Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[bc1910]

Corrin hasn't done anything to earn top 15 status over Ness. Ness is still better than a good chunk of those around him IMO, it's just Rosa (he has other -1s but no roadblocks). I feel Ike and Lucario are being overrated while Yoshi, Greninja and maybe ROB are being underrated.

Tier impressions. Characters are unordered within groups (ordered alphabetically). Hope you can forgive me as I don't post these often and we've had a massive shake-up.

Top Tier
S+:
S:
S-:

High Tier (Upper)
A+:
A:
A-:

High Tier (Lower)
B+:
B:
B-:

Spoiler: Notes

Don't take the single (or double) character tiers too seriously, it's just a way to show that I'm confident certain characters are better than others. They're in the same tier overall.

I'm confident in the top five but, at least at top level, none are good enough to warrant their own tier and I can't call #1. I genuinely wouldn't know how to order them beyond being reasonably confident that ZSS is not the best in the game; solid defensive play and smart use of shield looks more effective against her than against most top tiers.

Regarding Mewtwo, I don't think you could achieve such an incredible winners run and decimate so many top tiers without at least being upper high tier. With the theory being in M2's favour and Aba's performance being so convincing, I'm happy to throw him at the top of A-tier even though it might be a little overzealous. To be fair, we've arguably never seen anything like that winners run at a Sm4sh major since pre-patch Diddy. MU experience surely played a big part and Aba had a good bracket (no ZeRo or Nairo and avoided Larry and Mr R, whose more calculating Sheik would have done better than VoiD's I feel). I could see Mewtwo anywhere from S- to B+ right now. This is obvious, but we'll need to see more of him.

The rest of the A-tier could be ordered in a number of ways depending on whether you favour results, theory or quiet consistency. Ryu is better than this but is lacking rep. Ness is above the other four.

I have no idea how to order B+ any more. All of them got top 16 exposure except Greninja and Falcon but Corrin was the only one to perform decently; Larry's DK went 1-2 vs Ally's Mario, Ally used ROB once against VoiD and lost, and ESAM did better with Corrin than Pikachu. This tourney really exposed Pika's killing weaknesses and I struggle to see him cutting it in the long run. Greninja and ROB got the highest solo placements (25th). If pushed, I would order them as follows...



...but as I said, I really don't know how they fit together. Also consider me something of a ROB convert; I don't think he's amazing but he has the tools to compete.

Yoshi achieved 17th this tourney and got a decent amount of rep. Lucario is looking increasingly disappointing IMO, no notable placements and just super volatile. Having a good Sheik MU isn't that impressive in a meta where lots of characters can clearly go toe-to-toe with her. Ike had ample opportunity to show what he could do and was also disappointing.

The next tier down, Upper Mid, is some order of Luigi, Mega Man and the Pits.

 

[Browny]

Please no triple S tier.

No characters in this game, as of now, deserve an S-tier ranking. Only MK ever deserved that in brawl.

-Edit-

So apparently 'S tier' comes from Japan, its like translation difference that sees S being ranked ahead of A in lists of how good things are and doesn't exactly mean 'super', 'special' or anything like that, its just one above A. Still though I really don't feel like there is an entire tier of difference between

 

[arbustopachon]

Zard and Dk do have options to break combos (frame 4 super armor fly and frame 5 super armor rocksmash for zard, frame 3 intangible spinning kong for Dk.)
They might not be useful against bayo, and in zard's case estremely risky do to his bleh airspeed, but saying that they do not have options to break free against the rest of the cast is not true.

 

[Nobie]

I might be talking out of my butt here, but if Palutena is too much of an issue for Mewtwo I think it just has to do with being too trigger happy. I mean, the "beat-all" moves that Palutena has both incur some gnarly end lag, so if you just don't trade with them then it's not an issue. It becomes a matter of who's got the better reads on the opponent.

Speaking of all that, I've recently come to the conclusion that people confuse "struggling in neutral" with "having to work in neutral." Like I see people mention Ryu as someone who struggles in neutral, but it's more that his neutral requires effort to use effectively. GANONDORF is someone who struggles in neutral.

 

[bc1910]

Please no triple S tier.

No characters in this game, as of now, deserve an S-tier ranking. Only MK ever deserved that in brawl.

-Edit-

So apparently 'S tier' comes from Japan, its like translation difference that sees S being ranked ahead of A in lists of how good things are and doesn't exactly mean 'super', 'special' or anything like that, its just one above A. Still though I really don't feel like there is an entire tier of difference between

If you actually read my notes you'd see I said they're not a tier apart, it's just a way to order the characters I'm confident of within tiers.

 

[Browny]

I read the notes, but its contradictory.

