• Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!

    You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!

Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

Status
Not open for further replies.

HeavyLobster

Smash Champion
Joined
Jun 7, 2014
Messages
2,074
NNID
HeavyLobster43
From what I can tell so far, Bayonetta feels like anti-aerial the character. She can do so many things to screw with aerial approaches, such as Bullet Climax, grounded Side-B slipping under aerials, Witch Twist, especially OOS, her low crouch + a Dtilt that leads into everything, and her own strong aerials as well. Her grounded normals outside of Dtilt are pretty situational, and generally I feel she'll struggle more with short, ground-based characters with strong neutral games, though I doubt she actually gets hard countered due to the strength of her combo game. Kill confirms are also going to be valuable since her escape options are bonkers.
 

R3D3MON

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Jan 1, 2016
Messages
436
NNID
KeeHwang2010
Now that reminds me... If I remember correctly, someone - was it DunnoBro? - said there were two control schemes for Mario players: one that uses C-stick to tilts to make aerial combos easier and one that uses Smash letting Mario get reverse Up Smashes. You can't have both apparently. Maybe it was for Diddy... I don't remember completely, but it probably has a factor in this.

Edit: Yeah, thinking this is what Mario does considering Jtails's tutorial on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1mkvkYtwmk.
Well you can do reverse JC up smashes with both control schemes (tap jump off), but the latter scheme (with c-stick set to smash) is a bit easier. Essentially if you set your c-stick at normal attack (not smash attacks), you will have to learn to input smash by simultaneously pressing A and smashing the control stick in the appropriate direction of the smash attack (so for up smash it would A and a strong upwards push on the control stick). This removes the ease of smash attack use with c-stick set to attack, since you have to properly time yourself for every smash attack you want to make. However I found this to be definitely doable, and c-stick set to attack is definitely amazing for both tilts and aerials since you don't miss-input JC up-smashes when trying to double-stick up aerial or do a rising up aerial.
To do a reverse JC up smash with c-stick set to tilts, you have to run, then immediately input the opposite direction that you were running with your control stick and then immediately input an up smash by quickly smashing your control stick upwards and pressing A at the same time. The timing is somewhat strict, and you have to do all of these steps almost all at the same time. However with practice I found myself doing this consistently all the time, and now I just use c-stick set to tilts as my main control scheme now since both of my mains (the mario bros) need to use their tilts effectively and also I need all the aerial control I can get (Side note: I think c-stick set to smash attacks messes with air acceleration, right? I don't remember if Nintendo patched this out or not).

tl;dr reverse JC up smash with c-stick set to tilts requires you to run and immediately input the opposite direction of your run with the control stick and then immediately input up (control stick direction) + A simultaneously. All of these inputs should basically be inputted all at the same time since the timing for the reverse JC up smash is not free. However this is definitely doable at a consistent rate with practice, as I have learned to do so.

Can't you do something like that at any point during a run? You can turn around during a run, cancel that turn around with a jump (how rar is done) and cancel the jump with an usmash? PP JC usmash would be the a frame perfect one from a standing point but is the PP necessary?
Yep this is completely true. Works regardless of your control scheme/setup for your c-stick, although it is easier to do with c-stick set to smash attacks.
 

Tobi_Whatever

あんたバカァ~!?
Joined
Oct 30, 2014
Messages
2,647
Location
Germany
NNID
Tobi_whatever
His article on Bowser Jr is great too. It's just the same nonsense every single time, year after year with 'backroom' tier lists that just completely ignore certain characters because they think are low tier (think, as in they don't know anything at all) and attribute it entirely to player skill.

It's pure, unfiltered confirmation bias. People believe Bowser Jr and Ganondorf are horrible because of bias, therefore when those characters perform poorly its because they are bad. When they perform well its because the player is good. People believe that characters like pikachu and ryu are amazing and top tier. When the character performs poorly its because they werent used 'optimally' (as in, lack of player skill) and when they perform well its clearly because the character is top 4.

It's sadly ironic, because if early on people believed that Ganondorf was actually a mid tier character it is extremely likely that they would look on his results more favourably and not go 'lol bad region, results dont matter' but because of how he was in brawl, it may take many years for people to look past this.

