Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

[sedrf]

Do any of you know nay Japanese tournaments happening soon?

 

[Mister M]

People are saying Bayonetta combos are ok because its just non-perfect DI?

I mean sure when you di Bayonetta combos perfectly you just turn it into a series of DI reads but the fact you need the specific knowledge of every move to even stand a chance against Bayonetta is annoying

Every other fighting game is like this though. There's a certain level of disceplin that we as a player base lack.

This has been discussed to death.

 

[sedrf]

A major is happening this weekend in New England: Smash on the hill
fting: Marss, Pugwest, Koolaid, Dabuz, Mr.R, False & More!

Hey guys!

I'm TMPR! I'm the Smash 4 TO for Big Blue eSports, (who are in charge of Boston's first major, Shine 2016) and founder of Smash on the Hill Boston!

Smash on the Hill is celebrating it's 1 year anniversary of running Smash 4 tournaments in the Boston area, with a huge tournament featuring top players in the Samsh 4 community in and out of New England! If you're around and want to participate in New England's biggest tournament to date, come celebrate with us this Saturday, April 16, 2016 in downtown Boston. We will be streaming on our Twitch partnered channel, www.twitch.tv/bigbluees

Preregistration is over at smash.gg/supersoth until 11 PM tomorrow night for both singles & doubles, we've surpassed over 128 entrants so far so we will be running bracket pools, and releasing pools on Friday.

Catch updates for this and future events around New England over at our Facebook groups below.

www.facebook.com/groups/NESmash4 www.facebook.com/groups/smashonthehill

Also a floridan major called Fusion 3:
https://smash.gg/tournament/fusion-3
fting: fatality,scatt,m2k and saj

 

[juddy96]

This weekend has

Super Smash on the Hill - Boston, MA
Fusion 3 - Atlanta, GA
LAN ETS 2016 - Montreal, QC
Hail Smash II - Mexico City, Mexico
ConComics Guadalajara - Guadalajara, Mexico
Surf City Slam 2 - Capitola, CA
Smash Bros at Church 5 - Los Angeles, CA
Rise 2016 - Tempe, AZ
Collision XIII - Somerset, NJ
Full Bloom 2 - Bloomington, IN

 

[Man Li Gi]

Add Full Bloom 2 to that list. It's in Indiana.

Featured Players are:
Everyone's favorite Bayonetta: E2C| Tyroy
And that's pretty much it.

I'll read off the other top seeded people:
Anonymous Moniker
AKADAD
Man Li Gi

Wave B
RG| SkaterJayy
Mashing
RG| YoshiBro1
Sofa King

Fun Facts:
Anonymous Moniker, Tyroy, and myself are all carpooling there.

This will be the first tourney Mashing and Tyroy have faced each other since the MK and Sheik Nerf. Will be interesting to see if Mashing's Ryu/Cloud can beat Tyroy's MK/Sheik/DK/Cloud/BAYONETTTA again. Can Mashing do it? Find out at Full Bloom 2.

Side note:
This is a Melee heavy event, so yes the Wii U talent is a bit dry.

The plugs I just made make me feel sick, but the fact I'M doing some dang advertising for it instead of the TO.,................

 

[Megamang]

Perfect pivoting is very useful for characters that have threatening bairs, bairs with different utility, and especially OOS useful bairs. It allows you to slide towards someone facing backwards, which is pretty great for some characters. We see Larry Lurr using it to make DK's utilt effectively have better frame data (it hits with later frames, giving it both better recovery/safety and followups). ESAM's early PP video shows an interesting pika tech, where you can PP - Shield... this burst movement will throw them off, and since you are approaching, they might throw out a sloppy hitbox. Then OOS bair is a nice punish for pika, netting him more damage than his other aerials. Additionally, he might opt to use a rising uair, which has a hitbox beginning behind him and is therefore 'quicker' pressure/response, with admittedly a little less followup (although the straight up knockback makes followups for pika specifically pretty good regardless).

One of the biggest benefactors of a skilled PP user, from my experience, is actually Cloud. While his ground game is decent, PP really puts it over the edge, and increases the area he can burst cover dramatically. PP utilt is a juggle tool that leads to the deadly uair juggles, while having a little less commitment and risk than just starting with a uair. PP back -> dtilt is a very strong punish option, as you slide back then lower your hurtbox it is likely you can make a nice dodge and punish in the same swoop, again opening his punish game.