S tier is supposed to only be reserved for the best of the best. Having 9/58 characters have this ranking kind of defeats the purpose and if you have THAT many characters which are supposedly 'god tier' it would imply horrendous imbalance.

Like in Melee, having Fox in his own tier above the rest seems worthy of the S tier ranking (lets just ignore the fact they used SS tier, what a joke. My comment about the Japanese usage of S-tier proves that SS is meaningless).

 

[Coffee™]

Corrin hasn't done anything to earn top 15 status over Ness. Ness is still better than a good chunk of those around him IMO, it's just Rosa (he has other -1s but no roadblocks).

Just a heads up but Corrin likely also beats Ness worse than Rosa.

 

[Radical Larry]

Are you real?

All of his aerials except Uair since it was nerfed are safe on block when spaced. He's a spacing character anyway so you should always be using the max reach. If they block, sure, what are they going to do? Run into something else because his "good/bad frame data" gives him low ending lag on ALL his aerials? Enabling him to run/hit/shield them before they punish him?

Look at any tournament match with Tweek and tell me how many times when he spaces a Bair does he get actually wrecked for it.

Based on this, I have reason to believe you are playing Cloud like And you just don't do that

Sorry for my late reply, but I will tell you that yes, in circumstances in the norm, Cloud's spaced aerials are safe on block. I agree on that. However, I take into consideration some characters' attacks and perfect shielding, both of which make Cloud's aerial safety much less rewarding and more punishable. As an example, we have Samus, who's Dash Attack closes in distance with such incredible speed and range, and none of Cloud's aerials are safe against that attack, no matter how much space there is between him and Samus. He can even hit with the tip of F-Air and B-Air and he will still get hit by Samus's dash attack. And the worst part is, is that Samus doesn't need to perfect shield at all, she can just hold it down and hit him. You don't want her to block your attacks; it's almost always going to be a dash attack out of block when it happens.

As for me playing Cloud like Roy, I don't even get that close to my opponent unless I start hitting them up and around with Cloud's attacks. I can bring out a pretty mean and accurate B-Air against an opponent.

 

[Luco]

Just a heads up but Corrin likely also beats Ness worse than Rosa.

I don't believe we have enough evidence of this yet to call it. Corrin's shown a weakness that Ness didn't have to deal with at the beginning of this game, and that was effective range is still giving him problems. I do, however believe that Ness players, even top level ones are dying in really dumb ways because of things they don't expect. Counter offstage and side-B tippers shouldn't be what's killing Ness (hyperbole here, not speaking literally, yes Ness can die offstage albeit it shouldn't happen as often as it was in NAKATvESAM matches), it's a lacking neutral. But people also need to learn to punish side-B better (dat extended hurtbox though) and Ness players need to learn how to edge-guard Corrin too (unlike a bunch of other MUs Ness can't use Dsmash at the ledge here).

The thing that distinguishes GP from every counter is range, and the fact it's looking for the lightning bolt as opposed to Ness himself. Rosa doesn't need to be near Ness to catch PKT, and that means she can literally sit at the ledge and wait until she hears him yell his own doom. Corrin has to commit to going offstage to counter and has to end up next to Ness, meaning they're more likely to commit to going offstage earlier / later than they need to and in the mean-time Ness can legitimately try DJ to the ledge without worrying about a Dtilt that sends him in literally the worst possible direction possible in a video game (also hyperbole).

Like maybe Corrin is bad (worse than -1) but I don't see it yet and we defo don't have the evidence yet.

 

[bc1910]

I read the notes, but its contradictory.

S tier is supposed to only be reserved for the best of the best. Having 9/58 characters have this ranking kind of defeats the purpose and if you have THAT many characters which are supposedly 'god tier' it would imply horrendous imbalance.

Like in Melee, having Fox in his own tier above the rest seems worthy of the S tier ranking (lets just ignore the fact they used SS tier, what a joke. My comment about the Japanese usage of S-tier proves that SS is meaningless).

Sorry for the assumption - I thought you were talking about my usage of + and - tiers.

S can be used to simply denote a tier above A. The current Melee tier list has SS (Fox) and then 3 S-tiers. Also, the previous Melee tier list had 8 S-tiers and no SS tier. Smashwiki link here.

This just comes down to notation semantics which I don't want to get hung up on. You can't really ignore the fact that they're using SS in the Melee tier list, the fact they're using SS just proves this point. Rename my tiers A, B and C if you want, it doesn't change how strong I think the characters are.

Just a heads up but Corrin likely also beats Ness worse than Rosa.

Not a great deal of evidence for this. NAKAT really held his own in game 1 as well.

However in theory, I can see it. Counter Surge seems to act very much like Grav Pull vs Ness' recovery, and of course there's the range issue.

