a regular palutena style counter and I wouldn't be phased, but you add WT and its like... woah. But, having a good option like that means you are more likely to bait it, while this isn't a real weakness it will definitely cost people sets, at least more than you will be baiting a marth or pally to counter.

Speaking of which, why do all these counters have a dodge component, or at least an air stall? You are fking countering, stop dodging too, it just gets you killed! I could land wayy more counters if I could dip down into moves, I can't count the times I counter and the stall makes me 'dodge' then eat ****. For WT its a fair balance component since it doesn't have bad cooldown like most counters, and Bat Within further boosts it.

We will see. It makes me sad that the DLC characters for the most part have more depth built in, in the form of more moves/modifiers for their moves. But at least we got a good amount of them, I'd be way more salty if they dropped Ryu and then quit.

 

[Blobface]

Bayonetta will never and I mean never have trouble killing with a forward-facing kill throw and her edgeguarding tools

Honestly, I also think she might be the best character (by a considerable margin might I add), but I would like to give her more time before I take on such a drastic opinion.

That being said, I still fail to see anything she doesn't do well. And just so we're clear, "doing something well" doesn't mean "best in the game at it", it means "this isn't a universally exploitable weakness". For instance, ZSS's grab can be exploited by any character. It's a flaw that the character has to play around always.

Am I missing something? Does Bayo have some trait or flaw that's a key factor in every matchup?

 

[MistressRemilia]

Definitely a cool place to be in the meta game right now. So many characters have the sauce to come out of the woodwork and impress spectators and players alike, and they are. Toon Link, Lucario, Corrin, Greninja, etc have been showing their strength lately. Link, Mewtwo, Marth, and others are building up steam, it's just a matter of time.

What a time to be playing the game and not having a main

Eeeeeeh, not Link. Marth has Pugwest doing btr & Mewtwo had Mewsquared beating M2K. Link on the other hand has Isaw being his regularly good self & a few locals wins here & there because he's among the most popular character.
To be honest with you, i'm not a huge fan of Link in itself. The main problem is just discussion in itself, i've seen lots of Link players acting like they're the next big thing, but never really talking about matchups or results that matters, it feels very artificial.
I think his placement in the 4BR is pretty accurate: He's definitly above the characters of the bottom tier, i could see him going above Shulk & Falco & maybe some other characters.
He's just decent, but not that big of a deal either. He's just another workable Low Tier with some nice tools & annoying cons that lead into rather poor MU vs character that matters like Sheik or Fox, so a struggle to be mained & have good results with, just typical low tier thing.

 

[Megamang]

Its a meh forward facing kill throw off a **** grab.

Also, the reason her edgeguarding isn't huge is the same reason we ignore Link's great edgeguarding. The #1 and #2 characters as of right now are pretty much only edgeguarded if the user makes a terrible input mistake or bad decision; for all theorycrafting purposes you only think about punishing their ledge options since you aren't gimping them. The good gimpable characters like Ness and Fox should be gimped by most of the cast and thusly bayo doesn't get a huge boon from being better at killing them since it should be guaranteed.


She has **** CQC, besides Witch Twist. If your character can jump up and punish her brutally for it, she doesn't have great CQC options. She is light. She doesn't kill as well as many top and high tiers, regardless of having a mediocre throw. Ness, Fox, Greninja all have kill confirms that she wants.

Though my training mode testing has dtilt uair as a kill confirm against Shiek at 126% (IIRC) so I think that may change. FWIW its harder to connect if spaced at optimal range, and DI probably helps a lot since Bayo has mediocre aerial mobility.

 

[momochuu]

She has **** CQC, besides Witch Twist.

she has a godly 6 frame dtilt with as much range as sword characters

 

[C0rvus]

she has a godly 6 frame dtilt with as much range as sword characters

That combos into everything, and sets up kills.

 

[Megamang]

Frame 7, and having your best CQC move be that slow would be a con if we were talking about anyone else.