But, the biggest thing? Bair. PP -> bair basically gives Cloud greninja's fair with M2's frame data. His bair is insane. He threaten so much hitbox area with this. Like pika, he can slide in with shields, and the back of his shield carries its own threats and risks. An opponent walking up and pressuring your shield with a barely-grabbable tilt will get away, but someone who takes to the air has rising bair which will cover a lot and straight up beat out retreating pressure attempts.

PP also gives you a lot of leeway in how you space your extended dash dance. Any of the dashes can be PPs, and when your opponent realizes this your dashes carry way more threat. Greninja is so low, and his disjointed utilt and usmash are fast and strong, that a EDDing greninja is pretty damn hard to land against. PP utilt gets your disjoint right where you need it, and it confirms into either uair for kills or bair for ledge situations.

Cloud's EDD being so good means his PP can come out more efficiently. This movement makes the character terrifying, and can somewhat remedy his limited ground game.


What cool tech does PP open for your character? If you have a threatening bair, it likely opens up some super scary followups. I know the Ike boards have some really talented labbers who put it to use in a comprehensive ledge coverage option list. This is one of the reasons Ike has had such success against sonic, since being on the ledge is a significant state of disadvantage vs Ike when he is sliding around covering all your options with a huge disjoint. And he doesn't slide that far! So get to work labbers!.


I don't exactly know where I was going with this. But we kinda had a lull in the topics being discussed, so I thought I'd throw up another couple of paragraphs and see where it went. While I don't expect everyone to read the giant walls I post, I have gotten some positive responses and I LOVE THIS FREAKING KEYBOARD SO MUCH, so unless someone objects, ill be popping in with these when I can think of them and when I miss my clicking blue switches between ladder matches.


Oh, Bayo with PP can make her dtilt more mobile and also more safe for a landing trap, so you'd have to guess between her sliding to safety and dtilting your feet for a confirm, or just utilting through your hitbox. Don't land next to her :B

 

[Nobie]

With Mewtwo's recent success culminating with Abadango's win, I'm realizing a bit about myself as a person and as a player.

For one thing, I feel less of a need to work with Mewtwo.

This isn't anything like, "Mewtwo is high tier now so I don't want to use the character," though. I still really enjoy using the character, I still enjoy (and hate) the stress of using such a dynamic glass cannon, and it'll always be one of my go-to mains. However, opinion on Mewtwo has changed for the better, and while I'm some no-name who barely attends tournaments and gets middling results, part of the fun of Mewtwo was being part of a collective effort with other Mewtwo mains to elevate the character. Now, I kind of want to move on, try out another character that I see potential in but whose reputation is lackluster. Maybe Jigglypuff or something.

It's an odd feeling to express, because I LIKE the fact that more attention is being given to Mewtwo (and that Scatt is still showing how great Mega Man can be). It's more like, now that everyone's focused on Mewtwo, there's no longer a need for me to try and draw attention to the character. I don't know if anyone else ever feels similarly.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

With Mewtwo's recent success culminating with Abadango's win, I'm realizing a bit about myself as a person and as a player.

For one thing, I feel less of a need to work with Mewtwo.

This isn't anything like, "Mewtwo is high tier now so I don't want to use the character," though. I still really enjoy using the character, I still enjoy (and hate) the stress of using such a dynamic glass cannon, and it'll always be one of my go-to mains. However, opinion on Mewtwo has changed for the better, and while I'm some no-name who barely attends tournaments and gets middling results, part of the fun of Mewtwo was being part of a collective effort with other Mewtwo mains to elevate the character. Now, I kind of want to move on, try out another character that I see potential in but whose reputation is lackluster. Maybe Jigglypuff or something.

It's an odd feeling to express, because I LIKE the fact that more attention is being given to Mewtwo (and that Scatt is still showing how great Mega Man can be). It's more like, now that everyone's focused on Mewtwo, there's no longer a need for me to try and draw attention to the character. I don't know if anyone else ever feels similarly.

It's a quest to find the underrated to prove their worth in a highly competitive game outside it AND inside (as in, the characters themselves kinda compete for your attention or something) to go

As for me, I'm just trying to find that character that is like a instrument; full of options and highly highly expressive. I have yet to find it though (maybe bayonetta.......... Buuuuuuut it's not worth the hate though).