It seriously took years of constant high results for Sonic, ZSS and Olimar in brawl before they were rated where they should be despite bringing the results in from early on and I guess Bowser Jr and Ganondorf are going to suffer the same fate in this game.

To be honest WFT has it pretty bad as well, just as bad as those two I'd say. Mewtwo and G&W probably next.
This is pretty much why I personally would never create a tier list (in addition to knowing less than the BR members anyway).
I think it's unrealistic to expect from someone to properly rank every single character in the game, or even half the cast.
I don't think a single Smash 4 player can do this justice really, simply because it's a time problem. People should probably not vote on characters they don't have extensive knowledge about.

I too would rank Ganondorf higher by the way, our best local player is a Ganondorf main and he makes it clear how strong the character can be with a few proper reads.
 

Z'zgashi

Smash Legend
Joined
May 20, 2009
Messages
17,322
Location
WeJo, Utah
NNID
ZzgashiZzShy
3DS FC
1521-3678-2980
I think it's unrealistic to expect from someone to properly rank every single character in the game, or even half the cast.
Well a tier list isnt a definite, 100% perfect list, its just based on your current OPINION on the viability of the characters.

Take all lists with a grain of salt, there will never be an absolute perfect list, new things are discovered constantly and most match ups and character strength are largely based off opinion anyway. Even if you had a full match up chart like we did with Brawl, match ups will always be argued to be different, opinions will always change, and questions on how things should be weighted will always be debated. There will never be a list everyone will agree on, and that's fine.
 
Last edited:

MistressRemilia

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Feb 25, 2015
Messages
425
Location
France
To be honest, despite the many buffs Ganondorf got, let's talk Top level for a second:
Do you seriously have hopes for Ganondorf even doing anything vs a Top player?
No, he's going to get outlamed, he's worthless. The reason people would want him any higher is personal experience, but you know what? YOU SUCK :) We all suck, so stop taking the fact you got 0-2d by a Ganon, and become realistic.
All matchups vs anyone top tier except Fox who's still bad for Dorf are near hopeless if the players are on equal level of skill.
And you want this character to get any higher on this list? You have to be joking.
Besides, who could he get above? Palutena maybe and that's it?
It's not like he's much btr than anything above him. I won't talk about Miis becuse i don't know **** about them and you probably don't unless you actively play one of them. Samus has proven her possibilities as a Luigi counterpick here & there, and has workable matchups despite few hard matchups such as MK & Pikachu. Ganon above any other character is senseless to me, even one of the Samus' player took 1 Game off of ZeRo, which is honorable for a character judged to be so low.
Ganon has a few niche placements here & there, mainly coming of players so rememberable i already forgot about them, and Pon in japan who's actually pretty good with his character & has took sets off Lucia & Salena, 2 Good MKs, and almost beat Komorikiri, which is very good actually. But aside from that, i'm really not seeing why Ganon would deserve to get higher. Despite his great reward ( that is overrated if the opponent doesn't do multiple mistakes in a row ) , it is nearly unaccessible vs any good player. Ganon can do some work at locals & regionals, but so can all other bottom tiers.
 

Tobi_Whatever

あんたバカァ~!?
Joined
Oct 30, 2014
Messages
2,647
Location
Germany
NNID
Tobi_whatever
To be honest, despite the many buffs Ganondorf got, let's talk Top level for a second:
Do you seriously have hopes for Ganondorf even doing anything vs a Top player?
No, he's going to get outlamed, he's worthless. The reason people would want him any higher is personal experience, but you know what? YOU SUCK :) We all suck, so stop taking the fact you got 0-2d by a Ganon, and become realistic.
All matchups vs anyone top tier except Fox who's still bad for Dorf are near hopeless if the players are on equal level of skill.
And you want this character to get any higher on this list? You have to be joking.
Besides, who could he get above? Palutena maybe and that's it?
It's not like he's much btr than anything above him. I won't talk about Miis becuse i don't know **** about them and you probably don't unless you actively play one of them. Samus has proven her possibilities as a Luigi counterpick here & there, and has workable matchups despite few hard matchups such as MK & Pikachu. Ganon above any other character is senseless to me, even one of the Samus' player took 1 Game off of ZeRo, which is honorable for a character judged to be so low.
Ganon has a few niche placements here & there, mainly coming of players so rememberable i already forgot about them, and Pon in japan who's actually pretty good with his character & has took sets off Lucia & Salena, 2 Good MKs, and almost beat Komorikiri, which is very good actually. But aside from that, i'm really not seeing why Ganon would deserve to get higher. Despite his great reward ( that is overrated if the opponent doesn't do multiple mistakes in a row ) , it is nearly unaccessible vs any good player. Ganon can do some work at locals & regionals, but so can all other bottom tiers.
We are talking about a bottom tier character that should be higher within low tier, not a bottom tier character that we want to place in mid tier.
 