 

[David Viran]

Frame 7, and having your best CQC move be that slow would be a con if we were talking about anyone else.

Yeah but with bayo its just scary to even throw out a hitbox in fear of WT. It makes it hard to know when to challenge bayo.

 

[Pancracio17]

Yeah but with bayo its just scary to even throw out a hitbox in fear of WT. It makes it hard to know when to challenge bayo.

This is exactly why fox isnt that bad of a matchup for her, witch time just inflicts so much fear.

Oh and for kill confirms she also has dtilt-usmash wich is harder to land thanks to DI but still true if you dash foward, works on strict percentages though

 

[Jerm]

Shulk is top 15

 

[Nobie]

The balance between Bayonetta's relatively slow startup on most of her attacks and the threat of Witch Time is why I keep looking at characters that can potentially "deal" with Witch Time, which is generally by not triggering it at all.

 

[L9999]

Shulk is top 15

Sorry, but I don't get it...

 

[Megamang]

Ok, I know you're a known shulk player so I'm curious, is that a joke about frame data (the most well known/most discussed issue with shulk) being thrown to the side for bayo, or are you serious? I know he is more threatening to fight than most people give him credit for, I fear shulk more than most placed in his tier range.

Also, he has an absurdly good counter! The parallels keep coming.

 

[C0rvus]

So Izaw says Link is better than Toon Link, puts him at 17th-18th. He cited his result at BEAST 6, which is impressive, but I can't help but recall Toon Link's results from all sides of the globe. It seems to be a theme among Link mains to overrate the character.

 

[Radical Larry]

So Izaw says Link is better than Toon Link, puts him at 17th-18th. He cited his result at BEAST 6, which is impressive, but I can't help but recall Toon Link's results from all sides of the globe. It seems to be a theme among Link mains to overrate the character.

Did...did someone just call me?
Because I think the results of BEAST 6 now justify me saying Link has more potential than one can think. It was only a matter of time before a surprise Link got higher. Now it's just a matter of time before more Links get better against their opponents.

As for Link being 17th and 18th? Maybe it can happen one day, maybe not with the current meta, but I'm justified in saying Link is an upper middle tier to a lower high tier in potential now.

Seriously, this caught me off guard by a substantial amount.

 

[Jerm]

Ok, I know you're a known shulk player so I'm curious, is that a joke about frame data (the most well known/most discussed issue with shulk) being thrown to the side for bayo, or are you serious? I know he is more threatening to fight than most people give him credit for, I fear shulk more than most placed in his tier range.

Also, he has an absurdly good counter! The parallels keep coming.

I'm being serious.

He has so much range that I feel his lack of frame data can easily be remedied with proper spacing. Someone is being super defensive and holding shield all the time? Shulk can go buster and abuse his 17% throws by using mix-ups and tomahawks to get close.

He also has really solid MU's across the entire cast- the definite worst 3 being Diddy, Sheik and Fox. Other than that basically all of Shulk's MU's are extremely close.

 

[AxelVDP]

So Izaw says Link is better than Toon Link, puts him at 17th-18th. He cited his result at BEAST 6, which is impressive, but I can't help but recall Toon Link's results from all sides of the globe. It seems to be a theme among Link mains to overrate the character.

well, to his merits, italy's (probably) best player Bluelink (who mains both Links) also believes regular Link to be the better of the 2
I don't recall his exact reasoning but it was something like "Toon Link has to rely to much on his projectile game to be good while Link can work even at medium-close ranges" (don't quote me on this tho)

I don't think he would rank them anywhere near the top 15 tho, I'd have to ask him but I believe he would place them in the top 25ish range

 

[Ghostbone]

Also, the reason her edgeguarding isn't huge is the same reason we ignore Link's great edgeguarding. The #1 and #2 characters as of right now are pretty much only edgeguarded if the user makes a terrible input mistake or bad decision; for all theorycrafting purposes you only think about punishing their ledge options since you aren't gimping them. The good gimpable characters like Ness and Fox should be gimped by most of the cast and thusly bayo doesn't get a huge boon from being better at killing them since it should be guaranteed.