 

[Amadeus9]

Characters who have very long pps make good use of it in neutral, which is something more players need to exploit. The only players I have seen using it this way are Leo and Falln. The will dodge aggression with or use it to space properly, its really so slick. I've been incorporating it into my own play as MK's pp is really nuts. Kinda just rambling but yeah would like to see this tech used more as a movement option

 

[Jalil]

Shulk in speed art has the best pp and greninja's is good too. I usually do nair--> pp up tilt-->up air dragging shenanigans when footstool and grab stop working from it. Nice combo extender. Pp jab is pretty good with the frog too cuz spaced jab1 on shield is hard for some characters to punish. Pp water shuriken is faster than b-reversing water shuriken on the ground which can help with spacing and pp reverse down tilt (tho pretty unsafe and hard to space) can combo into up smash easier.

 

[Shady Shaymin]

God, do I hate perfect pivoting with a burning passion. The window is so god damn small for that little minute **** of a positioning tool, every flubbed perfect pivot makes me want to burn my controller.

Edit: Also, has anyone actually been able to perfect pivot in their less dominant direction? I feel like my thumb physically will never even be designed to achieve a perfect pivot to the right. Even if I get it down to 7/10 tries accurate, I'm not gonna risk using it in a tourney setting like damn. **** ATs that require superhuman reflexes...

 

[ParanoidDrone]

It's a quest to find the underrated to prove their worth in a highly competitive game outside it AND inside (as in, the characters themselves kinda compete for your attention or something) to go

As for me, I'm just trying to find that character that is like a instrument; full of options and highly highly expressive. I have yet to find it though (maybe bayonetta.......... Buuuuuuut it's not worth the hate though).

I find that Bayonetta clicked oddly well with me, considering I main Rosalina. Then again I have, like, 10-15 characters that I can play at a competent level, at least by casual-with-friends standards. I also get a wonderful sense of schadenfreude from doing stuff like planting Luma at the ledge, so I don't plan to let Bayonetta hate hold me back from using her.

I strongly trend towards characters that have some kind of unique tool or flavor that sets them apart; I could never really enjoy using someone like Sheik who just uses amazeballs frame data to do everything.

Side note, doing those character heads is annoying on mobile.

 

[Amadeus9]

I dont really find perfect pivoting that hard...

 

[Solfiner]

Shulk in speed art has the best pp and greninja's is good too. I usually do nair--> pp up tilt-->up air dragging shenanigans when footstool and grab stop working from it. Nice combo extender. Pp jab is pretty good with the frog too cuz spaced jab1 on shield is hard for some characters to punish. Pp water shuriken is faster than b-reversing water shuriken on the ground which can help with spacing and pp reverse down tilt (tho pretty unsafe and hard to space) can combo into up smash easier.

I've been integrating Speed perfect pivots into my Shulk for the last few months.

PP to shield is absolutely ridiculous, it's like a roll that you can't punish. It's also great for mix-ups when punishing ledge options. Stand where you can punish them for rolling, then if they do a ledge jump or a normal getup you can just PP up-smash/Utilt.

 

[Luig]

God, do I hate perfect pivoting with a burning passion. The window is so god damn small for that little minute **** of a positioning tool, every flubbed perfect pivot makes me want to burn my controller.

Edit: Also, has anyone actually been able to perfect pivot in their less dominant direction? I feel like my thumb physically will never even be designed to achieve a perfect pivot to the right. Even if I get it down to 7/10 tries accurate, I'm not gonna risk using it in a tourney setting like damn. **** ATs that require superhuman reflexes...

I used to have trouble doing it to the right. Now I can pretty consistently do it both ways. You actually have to practice a few weeks.

 

[Furret24]

Honestly, I don't really care for perfect pivoting. It's not that I can't preform (I can), it's just that all of my favorite characters to play as don't get much reward out of it.

 

[Y2Kay]

With Mewtwo's recent success culminating with Abadango's win, I'm realizing a bit about myself as a person and as a player.

For one thing, I feel less of a need to work with Mewtwo.