MistressRemilia

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Feb 25, 2015
Messages
425
Location
France
We are talking about a bottom tier character that should be higher within low tier, not a bottom tier character that we want to place in mid tier.
Ooh, because the characters i listed that i think should stay above Ganon are totally mid tier, right?
Seriously too, i just don't see it, how can you think this guy can get above anything who is above him, the only character i could see above Ganondorf is Palutena, which is still highly debatable. Some other characters either proved utility, or are commonly thought as strictly better because of X & Y Reasons.
So tell me, who do you think Ganon should be above?
 

Tobi_Whatever

あんたバカァ~!?
Joined
Oct 30, 2014
Messages
2,647
Location
Germany
NNID
Tobi_whatever
Ooh, because the characters i listed that i think should stay above Ganon are totally mid tier, right?
Seriously too, i just don't see it, how can you think this guy can get above anything who is above him, the only character i could see above Ganondorf is Palutena, which is still highly debatable. Some other characters either proved utility, or are commonly thought as strictly better because of X & Y Reasons.
So tell me, who do you think Ganon should be above?
I have not once in my life seen a proper Mii, but I'd place him right next to D3. Lucina should be a tier higher imo.
His results support that, as shown by the article linked on the last page.
 

Megamang

Smash Lord
Joined
Apr 21, 2015
Messages
1,791
A skilled palutena is much scarier than a skilled ganon, and her reflector is really nice in some MUs. Forces my megaman to basically forgo my normal zoning and fight her. Id imagine villager is the same.

Too bad she doesnt fight better... but her jab, fair, bair, and dash attack make a workable gameplan. Nair combos, and uair gets kills. Dthrow combos a little. Shes decently mobile running and on platform stages with teleport.

For all the zelda talk, palutena basiclly has the hypothetical sour fair that still rewards on hit.
 

Smog Frog

Smash Lord
Joined
Jun 30, 2014
Messages
1,180
**** son

is the hitstun low at high % even? can you still confirm into enough damage to confirm into a kill late?
 

Tobi_Whatever

あんたバカァ~!?
Joined
Oct 30, 2014
Messages
2,647
Location
Germany
NNID
Tobi_whatever
So KuroganeHammer KuroganeHammer found something interesting out about Witch Twist....

https://twitter.com/KuroganeHammer/status/696600722163392512

Reading into the subtweets it appears to not be able to set up a real combo into Fair1 if used a second time in a combo. Apparently you can just Airdodge out.
But what about uSpecial > ABK > uSpecial > ABK?
That appears to be true without DI.
If the tweet would be correct, it should be possible to AD the second ABK.
This would be great news for her overall balance.
 

TTTTTsd

Gordeau Main Paint Drinker
Joined
Sep 29, 2013
Messages
3,999
Location
Canada, where it's really cold
NNID
InverseTangent
But what about uSpecial > ABK > uSpecial > ABK?
That appears to be true without DI.
If the tweet would be correct, it should be possible to AD the second ABK.
This would be great news for her overall balance.
I would assume if Fair didn't connect, this wouldn't either consider it's a bit slower.

Would be worth testing, but I don't have any air dodger in my area, if anyone has a friend that wouldn't mind being a dummy or something it'd be nice.
 

Smog Frog

Smash Lord
Joined
Jun 30, 2014
Messages
1,180
well, instead of a kill confirm its a kill 50/50 then. :4sheik: gets by on one of those, so i guess :4bayonetta: can get by on that? even then she still does a ****load of damage of a simple confirm.
 