Bayonetta can actually edgeguard options like bouncing fish and vanish, or flip kick and tether, unlike 95% of the characters in this game.

And Fox isn't that easy to edgeguard, Bayo is close to the best at it because she can cover so much space and has ridiculously long lasting htiboxes, and if fox side-b's on stage witch time is a thing.
It's a similar story against a lot of recoveries, if you actually think Bayo isn't that much better at edgeguarding than most characters then that just means you haven't seen a good bayo edgeguard yet.

She has **** CQC, besides Witch Twist. If your character can jump up and punish her brutally for it, she doesn't have great CQC options. She is light. She doesn't kill as well as many top and high tiers, regardless of having a mediocre throw. Ness, Fox, Greninja all have kill confirms that she wants.

"She has **** CQC besides a frame 4 OoS option that confirms into 40% damage and is safe on shield"
Yea when you ignore character's broken tools they do look pretty bad.

She kills perfectly fine, bair has a very generous hitbox and forces them to shield near the ledge, where you get empty hop grab kills. Her vertical death combos are also a very real thing (she can catch various forms of DI with slightly different timings or options) which start at very low %s. And even if someone lives to 150% or more, really that's not that high because she racks up ridiculous amounts of damage off of any stray hit. She's still kills you in less hits from neutral than you do.

 

[Greward]

The balance between Bayonetta's relatively slow startup on most of her attacks and the threat of Witch Time is why I keep looking at characters that can potentially "deal" with Witch Time, which is generally by not triggering it at all.

No character can "not trigger witch time at all".
You are gonna throw attacks. No character can only use grabs. You will use attacks in neutral, you will try and catch her in the air with aerials and you are going to try and get back to neutral with attacks. Also most recoveries do have a hitbox.
Even then, most grabs just go even with witch time since her invulnerability will dodge the grab.
Witch time is a real threat to any attack that you use and will use, and you just have to hope that she won't witch time it. Other super strong counters like Corrin's can have the counterplay of using weak moves, but bayonetta doesn't, which is completely stupid imo.

Bayonetta doesn't have that bad of a frame data tbh. UpB makes up for it a lot. Her normals have way more range than the animation looks like, and long range means long startup.
UpB is just plain stupid. If you are supposed to throw out moves and out-frame data her (and hope she doesn't use witch time), why does she have such a good and fast super safe move? And if she hits you with it she will combo off of it.

I don't see many ways to approach the matchup besides trying to abuse rage.

 

[Radical Larry]

Seeing Link just make that high of a placement above high tier characters and top tier characters alike is astonishing. I'm guessing that Link is the "Low Tier Hero" that we've been trying to find this entire time, and he's right under our noses. If Izaw can make a high placement, imagine what may happen within the future of Link's meta?

Izaw would be completely justified in saying Link has the potential to be a top tier (if Top Tiers are up to 20)/high tier character if he starts winning more majors, nationals and internationals. BEAST 6 was just the first step in the surprise sight, and maybe more people could become Link.

Aside from that, I saw an impressive Greninja ranking, but a very subpar placement for Toon Link.

 

[Teshie U]

Using Up B every time someone gets near her has a price eventually as it increases her landing lag. Its safe, but its puts her in an unsafe position.

Unless you are a tether grabber, you should just be able to buffer another grab if she witch times to block a grab. Its a 45 frame commitment with 30+ frames where you can grab her after the invincibility wears off.

 

[C0rvus]

Even Shulk? It's official. Now EVERYONE thinks they are top 15.

 

[williamsga555]

Don't speak for the Dedede boards just yet.