 

[thehard]

I think it's super interesting to not be sure about who the best character is.
I think Sheik might still be the best character but needs even more skill than before. She will surely drop in mid-level play and thus she will probably lack results in the long run. What Mr-R did at Pound was impressive beyond my expectactions. It felt like his Sheik became even better because of the patch, because his utilizing all of the crazy options sheik provides.
Bayonetta will probably be high in results because her reward is great while most people don't play the MU correctly. A bit like Yoshi in very early days When I'm watching matches of her people are still not punishing her 30+ lag on landing after a combo, are still getting upB2 to upair'd at non-combo% etc. This character has more room for optimization but the same goes for the opponent. But we can safely assume this is a Top Tier character.
Diddy Kong has Top2 neutral in the game and no one is using Diddy to his full potential. I think Diddy is an insane character with way too many options and a very high skill ceiling. I expect a rise in results. Diddy Kong is already dominating Germany (cyve) and France (Phogos) and I wouldn't be surprised if more regions will be added to that list in the future.

I think this 3 characters share "S-Tier" right now.

Mr. R said himself that he's playing better post-patch because he's not fishing for grabs constantly, and that it makes Sheik more fun to play as.

 

[Radical Larry]

I don't believe we have enough evidence of this yet to call it. Corrin's shown a weakness that Ness didn't have to deal with at the beginning of this game, and that was effective range is still giving him problems. I do, however believe that Ness players, even top level ones are dying in really dumb ways because of things they don't expect. Counter offstage isn't what kills Ness, it's a lacking neutral. But people also need to learn to punish side-B better (dat extended hurtbox though) and Ness players need to learn how to edge-guard Corrin too (unlike a bunch of other MUs Ness can't use Dsmash at the ledge here).

So taking this into consideration, what would end up happening if a player who knows the Ness MU (any character can apply, but let's say Corrin) in and out, and they go against a Ness rep of the same level or slightly better than them, yet the Ness player knows little about the character?

 

[Luco]

So taking this into consideration, what would end up happening if a player who knows the Ness MU (any character can apply, but let's say Corrin) in and out, and they go against a Ness rep of the same level or slightly better than them, yet the Ness player knows little about the character?

If the Ness player knows little about Corrin then they're going to get slaughtered because it probably is a -1 at least and the opponent understands their every option and will take advantage of Ness in all of his vulnerabilities. Which, btw, is what I think is currently happening right now. ESAM is a good player, but not many other people of that skill calibre use Corrin (Sorry Corn mains) so I feel like players such as NAKAT don't have enough exp of that MU at high level.

In regards to other characters, it depends. MU inexperience kills anyone at higher levels of play. It takes a freakishly good MU to be able to beat people + characters you've never played before and who already have an idea of what you're aiming to do. Just recently we had a major in a nearby scene and our top player went down to face a particular MU he hadn't played that much and against a player who had been studying him for some time and got destroyed. It can happen to anyone.

I could be wrong about it though. I do suffer from that main bias, after all. We'll see.

 

[my_T]

Luco

the ness v. corrin match-up is pretty rough for ness. Typical problems he has against all sword characters. As far as edge guarding go's, sword characters dont give a **** about ness's aerials because of their range and PKT can be swatted away easier since swordies hitboxes are big and disjointed.

Also, Esam said himself that his corrin wasnt well practiced. Add that to ness's crappy neutral...the match-up doesnt look to good

 

[EnhaloTricks]

I would be wary of putting as worse than -1 for the time being. No one really plays Corrin at that level yet, and regardless of whether ESAM's Corrin is practiced the fact he's ESAM is gonna bring it to a level we haven't really seen (solid fundamentals and a basic understanding of an unnkown character all factor in to how well he did vs NAKAT).

For Ness to succeed he needs to be patient and use Corrin as the combo food that she is (for Ness). ESAM should NOT have been getting that many counter kills. Ness' need to work on recovering closer to the stage and, if NAKAT had done that, he would not have been hit by the counter. The first half of Ness' PKT2 is invincible and I've gone through my fair share of counters that would have otherwise killed me, including Corrin's.

The MU isn't in Ness' favor, but I agree with basically everything Luco said. Ness' edgeguarding is top tier imo and pk fire destroys Corrin's recovery. She recovers at such an obvious angle one would wonder why NAKAT didn't challenge it with that at all. The issue is that since Corrin is only vulnerable on her head and idk if Ness' aerials can trade with her up B since the hitboxes are pretty close to Ness body.

I'm in the -1 camp, difficult but not impossible. You just need a good amount of MU knowledge.