Tobi_Whatever

あんたバカァ~!?
Joined
Oct 30, 2014
Messages
2,647
Location
Germany
NNID
Tobi_whatever
I would assume if Fair didn't connect, this wouldn't either consider it's a bit slower.

Would be worth testing, but I don't have any air dodger in my area, if anyone has a friend that wouldn't mind being a dummy or something it'd be nice.
If no one does it until after work, I will force my poor flatmate to do it.
If he refuses no matter what, I will force my feet to do it.
 

Smog Frog

Smash Lord
Joined
Jun 30, 2014
Messages
1,180
doesnt setting the cpu action to dodge make it spam airdodge? i recall it doing that when i did it earlier on the 3ds.
 

TTTTTsd

Gordeau Main Paint Drinker
Joined
Sep 29, 2013
Messages
3,999
Location
Canada, where it's really cold
NNID
InverseTangent
HOWEVER, I would assume it wouldn't be true because a combo that has more hitstun was being airdodged out of consistently. Anti was airdodging ABK > ABK so I imagine this would be possible.

But yeah, we all talked about DI but we never thought about airdodging which....makes a lot of sense.

Also CPU setting to Action is unreliable, they don't mash. I've tried and hit things I shouldn't because it's not perfect, sadly. Training mode is ass.
 

Tobi_Whatever

あんたバカァ~!?
Joined
Oct 30, 2014
Messages
2,647
Location
Germany
NNID
Tobi_whatever
HOWEVER, I would assume it wouldn't be true because a combo that has more hitstun was being airdodged out of consistently. Anti was airdodging ABK > ABK so I imagine this would be possible.

But yeah, we all talked about DI but we never thought about airdodging which....makes a lot of sense.

Also CPU setting to Action is unreliable, they don't mash. I've tried and hit things I shouldn't because it's not perfect, sadly. Training mode is ***.
I would argue not thinking about AD made sense since we all assumed that hitstun applied anyway.
This is a huge find. Would make me really happy if it turns out the way we assume right now.
Oh and yeah, **** training mode. Sakurai should have seriously stepped it up in that regard.
 
Last edited:

TTTTTsd

Gordeau Main Paint Drinker
Joined
Sep 29, 2013
Messages
3,999
Location
Canada, where it's really cold
NNID
InverseTangent
I would argue not thinking about AD made sense since we all assumed that hitstun applied anyway.
This is a huge find. Would make me really happy if it turns out the way we assume right now.
Oh and yeah, **** training mode. Sakurai should have seriously stepped it up in that regard.
This also has the potential of making Bayo mirrors more hype than they already are.

Bat Within airdodges everywhere~. Just like the source material.
 

HeavyLobster

Smash Champion
Joined
Jun 7, 2014
Messages
2,074
NNID
HeavyLobster43
To be honest, despite the many buffs Ganondorf got, let's talk Top level for a second:
Do you seriously have hopes for Ganondorf even doing anything vs a Top player?
No, he's going to get outlamed, he's worthless. The reason people would want him any higher is personal experience, but you know what? YOU SUCK :) We all suck, so stop taking the fact you got 0-2d by a Ganon, and become realistic.
All matchups vs anyone top tier except Fox who's still bad for Dorf are near hopeless if the players are on equal level of skill.
And you want this character to get any higher on this list? You have to be joking.
Besides, who could he get above? Palutena maybe and that's it?
It's not like he's much btr than anything above him. I won't talk about Miis becuse i don't know **** about them and you probably don't unless you actively play one of them. Samus has proven her possibilities as a Luigi counterpick here & there, and has workable matchups despite few hard matchups such as MK & Pikachu. Ganon above any other character is senseless to me, even one of the Samus' player took 1 Game off of ZeRo, which is honorable for a character judged to be so low.
Ganon has a few niche placements here & there, mainly coming of players so rememberable i already forgot about them, and Pon in japan who's actually pretty good with his character & has took sets off Lucia & Salena, 2 Good MKs, and almost beat Komorikiri, which is very good actually. But aside from that, i'm really not seeing why Ganon would deserve to get higher. Despite his great reward ( that is overrated if the opponent doesn't do multiple mistakes in a row ) , it is nearly unaccessible vs any good player. Ganon can do some work at locals & regionals, but so can all other bottom tiers.
Dorf is generally thought to do decently against Mario, Fox, Ness, and MK among the high tiers. Zero Suit and Cloud are tough but not impossible. Dorf is bad but not the worst. Dedede and Zelda very clearly have worse options in neutral, and Puff I think is also worse overall.
 