 

[Ffamran]

Bayonetta doesn't have that bad of a frame data tbh. UpB makes up for it a lot. Her normals have way more range than the animation looks like, and long range means long startup.
UpB is just plain stupid. If you are supposed to throw out moves and out-frame data her (and hope she doesn't use witch time), why does she have such a good and fast super safe move? And if she hits you with it she will combo off of it.

I don't see many ways to approach the matchup besides trying to abuse rage.

Bayonetta's frame data is basically Captain Falcon's if you swapped a frame 3 jab for a frame 4 Up Special to act as a Captain Falcon's Uair as a juggle and confirm and threw out Falcon Punch for a projectile - Falcon Punch is technically there as her Side Smash -, Raptor Boost for a more flexible Falcon Kick as Heel Slide and Afterburner Kick, and a "counter" to fill in where Falcon Kick would have been.

 

[ARGHETH]

Izaw would be completely justified in saying Link has the potential to be a top tier (if Top Tiers are up to 20)/high tier character if he starts winning more majors, nationals and internationals. BEAST 6 was just the first step in the surprise sight, and maybe more people could become Link.

Ehh...he has to start winning stuff, though. This is just one tournament.

Aside from that, I saw an impressive Greninja ranking, but a very subpar placement for Toon Link.

You mean like G3 had a subpar Link placement?
(Seriously, though, why mention TL?)

Even Shulk? It's official. Now EVERYONE thinks they are top 15.

Hey, Robin boards thinks we're top 20.
(25ish, actually. But whatever)

 

[Ghostbone]

Using Up B every time someone gets near her has a price eventually as it increases her landing lag. Its safe, but its puts her in an unsafe position.

Bair and nair are still safe on shield with the extra first up-b lag, and she can always side-b to a platform or go to the ledge or something.

Also worth noting that she can witch time on landing to ignore the extra landing lag she'd otherwise get.

 

[|RK|]

Bayonetta will never and I mean never have trouble killing with a forward-facing kill throw and her edgeguarding tools

Honestly, I also think she might be the best character (by a considerable margin might I add), but I would like to give her more time before I take on such a drastic opinion.

That being said, I still fail to see anything she doesn't do well. And just so we're clear, "doing something well" doesn't mean "best in the game at it", it means "this isn't a universally exploitable weakness". For instance, ZSS's grab can be exploited by any character. It's a flaw that the character has to play around always.

Am I missing something? Does Bayo have some trait or flaw that's a key factor in every matchup?

I still don't get how she deals with shields and SDI. Her "kill throw" won't kill Kirby at the edge with decent DI at 130% (IIRC).

Witch Time is crazy though.

 

[PK Gaming]

Definitely a cool place to be in the meta game right now. So many characters have the sauce to come out of the woodwork and impress spectators and players alike, and they are. Toon Link, Lucario, Corrin, Greninja, etc have been showing their strength lately. Link, Mewtwo, Marth, and others are building up steam, it's just a matter of time.

What a time to be playing the game and not having a main

It's super fun to watch this game at high level play now. I seriously never thought Smash 4 would get to this point, what a time to be alive.

 

[Ghostbone]

I still don't get how she deals with shields and SDI. Her "kill throw" won't kill Kirby at the edge with decent DI at 130% (IIRC).

How does she not deal with shield? U-throw combos exist, and u-throw and d-throw have various set-ups as well.
Also, shield is only threatening if your opponent can actually convert shielding your move into something, everything from bayo is safe so she doesn't really care if she just hits your shield with 10 bairs or d-tilts until it pokes lol.

 

[Megamang]

I was trying to point out some non ridiculous aspects of the character, more than I was trying to actually say she is below average in anything. I agree she is amazing.

Speaking of edgeguarding, how does she challenge vanish? WTing the first hitbox leaves you with an invisible invincible shiek for the duration until and invincible snap, assuming shiek does everything correctly.

Witch Twist doesn't catch you from her OOS or boxing range if you are spacing decently. Of course its gonna score some ridiculous confirms, thats its job, but it doesn't totally cover a CQC game, in my experience so far.