 

[Djent]

@HeavyLobster Corrin is looking really dangerous IMO. Guys like Ryuga and Ryo are getting better results with her than they did with Ike, who already wins 1 or 2 high tier MUs. This character outplaced Dabuz at Landlocked and carried Earth to a top 4 spot at the most recent Sumabato event. Then there's ESAM showing the character has utility against characters lacking in burst mobility, and it's hard for me to think this character won't end up being deadly. I will admit that the "error bars" for this judgment are higher than for my other picks (barring Mewtwo, of course).

bc1910 TBH I forgot about ROB when I made my list. I do think he's comparable to my spots 16-21 so figure limbo for him as well. As for Ness, you might be right, but I also can't shake the impression that he does noticeably struggle with a few other characters besides Rosa (Cloud, Sheik, Corrin for instance), though none are hard counters. That combined with the Rosa MU puts him in a similar predicament as Pika (who also cleanly loses to several high tiers in addition to having one really rough MU).

 

[Locke 06]

Ness' neutral isn't bad.

Disjointed DA, rising FAir, spaced falling Bair, flexible NAir/SH double NAir, falling uair.

PK fire for back roll/Dash reads, high reward grab game to fear, and small hurtbox.

It's not fantastic and can be beat, but it sure isn't awful.

 

[PK Gaming]

Just a heads up but Corrin likely also beats Ness worse than Rosa.

That doesn't seem likely. For one, Counter off the stage isn't incontrovertible like gravitational pull. It's definitely effective against , but not hello darkness my old friend effective. Corrin is good at keeping Ness out, but it's nothing Ness hasn't really dealt with before. It's no worse than -1, imo.

ESAM is a good player, but not many other people of that skill calibre use Corrin (Sorry Corn mains) so I feel like players such as NAKAT don't have enough exp of that MU at high level.

That argument goes both ways. NAKAT lacks the MU experience but ESAM's was also really rough. Like, his Corrin definitely wasn't on par with the likes of Earth, Ryo, Ryuga, Cosmos, etc.

 

[Hippieslayer]

Sorry for my late reply, but I will tell you that yes, in circumstances in the norm, Cloud's spaced aerials are safe on block. I agree on that. However, I take into consideration some characters' attacks and perfect shielding, both of which make Cloud's aerial safety much less rewarding and more punishable. As an example, we have Samus, who's Dash Attack closes in distance with such incredible speed and range, and none of Cloud's aerials are safe against that attack, no matter how much space there is between him and Samus. He can even hit with the tip of F-Air and B-Air and he will still get hit by Samus's dash attack. And the worst part is, is that Samus doesn't need to perfect shield at all, she can just hold it down and hit him.

If you take into consideration about perfect shielding, characters with incredible speed, like Fox or Sonic, will most definitely close the distance against Cloud almost immediately. This is another way Cloud's spacing is unsafe on block, but I will state that the chances of these occurring is rather low to moderate, but you cannot rule these out as false, since they can indeed happen if given the optimal conditions. As for Samus, you don't want her to block your attacks; it's almost always going to be a dash attack out of block when it happens.

As for me playing Cloud like Roy, I don't even get that close to my opponent unless I start hitting them up and around with Cloud's attacks. I can bring out a pretty mean and accurate B-Air against an opponent.

Yeah but not much is safe vs perfect shielding so you've nullified your entire argument.

 

[Tri Knight]

I don't doubt that Link's arrows are useful for edgeguarding. They can be controlled, but only by how long you've charged them. Between that and how the opponent can predict their flight the same way the Link player would I don't think it would be nearly as consistent as something that's nearly impossible to outmaneuver. Link's other projectiles I'm sure also help a ton, though.

Well either way, Link's aerials are usually more effective for recoveries anyway. He's definitely got some good tools.

 

[Nobie]

Here's a question for you all: Do Smash players press buttons too much? Or, to phrase it in a more "Smash" way, do too many players spam moves without thinking (myself included)?

In fighting game commentary, you'll often hear that a player caught another player "pressing buttons." That means Player A decided to throw out a move without any sort of plan in mind, or at a moment where they would've been better off not doing anything, and then Player B immediately reacted to it and punished them for it, sometimes with big damage following.

Yesterday I was watching NinjaLink review Pound 2016, and he mentioned that he thinks too many Smash 4 players go on autopilot, and even showed examples from top players at Pound 2016, such as Tweek tossing out certain moves when there's no way they would have hit in those situations.

I decided to look at the Banning Bayonetta thread today, and Ghidorah14 talks about how Bayo is the ultimate punish for players who press too many buttons: http://smashboards.com/threads/banning-bayonetta-in-tournaments.433725/page-2#post-21031285

The idea of whether or not Bayo should be banned aside (that's what the above thread is for!), is it the case that Smash 4 players in general have been too lax with knowing when to use AND NOT USE their attacks, and that Bayonetta's success in making players pay for pressing buttons is simply the most visible and immediate evidence of this?