Emblem Lord

The Legendary Lord
Joined
Aug 11, 2005
Messages
9,720
Location
Scotch Plains, NJ
NNID
ShinEmblemLord
3DS FC
3926-6895-0574
Switch FC
SW-0793-4091-6136
To be honest, despite the many buffs Ganondorf got, let's talk Top level for a second:
Do you seriously have hopes for Ganondorf even doing anything vs a Top player?
No, he's going to get outlamed, he's worthless. The reason people would want him any higher is personal experience, but you know what? YOU SUCK :) We all suck, so stop taking the fact you got 0-2d by a Ganon, and become realistic.
All matchups vs anyone top tier except Fox who's still bad for Dorf are near hopeless if the players are on equal level of skill.
And you want this character to get any higher on this list? You have to be joking.
Besides, who could he get above? Palutena maybe and that's it?
It's not like he's much btr than anything above him. I won't talk about Miis becuse i don't know **** about them and you probably don't unless you actively play one of them. Samus has proven her possibilities as a Luigi counterpick here & there, and has workable matchups despite few hard matchups such as MK & Pikachu. Ganon above any other character is senseless to me, even one of the Samus' player took 1 Game off of ZeRo, which is honorable for a character judged to be so low.
Ganon has a few niche placements here & there, mainly coming of players so rememberable i already forgot about them, and Pon in japan who's actually pretty good with his character & has took sets off Lucia & Salena, 2 Good MKs, and almost beat Komorikiri, which is very good actually. But aside from that, i'm really not seeing why Ganon would deserve to get higher. Despite his great reward ( that is overrated if the opponent doesn't do multiple mistakes in a row ) , it is nearly unaccessible vs any good player. Ganon can do some work at locals & regionals, but so can all other bottom tiers.
This **** right here. Godlike. 10/10 would read again.
 

TTTTTsd

Gordeau Main Paint Drinker
Joined
Sep 29, 2013
Messages
3,999
Location
Canada, where it's really cold
NNID
InverseTangent
"Ta-ta."

But it's weird that apparently you can airdodge any follow-up out of a second WT, since last night I was able to get it to register as a combo into fair.
Training mode is really really weird. It registers anything out of grab release as a combo too no matter how late your timing is (basically the only way to test is to be frame perfect).

It also has oddities like Mewtwo's confusion into FSmash being a combo, and so forth. This is probably in line with that.

If Doc's D-Throw > Fair didn't work in actual setplay against midweights/fastfallers I'd think Training Mode was lying to me about that too tbh.
 
Last edited:

Tobi_Whatever

あんたバカァ~!?
Joined
Oct 30, 2014
Messages
2,647
Location
Germany
NNID
Tobi_whatever
ParanoidDrone ParanoidDrone TTTTTsd TTTTTsd My guess is that it has something to do with hitstun, and airdodge caring less about it than moves do.
I know KuroganeHammer KuroganeHammer later said in his post chain that it has no hitstun, but his original tweet said very low hitstun.
If "very low hitstun" applies here, one could argue that it shows up as true because training mode doesn't care about this differentiation, which was proven in the past.
 
Last edited:

Yikarur

Smash Master
Joined
May 29, 2007
Messages
4,595
Location
Germany
E: I think I just messed-up the move names so this post was pointless.
 