Also, what in neutral confirms into these ridiculous combos? All the combos I see start from either a poorly spaced dtilt, or some form of side or up B, which aren't great neutral tools. People are letting Bayonetta get away with HS in neutral, but thats silly and she shouldn't be using that in that way.

I don't think wasting witch time to land laglessly is a good choice, you only get a few before they aren't as good.

She does have a ridiculous RPS game where anyone trying to deal with her neutral in a certain way can get WTed, yet you can't over respect her or you die to other tools. Im just wondering how she deals with obnoxious safety like shiek and ZSS can barrage with, or crazy grab games like Ness,

 

[C0rvus]

It's super fun to watch this game at high level play now. I seriously never thought Smash 4 would get to this point, what a time to be alive.

I only worry how long it will last. No point in doing so, I guess. Better enjoy it before the gap between characters becomes more and more apparent.
Also, Hana is great. My favorite Hoshido unit so far.

 

[Tri Knight]

well, to his merits, italy's (probably) best player Bluelink (who mains both Links) also believes regular Link to be the better of the 2
I don't recall his exact reasoning but it was something like "Toon Link has to rely to much on his projectile game to be good while Link can work even at medium-close ranges" (don't quote me on this tho)

I don't think he would rank them anywhere near the top 15 tho, I'd have to ask him but I believe he would place them in the top 25ish range

I can agree to this. TL has to rely a lot more on projectiles than Link does... but can utilize his much better as well. That's probably one of the biggest reasons why TL has seen better results more consistently (disregarding Beast for now). He can float around and spam very well.

For now, I'll still say TL is better overall simply due to his rankings (although lately I actually think Link wins their MU). But Link is finally showing potential which is just great. I'm excited to seem him go even further.

I wouldn't rate Link top 15 though... at least until he shows a bit more. Hes definitely somewhere between 20-30 though.

 

[Ghostbone]

Speaking of edgeguarding, how does she challenge vanish? WTing the first hitbox leaves you with an invisible invincible shiek for the duration until and invincible snap, assuming shiek does everything correctly.

Catch the 2 frame with nair. Also vanish doesn't have infinite range so you can go out and hit her or bait bouncing fish or something.

Witch Twist doesn't catch you from her OOS or boxing range if you are spacing decently. Of course its gonna score some ridiculous confirms, thats its job, but it doesn't totally cover a CQC game, in my experience so far.

It has fairly generous range in front of her, and if they're not in range, that's what d-tilt and bair are for.

Also, what in neutral confirms into these ridiculous combos? All the combos I see start from either a poorly spaced dtilt, or some form of side or up B, which aren't great neutral tools. People are letting Bayonetta get away with HS in neutral, but thats silly and she shouldn't be using that in that way.

Nair, fair, d-tilt, u-tilt, bair, grab, divekick, up-b, grounded or aerial side-b, witch time....
Every move in her arsenal essentially

I don't think wasting witch time to land laglessly is a good choice, you only get a few before they aren't as good.

I mean you only have to use it if someone is actually trying to punish your landing with an attack lol, if they aren't then it doesn't matter how much lag your landing has, you're fine.

 

[Megamang]

If you do vanish correctly it doesn't have a 2 frame. Zero already does this, its only so long until most shieks above low level are doing this.

Nair and bair confirm into stuff? That would be the most devastating but I never get a guaranteed follow up out of nair. Is there an auto cancel requirement? I can see bair into uABK working.

 

[Ghostbone]

Using vanish "correctly" just means with specific spacing that is a lot easier to call out before halfway through the move and punish. Sheik isn't immortal off stage and characters like Pikachu, MK and Bayo show that.

 

[Browny]

Bayonetta will never and I mean never have trouble killing with a forward-facing kill throw and her edgeguarding tools

What even constitutes a kill move these days?

Her fthrow doesnt kill at the ledge until around 156% on midweights.

Is jigglypuffs ftilt a kill move now if it kills at a similar range?