Do we need to, overall as a competitive community, learn not to "press buttons," and are we Smash players more vulnerable to this than other FGCs?

 

[Radical Larry]

Yeah but not much is safe vs perfect shielding so you've nullified your entire argument.

Only on perfect shielding anyways, but as far as shielding only (no perfect shielding) and attacking, some characters aren't safe when going against shields against other characters; Cloud vs Samus has it to where no matter the range of the attack, and regardless of whether or not Samus perfect shields, Cloud's aerials are virtually unsafe. Samus perfect shields, Cloud's punished, Samus regular shields, Cloud's punished, and it doesn't matter the range.

I didn't nullify my argument, but if I had removed the perfect shielding part, then I would have had a more decent argument.

Well either way, Link's aerials are usually more effective for recoveries anyway. He's definitely got some good tools.

N-Air is best at punishing horizontal upwards recoveries, like Doctor Mario and Little Mac's. It's a gimping move.
Link's F-Air being a kill move is great against horizontal recoveries like Fox, Falco and especially Ryu's.
D-Air is an amazing stage spike move for how long the hitbox lasts, but it depends on which side the opponent's facing.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Here's a question for you all: Do Smash players press buttons too much? Or, to phrase it in a more "Smash" way, do too many players spam moves without thinking (myself included)?

In fighting game commentary, you'll often hear that a player caught another player "pressing buttons." That means Player A decided to throw out a move without any sort of plan in mind, or at a moment where they would've been better off not doing anything, and then Player B immediately reacted to it and punished them for it, sometimes with big damage following.

Yesterday I was watching NinjaLink review Pound 2016, and he mentioned that he thinks too many Smash 4 players go on autopilot, and even showed examples from top players at Pound 2016, such as Tweek tossing out certain moves when there's no way they would have hit in those situations.

I decided to look at the Banning Bayonetta thread today, and Ghidorah14 talks about how Bayo is the ultimate punish for players who press too many buttons: http://smashboards.com/threads/banning-bayonetta-in-tournaments.433725/page-2#post-21031285

The idea of whether or not Bayo should be banned aside (that's what the above thread is for!), is it the case that Smash 4 players in general have been too lax with knowing when to use AND NOT USE their attacks, and that Bayonetta's success in making players pay for pressing buttons is simply the most visible and immediate evidence of this?

Do we need to, overall as a competitive community, learn not to "press buttons," and are we Smash players more vulnerable to this than other FGCs?

Smash as a series rewards ALOT of button pressing and I said this before I will say it again ALOT of it is indeed mindless because the game does not ACTIVELY punish you for pressing buttons at a wrong time. There is no penalty for pressing buttons foolishly. Indeed Melee and PM actually reward the play style of filling up the screen with dominating hitboxes and turning that into a strong conversion.

Smash does not have a counter hit system like traditional fighters which punishes a player severely for hitting buttons at a wrong time. Get counter hit in other fighters and you will eat a combo that does more damage then usual. You may even eat a set-up thats actually impossible except when done as a counter hit which really drives the point home that you are a scrub for pressing buttons stupidly.

Another contributing factor is how difficult it can be to counter poke or whiff punish characters when they do something obvious or stupid. This imo ties into Bayo really nicely because she DOES punish bad buttons presses with EXTREME prejudice and she does so with the threat of death.

This flies in the face of the Smash meta in general and I think its one of the main reasons players feel she is toxic.

"omg I cant just do stuff or this woman will wreak havoc on my soul?! BAN HER!!!!!"

Ryu can do it too but he has to be playing at a very high level with good precision. Bayo just flies all over the place and does it. Sheik can do it but her reward before the patch was a strong mix up not a free stock. Now its really just positional advantage.

 

[Cereal Bawks]

@HeavyLobster Corrin is looking really dangerous IMO. Guys like Ryuga and Ryo are getting better results with her than they did with Ike, who already wins 1 or 2 high tier MUs.

Ryuga, sure, but it's easy to see Ryo's Corrin doesn't do as well as his Ike. The reason why he's getting better results is because he's dual maining, so he has answers to more MU that before.

 

[teddystalin]

Ryuga, sure, but it's easy to see Ryo's Corrin doesn't do as well as his Ike. The reason why he's getting better results is because he's dual maining, so he has answers to more MU that before.

I think it's telling to look at when he chooses to use each character in though. Just looking at on-stream sets against notable players in Shots Fired 2 and Come to Papa, he used Ike for (duh), , and . He used Corrin for , , and . The MUs he's finding more comfortable with Corrin are clearly more relevant in the current meta.

 

[G. Stache]

Here's a question for you all: Do Smash players press buttons too much? Or, to phrase it in a more "Smash" way, do too many players spam moves without thinking (myself included)?