This isn't anything like, "Mewtwo is high tier now so I don't want to use the character," though. I still really enjoy using the character, I still enjoy (and hate) the stress of using such a dynamic glass cannon, and it'll always be one of my go-to mains. However, opinion on Mewtwo has changed for the better, and while I'm some no-name who barely attends tournaments and gets middling results, part of the fun of Mewtwo was being part of a collective effort with other Mewtwo mains to elevate the character. Now, I kind of want to move on, try out another character that I see potential in but whose reputation is lackluster. Maybe Jigglypuff or something.

It's an odd feeling to express, because I LIKE the fact that more attention is being given to Mewtwo (and that Scatt is still showing how great Mega Man can be). It's more like, now that everyone's focused on Mewtwo, there's no longer a need for me to try and draw attention to the character. I don't know if anyone else ever feels similarly.

I know exactly how you feel. Character success is bittersweet. It's also kind of why I talked more about Mewtwo post - BEAST 6.

There's nothing much left I can say without repeating myself, honestly. People are all now interested and somewhat understand him now. There used to be a void when it came to Greninja knowledge, and I tried to share everything I know. Istudying came onto the big stage and showed everyone exactly what I was talking about.

Then, Mewtwo was next for me. Mewtwo had gotten a lot stronger since his buffs, but nobody knew exactly what this meant for him and for the future. I gradually moved to Mewtwo posts. But again, abadango went ahead and filled that gap in understanding and them some.

The Mewtwo community was a very small and tight knit, and now we're in the big leagues over night. It's an awkward transition. I kinda miss being our own little thing, ya know? But it's the price of progress.

I can't rant about greninja or Mewtwo. My life is w/o purpose.

 

[Dre89]

So since everyone loves to exaggerate Bayo's damage I took a look at this set between Nasubi and 9B https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoiD6TYXyBw

I calculated the average damage that 9B did from witch twist which is her trademark combo starter. I was also generous in that I excluded scenarios where the opponent was off-stage and thus couldn't be safely chased, and a couple of things that technically weren't true (could be air-dodged/jumped out of)

The average damage was 13.92, or about 14%.

And the highest damage was a 28% combo (that resulted in death)

Sure you can add a d-tilt and fair 1 to that, but when people talk about bayo as if she's consistently getting 30% combos they're actually just spewing nonsense.

Edit: I even extended this to consider any combo involving her specials (including the damage before the specials) and ignored up-b's where he missed the follow-up, the average damage still only came out to be 19.92.
So at most you can claim a generic bayo combo does about 20%.

Well I also saw Pink Fresh's Bayo get 0-80'd by Zinoto's Diddy, then kill Zinoto with literally one combo when he was at like 7%, so that's the other side of the coin.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I have a question. What do you think about Wii Fit Trainer? Just wanted to get some opinions about her. I think she's a strong contender. She's got a lot of positives. Such as double hitboxes, amazing edge game, amazing projectiles and a sufficient recovery. However, she can struggle with offensive characters such as Fox or Mario. I really don't think she's low mid or high tier. I'd give her high mid. Since also, she has a decent MU spread. Most of her MUs are even with some top/high tiers such as Sonic and ZSS. However she struggles with like Mario,Fox,Ness,Cloud etc. Like her worst(it really depends from Wii Fit Trainer player to Wii Fit Trainer player) is Kirby. Which is 70:30ish. It really deems her not solo viable. She has decent kill power, sure not amazing like Cloud but it's good enough.

Given her rankings with the few players who are dedicated to her, it's practically undeniable at this point that she's at least mid tier with highly optimistic views putting her around low high with other possible/likely mid tier graduates Toon Link, DK, Ike, Greninja, and, of course, Mewtwo. In my opinion, the ZSS and especially the Sheik nerfs were a big deal because, in a way, WFT did a lot of the same things they could but was severally outclassed. Now, especially with Wii Fit's own special traits, I feel like the gap has been significantly reduced (and I'd argue that Wii Fit vs Sheik is now even at worst and possibly a winning match up too) As you said, she only has one match up now that could be deemed a genuine KIRB stomping and that's Kirby, a character who has a laundry list of problems against a lot of top/high characters anyways. This said, I'd say Wii Fit's biggest relevant threat now is Mario but, I will admit, I'm not too sure on Bayo or Cloud since nobody in my city (Moonshine and Meth, Midwest) plays Bayo and I've beaten the local Cloud in Grand Finals in three tournaments roundly enough that he permanently switched to Sheik. Still, I think her match up spread is now similar to DK or Ike so I contend she's another character that's frustratingly close to being solo viable.

 

[Megamang]

Running into kirby in bracket is... unlikely, to say the least. At least in my experience and from what I see on streams.

 

[UberMadman]

Man, you guys talking about your characters suddenly gaining success and traction which justifies your previous claims... just be lucky that you don't have to experience the opposite. Tweek drops your main and beats Ranai and Dabuz with Cloud, and suddenly everyone seems to forget that he got 33rd at the 1,096-entrant Genesis 3 going exclusively Bowser Jr. It feels weird having to justify that my character is at least somewhat functional with events that already happened that have somehow fallen out of the popular conscious a mere three months later.

 

[C0rvus]

Life is definitely looking rough for Bowser Jr. Maybe the buff fairy will make his gameplan work a little better? Work some magic like he did with Ganondorf and Samus. Still won't bring Tweek back though. Tweek left Wario too, a character also hurting for rep. Man is just shattering dreams left and right.

 

[Megamang]

Bowser Jr has the feeling of mobility, but when you learn whats going on he is less agile than he first appears.

Mechakoopa is a really cool tool though. Perhaps a little undertuned. They could make it faster and it wouldn't effect balance in other modes terribly much, but in 1v1 they could be a little stronger trap.

 

[UberMadman]

What Bowser Jr. REALLY needs is some kind of tuning to his grab/throw game. And I'm not even talking about slaping on a Hoo-Hah or something lazy like that, just give him SOME kind of reward off of his absolutely ****-tier frame 12 grab, or just fix the grab itself. Lucas' and ZSS' grabs don't have the best frame data, but they at least get a lot of reward off their throws, (ZSS less so after the patch but it's still there.) And some changes to actually make some of his moves function more properly would be nice, considering his jab doesn't work, his wall-tech without Kart sends him flying into the abyss, and his actually genuinely decent down-tilt is held back by the fact that it doesn't connect into itself properly at all at higher percents or if Jr. has rage.

But as they say, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, and I didn't come to ***** about Bowser Jr. After all, I made the choice to main him because I enjoyed the character and not because I though he'd be top tier. Instead, I just want people to know that this character still has a working gameplan with a lot of good tools and solid enough results to back up the fact that he's not trash-tier. A kill confirm that works on the entire cast at around 90-110% regardless of how the opponent DIs is a big deal, and the fact that he can get you to that percent extremely quickly with some massively damaging early percent combos and excellent frametraps caused by Mechakoopa mean that if Bowser Jr. gets momentum, he can go to town. And it's not like Bowser Jr. has stopped doing things just because Tweek dropped the character, either.

Every once in a while, I see someone bust out the character who actually knows their ****, and it's always a treat to see. Like a lot of the low tiers, Bowser Jr. can get away with a LOT of stupid **** when people don't know the matchup, (like when people try to punish his Forward Smash; word to the wise, respect the **** out of that move,) so it's often hard to tell how much of it really is the character, but he still can hold his own regardless. The match above is a recent one from Pound VI that I thought was a good example of how deadly Jr. can be if you don't stuff him in neutral, specifically because I found that Mahgnittoc's (ab)use of Mechakoopa was on point throughout the entire match.

TL;DR I guess I'm just trying to say that Bowser Jr. exists, and he's not that bad.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I still play Bowser Jr (or, rather, le Shig Igg) in tournaments and I'd argue that the character suffers from the same problem that Dedede does: they're significantly easier to beat once you know the match up. The Koopa Kart jump cancel options are all too easily shut down by shield and it's basically the only reliable way to get strings started. If Bowser Jr had a reliable set up throw or kill confirms out of throws, they would pole vault up the tier list because Bowser Jr's combo game is stupid good for a heavy weight. Bowser Jr's game plan is just to absolutely overwhelm your opponent and, if this falls apart, you largely have to rely on traps and piecing together strings here and there. That said, he's a very cerebral character while makes it all the more frustrating that the tables can turn on him so heavily. He gets juggled, he can get ball tapped out of his recovery, the mecha koopa can easily backfire, a lot of kills rely on hard reads and traps, etc. It's a character that's constantly working against his limitations and where wins primarily revolve constantly running circles around your opponent and getting them in mental checkmates. "Okay, I can break your shield or you can take this hit and pray that DI will save you." Ideally, those are the kinds of Catch 22's you want to get your opponent in as Bowser Jr but it's definitely a game of mental checkers to get there and, if your opponent is smarter than you, you might as well be an amputee playing Hungry, Hungry Hippos.

 

[Dre89]

Perfect pivoting is very useful for characters that have threatening bairs, bairs with different utility, and especially OOS useful bairs. It allows you to slide towards someone facing backwards, which is pretty great for some characters. We see Larry Lurr using it to make DK's utilt effectively have better frame data (it hits with later frames, giving it both better recovery/safety and followups). ESAM's early PP video shows an interesting pika tech, where you can PP - Shield... this burst movement will throw them off, and since you are approaching, they might throw out a sloppy hitbox. Then OOS bair is a nice punish for pika, netting him more damage than his other aerials. Additionally, he might opt to use a rising uair, which has a hitbox beginning behind him and is therefore 'quicker' pressure/response, with admittedly a little less followup (although the straight up knockback makes followups for pika specifically pretty good regardless).

One of the biggest benefactors of a skilled PP user, from my experience, is actually Cloud. While his ground game is decent, PP really puts it over the edge, and increases the area he can burst cover dramatically. PP utilt is a juggle tool that leads to the deadly uair juggles, while having a little less commitment and risk than just starting with a uair. PP back -> dtilt is a very strong punish option, as you slide back then lower your hurtbox it is likely you can make a nice dodge and punish in the same swoop, again opening his punish game.

But, the biggest thing? Bair. PP -> bair basically gives Cloud greninja's fair with M2's frame data. His bair is insane. He threaten so much hitbox area with this. Like pika, he can slide in with shields, and the back of his shield carries its own threats and risks. An opponent walking up and pressuring your shield with a barely-grabbable tilt will get away, but someone who takes to the air has rising bair which will cover a lot and straight up beat out retreating pressure attempts.

PP also gives you a lot of leeway in how you space your extended dash dance. Any of the dashes can be PPs, and when your opponent realizes this your dashes carry way more threat. Greninja is so low, and his disjointed utilt and usmash are fast and strong, that a EDDing greninja is pretty damn hard to land against. PP utilt gets your disjoint right where you need it, and it confirms into either uair for kills or bair for ledge situations.

Cloud's EDD being so good means his PP can come out more efficiently. This movement makes the character terrifying, and can somewhat remedy his limited ground game.


What cool tech does PP open for your character? If you have a threatening bair, it likely opens up some super scary followups. I know the Ike boards have some really talented labbers who put it to use in a comprehensive ledge coverage option list. This is one of the reasons Ike has had such success against sonic, since being on the ledge is a significant state of disadvantage vs Ike when he is sliding around covering all your options with a huge disjoint. And he doesn't slide that far! So get to work labbers!.


I don't exactly know where I was going with this. But we kinda had a lull in the topics being discussed, so I thought I'd throw up another couple of paragraphs and see where it went. While I don't expect everyone to read the giant walls I post, I have gotten some positive responses and I LOVE THIS FREAKING KEYBOARD SO MUCH, so unless someone objects, ill be popping in with these when I can think of them and when I miss my clicking blue switches between ladder matches.


Oh, Bayo with PP can make her dtilt more mobile and also more safe for a landing trap, so you'd have to guess between her sliding to safety and dtilting your feet for a confirm, or just utilting through your hitbox. Don't land next to her :B

DK's utilt hitbox actually covers all around him on frame 5, despite that the animation would suggest otherwise. He can utilt people behind him before his arm goes over his head, which is pretty stupid lol.

I've induced so much rage with this move because it does everything. It's an anti-air, his best GTFO, combo starter, combo follow up, and kill move if it's not stale. Only problem with it is that you can sometimes get punished on hit at low percents.

 

[Man Li Gi]

If only DK utilt hit in front. Yah it's unsafe on hit for floaties (low gravity peeps) at low percent since they take lower vertical knock back/hitstun. Often times I don't want use it for floaties because of this, but they like staying in the air so much. An increase in base knock back would make it safe on hit, but kill a bit too early.

 

[PK Gaming]

Life is definitely looking rough for Bowser Jr. Maybe the buff fairy will make his gameplan work a little better? Work some magic like he did with Ganondorf and Samus. Still won't bring Tweek back though. Tweek left Wario too, a character also hurting for rep. Man is just shattering dreams left and right.

I don't think Tweek planned on seriously using Wario, in fairness.

Anyway, Nasubi's the new hotness in regards to Wario. He's doing spretty well with him now.

 

[Dre89]

If only DK utilt hit in front. Yah it's unsafe on hit for floaties (low gravity peeps) at low percent since they take lower vertical knock back/hitstun. Often times I don't want use it for floaties because of this, but they like staying in the air so much. An increase in base knock back would make it safe on hit, but kill a bit too early.

It does hit in front though.

I remember I was in a DK ditto once and my utilt somehow won out against the other DK's dtilt (he was in front of me). I just remember both of us thinking being like dafuq.

 

[Kaiduru Zeta]

Given her rankings with the few players who are dedicated to her, it's practically undeniable at this point that she's at least mid tier with highly optimistic views putting her around low high with other possible/likely mid tier graduates Toon Link, DK, Ike, Greninja, and, of course, Mewtwo. In my opinion, the ZSS and especially the Sheik nerfs were a big deal because, in a way, WFT did a lot of the same things they could but was severally outclassed. Now, especially with Wii Fit's own special traits, I feel like the gap has been significantly reduced (and I'd argue that Wii Fit vs Sheik is now even at worst and possibly a winning match up too) As you said, she only has one match up now that could be deemed a genuine KIRB stomping and that's Kirby, a character who has a laundry list of problems against a lot of top/high characters anyways. This said, I'd say Wii Fit's biggest relevant threat now is Mario but, I will admit, I'm not too sure on Bayo or Cloud since nobody in my city (Moonshine and Meth, Midwest) plays Bayo and I've beaten the local Cloud in Grand Finals in three tournaments roundly enough that he permanently switched to Sheik. Still, I think her match up spread is now similar to DK or Ike so I contend she's another character that's frustratingly close to being solo viable.

Dude I definitely agree! Like my friend put WFT at bottom 15 which doesn't make a lot of sense since our positives outweigh our negatives I'd say.

 

[bc1910]

Wii Fit's a weird one. I would argue that she's not quite as good as Wii Fit mains think, and is not high tier. She's usually absent from the real top level stuff, and I think there are still issues with her moveset overall.

On the other hand she is significantly better than the wider community gives her credit for. Her zoning/camping game is amazing, so is her offstage game, and she is far improved from the wonky mess she was at release.

I think she's still not great, but she's getting there and nowhere near bottom 15. I would rank her around 30th with the Marth/Wario/Pac-Man crew.

 

[Kaiduru Zeta]

Wii Fit's a weird one. I would argue that she's not quite as good as Wii Fit mains think, and is not high tier. She's usually absent from the real top level stuff, and I think there are still issues with her moveset overall.

On the other hand she is significantly better than the wider community gives her credit for. Her zoning/camping game is amazing, so is her offstage game, and she is far improved from the wonky mess she was at release.

I think she's still not great, but she's getting there and nowhere near bottom 15. I would rank her around 30th with the Marth/Wario/Pac-Man crew.

I can agree. I'd say she's pretty great however I might be overhyping her due to her being my main.Many people seem to forget her getting top 32 in Genesis which is HUGE. I do wish more WFTs would make it to tournaments so we don't have to rely on Rin,John Numbers,Wave,Twerk,AscWolf and Ace's stronghold.

 

[Man Li Gi]

It does hit in front though.

I remember I was in a DK ditto once and my utilt somehow won out against the other DK's dtilt (he was in front of me). I just remember both of us thinking being like dafuq.

Lemme reiterate, it barely hits in front.

 

[Ninety]

A kill confirm that works on the entire cast at around 90-110% regardless of how the opponent DIs is a big dea

Out of curiosity, which one is this? I know jack about Bowser Jr.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

The problem with characters like WFT and others is that some characters *have* to be under-average / low-mid at best. If we follow the rules of standard normal distribution [which I think is crucial when creating a tier list] then the majority of the cast, by definition, has to be placed in the "average"-zone which means somewhere between high-mid tier and low-mid tier. The first step would be to determine which characters are *not* within that range because they're either better or worse than that.

Definitely better:
Definitely worse:

[I'm not counting Mii Characters because forcing them to use 1-1-1-1 is pretty much equivalent to banning them].

That's 20/54 characters that don't fall into the "average"-category which is already a pretty generous cut of more than 30% of the cast. Some of the characters I mentioned here are probably closer to the "average"-zone [Kirby is a contender for that imo] due to that but the general idea is that a lot of characters just *have* to be mid-tier simply because that's how averages work.

Realistically we currently have 3 clear-cut top tier characters: Bayonetta, Diddy Kong and Sheik
Characters that have consistently proven themselves as worthy runner ups: Rosalina, Fox, Cloud, Mario, ZSS
*ZSS is kind of stuck in limbo between obv. top and runner up, Mewtwo is bound to join this elite club, Sonic is already struggling to keep up in terms of results.

So even if WFT were better than people think and better than "a lot" of characters it's still hard to clearly argue her to be better than your jolly ol' mid-tier character. Potential is one thing to have but when it comes down to it in a tournament set Diddy's ground game, Fox' utilt -> uair BS and Mewtwo's consistent 120% stock cap won't give much of a **** about how much "potential" your character has.



With the current knowledge we have I think a tier list like this would be pretty representative of what's happening in the meta right now:

Spoiler: Not ordered within tiers!!!

The four gods that define the meta:
Cool dudes who'll probably beat you:

***
​

Characters that are good "but ... ": [this group essentially marks the borderline between high and mid-tier; could potentially be split up in two tiers; part of it could be grouped with the tier below it; **** gets REALLY hard to distinguish from here on]
Totally not unviable but likely a bit too weak for actual high tier:
The dark netherworld of indistinguishable mid-tier: <- WFT is here!!!! [among the other ~50% of the cast]
Totally not viable but likely a bit too good for actual low tier:

***​

The rest:

 

[L9999]

When will people stop pissing at Samus and Palutena? Just curiosity.

 

[Kaiduru Zeta]

Wouldn't Rosalina be one of the clear cut top tiers? She's definitely top tier IMO. Like around #2. I personally would put WFT (among like the totally not unviable but likely a bit too weak for actual high tier) placement. But you really did bring up a good point but distinguishing the top tiers from the bottom tiers. I'll be sure to implement that work into my own created tier list.

 

[wpwood]

When will people stop pissing at Samus and Palutena? Just curiosity.

Never, because people don't know about Prince Ramen, TLTC, or IceNinja. Most Palutena players have accepted everyone will think of her as a crappy character and we've stopped caring about that because we do fine with our character.

 

[Ninety]

Donkey Kong has waaay too many results to be in the "not viable but not low tier" category, especially if you're putting him next to Charizard.

Anyway, I think an issue with Smash 4 tier lists is that the gap between high tiers is increasingly small. Diddy Kong and Sheik are still leagues above Zelda and Jigglypuff, but when, say, a Marth or Wario or Mega Man beats a top tier, no-one's really shocked. Matchups aren't insurmountable for the most part.

So what this means is that a main of a character like Bowser or Link or Falco sees a tier list that puts them in mid-low or low and goes "That's not right! My main is too good to be that low!". And hell, they might indeed be viable. But a tier list rates characters in comparison to each other, not as to how good they are against some impossible objective standard. In other words, as has been said, someone has to be low tier, no matter how well-balanced the game is, because that's how distributions work. But the difference between a Smash 4 high and low tier can be much, much less than the same in Brawl, and you won't see that reflected in standard tier lists.

 

[bc1910]

Luigi shouldn't even be a consideration for high tier. Too many bad MUs, and his results have all but fallen off a cliff. He's below the Ike/Pit group.

Falco's placement among the good-but-not-viables is kinda random. Though I happen to agree with it. DK seems strangely low, though again I can see the reasoning.

Kaiduru Zeta Rosalina has some really bad MUs actually. MK looks like a borderline hard counter, and Cloud is bad as well (like Marth he can swat Luma away easily/hit Rosa through Luma, but unlike Marth he's safe while doing it). Whilst she's good, she definitely struggles to get past good players of those two (one of which is extremely common) in tourney.