Last edited:

Tobi_Whatever

あんたバカァ~!?
Joined
Oct 30, 2014
Messages
2,647
Location
Germany
NNID
Tobi_whatever
So everyone admits they are playing braindeadly and non-observing because that second witch twist thing was pretty obvious.
It CAN however true combo into turnarround upB. (depending on positioning, DIing etc.
It can't, since you can only uSpecial twice and we are talking about the second uSpecial in the first place.
 

bc1910

Smash Lord
Joined
Dec 26, 2013
Messages
1,915
Location
London
NNID
bc1910
3DS FC
1478-6611-0182
My understanding is that of the high tiers, Ganon is hard countered by Sheik, Sonic, Greninja, Pikachu and Ryu. He is probably hard countered by MK and ZSS. He is soft countered by all the others except arguably Fox, Ness and maybe Cloud, giving him around 20 losing high tier MUs of which 5-7 are close to unwinnable.

Ganon is carried by a couple of very strong players and that's it. I can fully understand Ganon's bottom 3 placement.
 
Last edited:

Tobi_Whatever

あんたバカァ~!?
Joined
Oct 30, 2014
Messages
2,647
Location
Germany
NNID
Tobi_whatever
I've edited it already. I was mixing the names up so I thought you were talking about something completely different.
You want me to edit it out? I'd do it just for you ;-*

Apropos something completely different: What do you guys think about the Marcina and Roy buffs? Will it have a significant impact?
 

bc1910

Smash Lord
Joined
Dec 26, 2013
Messages
1,915
Location
London
NNID
bc1910
3DS FC
1478-6611-0182
What good does it do for him?
Safe on block kill confirm.

Not sold on Roy having real promise but this should take him into mid tier at least, a kill confirm of that quality is better than anything most of the low tiers have.
 
Last edited:

Radical Larry

Smash Lord
Joined
Mar 19, 2014
Messages
1,994
Location
The Pocket Dimension
NNID
Crimson-Vulcan
3DS FC
1822-3761-9326
I'll be honest, Ganondorf is a character who is being slept on like many other characters in the game. And there's the fact of this...this game, much like most other fighting games, have their star shiners eventually.

No one knows for a fact that Ganondorf can't win a major or a national or even place top 8, because no one knows! Literally, no one can determine that characters like Ganondorf, or any other bottom tier, can't place high within these. We automatically assume a character is bad, but through results and determination through other people, a character we think is lower will eventually rise up.

How many times has this happened?
Who has always had those kind of changes?

:zerosuitsamus::olimar::ike:

And who's the most prominent example of a character actually turning out to be good within the Smash Bros. games, despite years upon years upon years (literally, over 10 years) of being considered a low or even close to bottom tier? Everyone, I present to you:

:yoshimelee:

Remember where that little thing was in the Melee tier list?

SSBMtierlistv11.jpg


Yeah, fifth worst character back in the old days of Melee. But then someone came along to give Yoshi that boost from bottom tier to a middle tier, Amsa. So now where's the little dinosaur on the current tier list?

He literally jumped 9 places up into 12th place! 12th out of 25, the upper part of the list! From literally the fifth worst character in the game to literally jumping spots up to the upper portion; that's a huge jump!

So we've had a history of making mistakes, horrible ones before, so why are we consistently repeating ourselves every single game with characters? We currently rate Ganondorf at the third worst character spot in the game despite evidence to the contrary and the fact that we're still unable to determine what placements our middle to lower tiers can be!

We have characters like :4ganondorf::4samus::4link::4wiifit::4falco: and :4bowserjr: who are examples of characters in need of more study, but to :4ganondorf:, he is a character who people might as well admit they have little to no knowledge of unless they main him and know his tools. He is a character who may eventually rise up into being a middle tier character or at worst, a low tier character. But we don't know it yet because the meta is still too far in its infancy to even determine much!

People often look at Ganondorf's cons without looking solely at the pros as well, they automatically assume that due to these things, Ganondorf is one of the worst characters, but they don't know it until they have played him in a great level. Let me ask among those who don't main Ganondorf this question: Did you ever once try to give him a legitimate chance or did you automatically just assume that from how you play him, you think he's a bad character, or that how you've played some bad players, that he's a bad character; is it not that you don't know how to play against him or have inexperience about him to the point that you just want to make sure he's low?

Answer me that.

And answer me this everyone: Are we really to give a determinate tier list, still even in the fact that the meta is infantile and many people have not tested; are we really sure about these placements to hold solidification within the future?

Answer me that as well.
 