In fighting game commentary, you'll often hear that a player caught another player "pressing buttons." That means Player A decided to throw out a move without any sort of plan in mind, or at a moment where they would've been better off not doing anything, and then Player B immediately reacted to it and punished them for it, sometimes with big damage following.

Yesterday I was watching NinjaLink review Pound 2016, and he mentioned that he thinks too many Smash 4 players go on autopilot, and even showed examples from top players at Pound 2016, such as Tweek tossing out certain moves when there's no way they would have hit in those situations.

I decided to look at the Banning Bayonetta thread today, and Ghidorah14 talks about how Bayo is the ultimate punish for players who press too many buttons: http://smashboards.com/threads/banning-bayonetta-in-tournaments.433725/page-2#post-21031285

The idea of whether or not Bayo should be banned aside (that's what the above thread is for!), is it the case that Smash 4 players in general have been too lax with knowing when to use AND NOT USE their attacks, and that Bayonetta's success in making players pay for pressing buttons is simply the most visible and immediate evidence of this?

Do we need to, overall as a competitive community, learn not to "press buttons," and are we Smash players more vulnerable to this than other FGCs?

Funnily enough, I was reading about traditional footsies today and the basic concepts of it, and one of the things that was stressed was to make sure you have a good "economy" with your button pressing. As in: make sure every button you press has a valued purpose and don't just throw out a hitbox willy-nilly and hope it'll stick. I definitely think that Smash players in Melee can be guilty of this (although, when you have the silly hitboxes that Fox and friends have, I can see why Melee players like to press a ton of buttons). And sadly, that mistake seems to have seeped into the Smash 4 community as well. I know personally that I like to throw around my Nair a lot as Luigi since it's one of his best tools. Except, I'll use for no other reason than to...use it. Because I feel as if I've inherited the mindset that I always have to be doing something. And after watching Xanadu every week, I can't say that I'm the only one with this way of thinking (not to throw **** at Xanadu in general. Just that some of the lower level players there do have a problem with their button pressing. And I'm sure it's a problem with other tournaments too. I just watch Xanadu the most).

Autopilot and the art of senselessly pressing buttons seems like a big problem for a good chunk of low and mid level smash players and I can't help but think think that those players would be better off were to inherit some of the thought process and patience that goes on in traditional fighters. If nothing else, maybe they could learn to respect the commitment that some of those certain buttons bring.

 

[my_T]

Ness' neutral isn't bad.

Disjointed DA, rising FAir, spaced falling Bair, flexible NAir/SH double NAir, falling uair.

PK fire for back roll/Dash reads, high reward grab game to fear, and small hurtbox.

It's not fantastic and can be beat, but it sure isn't awful.

You forgot to mention his slow ass dash speed which makes the threat of his grab grame a lot less threatening. Also his CQC is hindered by his slow dash speed, lack of range and utility on his grounded normals, and his situational smash attacks. All of these things combined make his ground game kinda ****ty and makes his dash attack (which is good) very predictable.

Then you have his aerials. Ness is one of the best aerial fighters in the game but you don' t have to fight him in the air (why would you? unless you're a sword type). Also, being in the air while the opponent is on the ground is almost always advantageous for the grounded opponent. When in the air you have less defensive options (lack of shield) and have to worry about landing. Punishing ness's landing options aren't easy but it ain't hard either since he doesn't have a lot to mix it up with and perfect shielding is a thing. Punishing ness's landing options is even easier for characters with disjoints (swords, tether grabs) and invincibilty (DK utilt, mario and luigi usmash). SH rising aerials are punishable on shield unless their full hopped or done from a great distance; but full hopping will put you in scenarios where you have to deal with the things that i mentioned above.

His fall speed and jump acceleration (hope im talking about the right thing) also hurt him in neutral. It makes tomahawking much less effective and makes it easier for a grounded opponent to bait air dodges, chase his landing, and set-up a landing punish. Look at characters like fox, zss, sheik, and falcon; empty hops, tomahawking, and falling aerials are very effective for them because of their aerial speed stats.

PK fire is very laggy af. I would be very cautiously use this move in neutral.

and his small hurtbox comes at the cost of range much like other characters with small hurtboxes.

Ness's neutral isn't too bad. I would definitely argue that it's a little below average though. But thats just balance. I mentioned in a previous post that characters with a good neutral, offstage game, or good disadvantage state usually don't have that great of kill options/power (1.1.5 sheik, sonic, pika) where as characters that don't have a good neutral, offstage game, or disadvantage state tend to have great punish tools and kill power (DK, bowser, ness). You have other cases like mac who has a good neutral and kill options/power; but they are balanced by his non-existent recovery and aerial game.

everybody is entitled to their own opinion though

 

[C0rvus]

Some characters do require you to carefully consider pressing buttons. Charizard imo is the posterboy of this concept. His buttons are pretty good but need to be used pretty carefully or her gets blown up. If his reward was better he would be the best example of a grappler in the series.

Mewtwo represents the opposite side of this. Shadow Ball is the definition of low commitment, as he can follow it and react to your defensive option, even at no charge. Or he can chill and shoot some more, or charge up. His down tilt and fair are super ridiculous. That's honestly my beef with Mewtwo, his glass cannon design would make more sense if he had to commit more. Nair is a better move in terms of risk/reward as it's less safe and Abadango showed how rewarding it can be. It's still a super good button, though. Beats damn near everything.

Sheik is moving more towards the former simply because her reward is worse and Needles are more punishable now. I find her incredibly fun to watch when she goes to work for this reason. She's more of a glass cannon than Mewtwo imo. Her design currently makes a lot of sense.

 

[Ghidorah14]

Here's a question for you all: Do Smash players press buttons too much? Or, to phrase it in a more "Smash" way, do too many players spam moves without thinking (myself included)?

In fighting game commentary, you'll often hear that a player caught another player "pressing buttons." That means Player A decided to throw out a move without any sort of plan in mind, or at a moment where they would've been better off not doing anything, and then Player B immediately reacted to it and punished them for it, sometimes with big damage following.

Yesterday I was watching NinjaLink review Pound 2016, and he mentioned that he thinks too many Smash 4 players go on autopilot, and even showed examples from top players at Pound 2016, such as Tweek tossing out certain moves when there's no way they would have hit in those situations.

I decided to look at the Banning Bayonetta thread today, and Ghidorah14 talks about how Bayo is the ultimate punish for players who press too many buttons: http://smashboards.com/threads/banning-bayonetta-in-tournaments.433725/page-2#post-21031285

The idea of whether or not Bayo should be banned aside (that's what the above thread is for!), is it the case that Smash 4 players in general have been too lax with knowing when to use AND NOT USE their attacks, and that Bayonetta's success in making players pay for pressing buttons is simply the most visible and immediate evidence of this?

Do we need to, overall as a competitive community, learn not to "press buttons," and are we Smash players more vulnerable to this than other FGCs?

@Gecko Moria actually provided a perfect example of the kind of thing you and I are getting at in the banning bayo thread.

http://oddshot.tv/shot/vgbootcamp2-201603133819724

One popgun in the face, two popguns in the face, reads the third, gets witch time off, gets a huge punish, game over.

Why did this happen?
-bad spacing
-not respecting bayo's options (sideB or witch time)
-playing predictably
-pressing buttons

 

[Planty]

But people also need to learn to punish side-B better (dat extended hurtbox though)

Corrin's side-b barely extends her hurtbox. Her left arm becomes a bit longer but most of the spear arm is disjoint (I believe it's considered an article?). Also how does Ness punish side-b if the Corrin uses a back kick?

 

[Cereal Bawks]

I think it's telling to look at when he chooses to use each character in though. Just looking at on-stream sets against notable players in Shots Fired 2 and Come to Papa, he used Ike for (duh), , and . He used Corrin for , , and . The MUs he's finding more comfortable with Corrin are clearly more relevant in the current meta.

And lost to Rosa. Likely trying to feel those MU with Corrin (especially considering he probably knows Ike goes even or has a slight advantage against Rosa), seeing as how it's a new character. With Diddy probably being Ike's worst MU, it's no surprise he went with Corrin instead.

Sheik, I can't say. I haven't even seen him fight Sheik using Ike that much, even before Corrin came out.

 

[teddystalin]

And lost to Rosa. Likely trying to feel those MU with Corrin (especially considering he probably knows Ike goes even or has a slight advantage against Rosa), seeing as how it's a new character. With Diddy probably being Ike's worst MU, it's no surprise he went with Corrin instead.

Sheik, I can't say. I haven't even seen him fight Sheik using Ike that much, even before Corrin came out.

I mean notable Ikes also always lose to Dabuz's Rosa. It's Dabuz. I'm curious about who he used against @Xaltis at Come to Papa though (maybe she can let us know?)

The Sheik he beat with Corrin was Master Raven (FL's best Sheik) who beat his Ike in pools the last time they met.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Perhaps the problem people have is not that Bayonetta punishes button presses so much as the fact that she herself can press some free buttons (Dtilt, Witch Twist, Anything that isn't trying direct CQC so basically most of her good neutral tools) while they on the other hand can not. "Slow" startup be damned, the recovery time is so low it's not even a problem.

I won't talk about banning or not banning but I think this is pretty damn significant to think about. If a character who punishes button presses as hard as Bayo does can adversely get away with it in a lot of instances, I am almost 100% positive that is the reason people are upset.

Emblem Lord, you actually hit the nail on the head. Ryu DOESN'T have a super safe button he can push all the time in this game yet he punishes people for pushing buttons. He is the Bayonetta before Bayonetta but the large difference is that what he enforces upon others he follows himself as well, IMO.

 

[Ghidorah14]

Perhaps the problem people have is not that Bayonetta punishes button presses so much as the fact that she herself can press some free buttons (Dtilt, Witch Twist, Anything that isn't trying direct CQC so basically most of her good neutral tools) while they on the other hand can not. "Slow" startup be damned, the recovery time is so low it's not even a problem.

I won't talk about banning or not banning but I think this is pretty damn significant to think about. If a character who punishes button presses as hard as Bayo does can adversely get away with it in a lot of instances, I am almost 100% positive that is the reason people are upset.

If thats the case, why do people not get angry at mewtwo, who has a powerful and insanel safe projectile that can space, kill, and nullify other projectiles while also having a reflector himself?

It's the same concept; "I can do this one thing, but you cant." Why is it ok with mewtwo but not bayo?

inb4 "cuz if she touches you once, you die!"

 

[Cereal Bawks]

I mean notable Ikes also always lose to Dabuz's Rosa. It's Dabuz.

My point still stands. With his knowledge of the Ike/Rosa MU, whether or not it was Dabuz, the only reason I can see him using Corrin that match was to get a feel of the MU.

Either way, the original argument was that Ryo was getting better results with Corrin than Ike, when the only notable results are Diddy (tbf, it was just once, which isn't exactly surpassing his Ike results against Diddy in the past) and Sheik. He didn't get a better result against Rosa, and he got a worse result against Sonic.

Just to be clear, I'm not arguing which character is better. I'm just saying Ryo's not exactly getting better results with Corrin compared to Ike. Let's not forget the results he got when he was solo maining Ike.

 

[C0rvus]

Ghidorah14 I mean, we can pretend that's not an issue but it absolutely is. I agree with your sentiment, but Mewtwo might get a few fairs or a down tilt or a grab. Bayonetta can and will confirm into huge damage or outright kill off a WHIFF PUNISH. That's the problem: risk/reward. Nothing inherently wrong with a character that can get away with pressing buttons, although it's generally pretty bad design. I would love it if neither character could get away with it, but Bayo's reward is far greater, there's no two ways about it.

For the record, I do get mad at Mewtwo. I personally think as a glass canon he's a bit overtuned.

 

[SaltyKracka]

If thats the case, why do people not get angry at mewtwo, who has a powerful and insanel safe projectile that can space, kill, and nullify other projectiles while also having a reflector himself?

It's the same concept; "I can do this one thing, but you cant." Why is it ok with mewtwo but not bayo?

inb4 "cuz if she touches you once, you die!"

Honestly? People are too attached to their memories of "Bottom-tier garbage Mewtwo" (which he never was) and let that cloud their impressions of the current one.

 

[Ikes]

How different would ryu be if his air hados were replaced with angled ones like akuma uses in street fighter proper? would he be better or worse? I'd figure better since his air hados were already not amazing and it would give him an additional safe edgeguarding option.

I'm just kinda frustrated with how his aerial hadoukens are completely non-canon and dont appear in any game. Like making them function like akuma's is better than making them anti-canon.

Also, I havent paid much attention to the scene lately other than hear people pout about bayonetta being toxic good and sheik being not numbah 1 any more. Anyone clue me in on current events in the meta? also, out of personal interest, has there been much notable wario play recently?

 

[TTTTTsd]

Mewtwo's damage output on a good punish is not comparable to Bayo who gets at minimum 40% off of most anything and that's if you're not Witch Timed (which might I add can trigger in full effect vs. basic moves like jabs, it's identical to alpha counter in SFA2 except way way stronger and not from block). Not even 0-deaths, assuming DI mixups or whatever you want, even if you factor those out, she gets insane damage and good positioning.

There are a plethora of other things including Mewtwo's surviviability being noticeably worse, he can't escape disadvantage as easily as Bayo can (another thing that probably irks more than a few individuals) and so forth. Mewtwo can't divekick around to punish in the same way she can.

Mewtwo has a kill projectile and a super good reflector but that's one aspect of a kit vs. the basis of another IMO.

Both are "like that" in a way but evaluate what one is gonna bother people more and what one is more noticeable and Bayonetta kind of stands out.

 

[Smog Frog]

uh hello?

can get 50%+ off a dtilt conversion ez. dtilt->nair->dtilt->nair->dtilt->nair(or however many reps you can do before you hit the end of the stage)->dtilt->nair->fair/bair. this also leaves you offstage and subject to strong edgeguarding. i'd actually say he's one of the very few characters in the cast that can actually keep up with damage output.