Anomilus

Smash Lord
Joined
Jan 30, 2004
Messages
1,221
Location
The space between genius and madness
NNID
Hyperdon
Dorf is generally thought to do decently against Mario, Fox, Ness, and MK
My understanding is that of the high tiers, Ganon is ... probably hard countered by MK
Mmhmm... :glare:

Dorf needs a player that's good with using him AND willingly uses other characters as well. A lot of time the good Dorf player wants to be a specialist because they feel all special repping the King of Evil, and people are like "Oh he's just an exceptional player, of course he's making Ganon look good".

Let me ask among those who don't main Ganondorf this question: Did you ever once try to give him a legitimate chance or did you automatically just assume that from how you play him, you think he's a bad character, or that how you've played some bad players, that he's a bad character; is it not that you don't know how to play against him or have inexperience about him to the point that you just want to make sure he's low?
I don't think people would have a hard time admitting they don't use a character.

However, you watch streams of a person using Ganondorf. You notice they're not making optimal decisions, going for reads they shouldn't be going for, taking risks they have no business taking. They get bodied. What does the chat say? "LOL Ganon so bad!" "Results Expected!" "Pick a better character!"

And the perception not only continues, but is further embedded into people's mind. And little by little the public closes their mind to the possibility that a character - not even just Ganondorf - may not be as bad as believed.
 
Last edited:

Radical Larry

Smash Lord
Joined
Mar 19, 2014
Messages
1,994
Location
The Pocket Dimension
NNID
Crimson-Vulcan
3DS FC
1822-3761-9326
Anomilus Anomilus No joke, I'm going back to maining Ganondorf and studying him up and down, left and right and even in the fist while I train with him alongside my Link and Bowser. I'm giving Dorf a second wind in my main lineup of characters.
 

HeavyLobster

Smash Champion
Joined
Jun 7, 2014
Messages
2,074
NNID
HeavyLobster43
Pon's results against MK mesh with my own experience that the MU is doable for Dorf. Dorf is actually pretty limited competitively because he gets hard countered by too many high tiers and has hardly any relevant MUs he actually wins, maybe Wario but in general he doesn't offer any real reason to be used competitively as either a main or a CP. Ike's playstyle is fairly similar but with so many more options if your main goal is winning. Sheik isn't always the best competitive choice since she doesn't mesh with everyone's playstyle, but picking a similar meta-relevant character over your bad low tier does make sense provided you can feel passionately enough about the better character. Character loyalty is a tricky and passionate subject, since on one hand it usually doesn't pay off to abandon your main for a character that doesn't suit your playstyle at all and you don't feel passionate about, but on the other hand it's not good to artificially handicap yourself by choosing a character too lacking in tools to compete. People who play Dorf in tourney are those who feel very passionately about their character and don't feel that same passion for other characters.
 

FSLink

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Aug 5, 2005
Messages
259
NNID
FSLink
IAnd who's the most prominent example of a character actually turning out to be good within the Smash Bros. games, despite years upon years upon years (literally, over 10 years) of being considered a low or even close to bottom tier? Everyone, I present to you:

:yoshimelee:

Remember where that little thing was in the Melee tier list?
Tier lists are also an indication on where a game's meta is currently. At that time, top Yoshi play wasn't very impressive, and of course tech was found later/better optimized as well. Tiers also aren't set in stone. Metas develop, people's perceived tiers change.

But you shouldn't depend on someone optimizing Ganondorf to be some amazing character, nor should you argue that he may have hidden tech that we have yet to discover. No one really cares unless it's shown and used. The Yoshi comparison doesn't make much sense here. Could there be some dedicated Ganondorf main that has some hidden tech? Who knows, maybe, not likely, but we can discuss considering Ganondorf as a better character then.

This isn't even going into how with social media/sharing of data, that metas in fighting games develop much faster nowadays.
We can already see that Ganondorf has some awful issues like his disadvantage state. His pros are good, but with slow frame data, at top play, it depends on top players making mistakes. Top level play can have mistakes, sure, but it's not looking promising for 'Dorf as the meta develops (outside crazy buffs in future patches...but they've been rather conservative with patches). I don't think people are sleeping on him.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom