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Official 4BR Tier List v1.0 - Competitive Impressions

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C0rvus

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Their floatiness and weight, more or less. They don't go into tumble from up air long enough for the combo to kill. While up air doesn't tumble, it cannot be SDI'ed nearly as much, so you can't get out if the MK doesn't mess up. That's the gist of it, anyway. Better MK players can tell you in more detail. I'm probably wrong anyway lol

But in general, MK does better against floaties for this reason.
 
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LRodC

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I wonder how the combo affects Mewtwo? He's the second lightest character, but he has pretty average fall speed and slightly below average gravity. He's also fairly easy to hit in tumble.
 

[BROF]

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『 HOLY DIVER 』 Jojo Part 7 best part.
You know why Ganondorf's fundamental problems will never be entirely solved? Because without them, he's not going to be the type of character that Ganondorf's supposed to be: slow, read-based, heavy damage. They've already done plenty to buff him, like improving landing lag, giving him a quicker jab, etc., but you'll notice that it's all geared towards reinforcing his play style. He can afford to make more reads because his attacks are a bit safer, and jab can get people off if they get a little too close, but he's not going to transform into a Cloud.
The more they move towards his Melee iteration the better. Getting that juicy Frame 3 jab that leads to knockdown would be amazing, especially since CCing stuff is not in Smash 4. In melee you could also solve most of his movement issues with his crispy wave-movement but in Smash 4 you can't. Wizkick cancels are nice but not so safe. Frankly Ganondorf could use a combo throw as well. He gets a lot from his Downthrow in melee especially against Floaties in the from of dthrow>uair (funny when you think about it) and tech chasing FFs. Aside from that getting back the SH AC Dair from brawl would be nice, but I can't recall a move being buffed/changed to get an earlier AC window. Can anybody throw me a bone here?

While I know that just giving a character a combo throw is like a band-aid fix, it would at least make getting grabbed by him at higher % scary. It's not like he gets grabs for free or anything.
 

Shaya

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The moment knockback reaches tumble, gravity values start to affect your knockback, giving fairly large benefits to travel directions to most of the fast fallers/non-floaties (falling below / to the sides for the most part).
While floaties get to cherish the fact that there isn't that much of a difference between knockback pre/post tumble, and get to die.

Something like that, at least.


Meanwhile, with Zero Suit Zair, when gravity comes into affect on fast fallers, it starts to combo BETTER because for a while (although its a 45 degree angle or something) they're getting hit downwards due to their gravity values and zair's slow growth.
They don't tech, they die, they jump, they die, they attack (without a sword) they should die, they air dodge into the ground they die, they do nothing and maybe I'm surprised and don't kill them.
They tech and I expect that, they also die. Good times.

Zair reaches tumble across the cast at KO percent.
Zair is a good move.
 
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Fatmanonice

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Their floatiness and weight, more or less. They don't go into tumble from up air long enough for the combo to kill. While up air doesn't tumble, it cannot be SDI'ed nearly as much, so you can't get out if the MK doesn't mess up. That's the gist of it, anyway. Better MK players can tell you in more detail. I'm probably wrong anyway lol

But in general, MK does better against floaties for this reason.
Rosa's size probably doesn't help much either. I also think it has to do with the fact that neither have air stalls or OH GOD, GET OFF ME aerials. Like the comments of the video talk about, you can see the exact moment when Samsora's self esteem gets BTFO and it's one of the more depressing things I've seen in a competitive Smash video in awhile.
 

Ffamran

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Sakurai sure did a great job solving Ganondorf's fundamental problems.

BTW, nice work Ffam.
I would like to say that the developers did increase Ganondorf's damage and knockback on a lot of his moves from Brawl. It's funny... A lot of characters had trouble killing not just because their moves were nerfed e.g. Falco's Dtilt damage dropping from 13% to 12% with a 9% tipper sour-spot and a drop of growth from its 125 to counter Melee's higher fall speed and gravity not affecting vertical knockback to 90, below the average of 100 for most moves, or Bair dropping from 15% to 13% and only gaining 3 growth to its fairly average 100 growth as compensation, but also because of momentum canceling allowing characters to survive a bit more. Anyway, figure that and Ganondorf... What was his strength in Melee again? Oh, yeah, his strength. How redundant, but that's the deal with Ganondorf. After all, he's the holder of the Triforce of Power. Dude was not a holder of nonexistent Triforce of Speed or Triforce of Shoot boxing. Now, take away momentum canceling and Ganondorf would be pretty strong... Nah, let's make sure he's strong and buff him for Smash 4.

Here's Brawl Ganondorf's frame data: http://opensa.dantarion.com/autoframe/FitGanon.php. There are some weird stuff like Brawl apparently separates Smash animations into 3 parts: startup, charge, and attack. So, there will be times where you'll see, for example, Ganondorf's Up Smash listed under frame 11. Holy hell, that would be a beast of a move. Speaking of which, frame 11 isn't actually frame 11, it's the next number that's the actual startup, so frame 12, however, remember that it's not factoring in the startup animation.

I would like to compile Brawl's frame data mostly for the knockback values since there are loads of threads detailing startup, total frames, etc., but not knockback for whatever reason. Even damage sometimes isn't detailed. Whenever that's up, it'll be easier to compare with Smash 4 since there's a spreadsheet out there rather than sometimes seeing knockback listed, damage there... whatever. That being said, there are probably resources out there that already have this information and I'm just not aware of it. I do know of one, but it's in Japanese and it still doesn't tell the whole story. Oh, and the other part... as everyone knows, I hate misinformation. Recently checked Smash 4 Falco's page on ssbwiki. One change they said was from Brawl to Smash 4, his Utilt startup was reduced from 6 to 5. Nope. It actually increased from 4 to 5. Minor detail, but still.

Full listing here: http://opensa.dantarion.com/autoframe/.

And, as I said, anyone could have made the spreadsheet. Why they didn't or rather, why people don't look at those data, particularly the finer, "minor" data, more often, I don't know. Thanks should really go to all the data-miners of Brawl and Smash 4.

The more they move towards his Melee iteration the better. Getting that juicy Frame 3 jab that leads to knockdown would be amazing, especially since CCing stuff is not in Smash 4. In melee you could also solve most of his movement issues with his crispy wave-movement but in Smash 4 you can't. Wizkick cancels are nice but not so safe. Frankly Ganondorf could use a combo throw as well. He gets a lot from his Downthrow in melee especially against Floaties in the from of dthrow>uair (funny when you think about it) and tech chasing FFs. Aside from that getting back the SH AC Dair from brawl would be nice, but I can't recall a move being buffed/changed to get an earlier AC window. Can anybody throw me a bone here?

While I know that just giving a character a combo throw is like a band-aid fix, it would at least make getting grabbed by him at higher % scary. It's not like he gets grabs for free or anything.
Frame 3 or even frame 4 jab would be awesome for Ganondorf.

Anyway, I think for the most part, the developers have emphasized Ganondorf's strengths and niche like they have for the other characters. Yes, there is always things to refine, but to me, Ganondorf in Smash 4 resembles his Melee incarnation as a powerhouse. He does, however, lack Melee Ganondorf's slick movement, fast jab, and other stuff that I just don't know about. I do, however, want to make the argument that Smash 4 has been the refinement of most the characters in Smash. Brawl, on the other hand, had done some weird things or in their attempt to re-tune characters to a new environment, made them too weak whereas characters introduced in Brawl and returned in Smash 4 were pretty much at home such as Ike, Pit, Toon Link, and Wario. This is great since their strengths are just emphasized and in some ways, pretty much simply done like Marth's issue was that his strength, his tippers, his spacing, and his zoning wasn't strong. It was there, but it wasn't rewarding enough compared to other characters who could normally space and receive as much if not even more reward than he did.

At the same time, there are some characters with "perfected" designs. Biggest examples would be Captain Falcon and Fox. Even in Brawl, Captain Falcon was technically a good character. There wasn't anything really wrong with him. It was more of the game's mechanics that screwed him over. He relied on combos and juggles in an environment where it was difficult to do so. It's not a coincidence that both of them were among the OGs of Smash. They've had time to be refined over the years, but it's also not wrong to say that Melee and even Brawl and Smash 4 characters should have been "perfected". My only comment on that is that we still have to acknowledge that the developers had a tough task in figuring out all the characters while retaining and introducing as much as they could in each game. Any developer would struggle to do what they did.

Silly ramblings aside, this is weird, but I think Ganondorf could work a Zangief route. By that, I mean his throws and even his command throw, Flame Choke, could be made stronger. Mostly in the damage department and some in knockback. Ganondorf's throws are one of the most damaging rivaled by Bowser, Charizard, Ryu, and Zelda -- yes, Zelda's throws do high damage. Maybe, considering he's much slower than all of them and he doesn't have as much range, he should be doing even more damage. All of them can do ~12% with their throws... Maybe Ganondorf should be doing ~16%. A positional 18% total F-throw, maybe a 15% total B-throw that can KO, 13% total U-throw with maybe the higher damage being the launch, and D-throw could do 11% while being a low to mid setup throw. A thing about Ganondorf's throws is that his end up doing more damage than Captain Falcon's, but are weaker or barely stronger in KO potential. The biggest example would be his B-throw which only has 1% more on its launch hit and half the base of Capt.'s leading to rage not really benefiting him. F-throw at least has something where it trades KO power for raw damage since Ganondorf's other moves already have high KO power. Flame Choke could do even more damage too... Ground does 17% instead of 12% and aerial does 20% instead of 15%. Random insane numbers, but Ganondorf strikes me as someone who if he so much as touches you, you should be taking a lot of damage. For throws and command grabs where he's not doing a lot of knockback, he could be doing a lot of damage to make up for it.

Also, he could have armor during Side Smash. And that one patch version of his Nair where the strong hit lead into the weak hit. That was a pretty wicked and unique move.
 
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blackghost

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I wonder how the combo affects Mewtwo? He's the second lightest character, but he has pretty average fall speed and slightly below average gravity. He's also fairly easy to hit in tumble.
weight and floatiness aren't related. fox is a light fast faller, Samus is a heavy floaty. Rosa is light and floaty.
m2 is light but I thinks he's out of the danger range for mk ladder. but it's gotta be close.
 

TheGoodGuava

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I think they Bayonetta mains may be the only ones to overrate their character more than the Pikachu mains. Losing to nobody? Not even the characters shes had a poor record against since prepatch? What is this ****? I guess they haven't been camped enough
 

Ulevo

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Two Bayonetta mains put their match up charts down as essentially beating the entire cast, and somehow my suggestion she could be top two is a knee jerk reaction. Pre-patch she was contender for the best character, along with Sheik. What did she lose coming over to patch 1.1.6? Not that much.

Anyhow, Meta Knight's ladder on Rosa and Peach is true. It would not matter if they had access to say, Mario's neutral air. They would still die from it. Although it is worth noting that if you try to kill them again on their second stock in the same fasion the staled up airs will not have enough hit stun and thus they will be able to air dodge out at some point.
 
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GeneralLedge

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My Ryu match-up list if anyone cares.
View attachment 114429
Props for a Mii tier that inspires a brighter future.

I can't off the top of my head think of any one-way-or-the-other between Miis and Ryu. Gunner might pose a problem for him if the player throws up a wall of Fairs and retreats methodically, as most Gunners do. Brawler might be at a disadvantage regardless of customs, since his plan requires going in; but it's a blurred line when his aerial mobility can be bonkers. And sword is a weird middling ground in a similar boat with other swordies.

Roughly Samus/Luigi*/Marth respectively. Although I have very little Ryu experience in general so this is a very loose theory.

(*I say Luigi and not Mario, because despite Brawler's mobility, he lacks some of Mario's tools, and his default upB is worse than Cloud's. So idk.)
 
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Radical Larry

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I think they Bayonetta mains may be the only ones to overrate their character more than the Pikachu mains. Losing to nobody? Not even the characters shes had a poor record against since prepatch? What is this ****? I guess they haven't been camped enough
As someone who can make some odd MU charts or tier lists, I'm dumbfounded by the MU chart that Bayonetta players think they know full about. It's okay for people to admit their character has weaknesses, but then there are people who aren't okay with admitting it and just say that their character is the best in the game. Bayonetta has a hell of a lot of weaknesses now, she has bad MUs, it's pretty obvious.
 

blackghost

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I don't know much about ikep but I think pink fresh didn't differentiate between himself and her as a character.
a confident pink fresh can mess up anyone (see Xanadu last night) but there's no way she doesn't lose to at least Mario and tink, campy sonic, and campy shiek.
but it's also easy to feel confident about your character when 3 months later people don't know something as basic as whether or not heel slide will have a kick come out or not.
and it's also possible they are over rating their character because once agian sdi isn't happening consistently against them.
 

C0rvus

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On the topic of Heel Slide, you can make it look like the kick is coming out (the tell is if Bayo is shooting while she does the initial slide, the kick is primed) but not let it out. So, like with pretty much everything she does, there are mixups. I think Bayonetta is a very good character, but it seems like her players have accelerated from "She's probably top 10" to "Who does she even lose to?" Because she quite clearly loses to Diddy, and has disadvantages against characters like Sheik, Lucario, Mario, and Toon Link. Lots of evens she has to deal with, like DK, Marth, Ness, and others. She is very good, but a line needs to be drawn somewhere; her players seem to have grown almost cocky about her.
 

FeelMeUp

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Bayo mains prepatch: "diddy MU is 7:3, Sheik is 6:4, I hate getting camped, etc. Not the best character"
Bayo mains postpatch: "Oh yeah she's the best and doesn't lose to anyone."
 
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Fenny

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Bayo mains prepatch: "diddy MU is 7:3, Sheik is 6:4, I hate getting camped, etc. Not the best character"
Bayo mains postpatch: "Oh yeah she's the best and doesn't lose to anyone."
I guess when you have a character as overwhelming as Bayo pre-patch the MUs she actually loses are a lot more noteworthy.
 
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Radical Larry

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Bayo mains prepatch: "diddy MU is 7:3, Sheik is 6:4, I hate getting camped, etc. Not the best character"
Bayo mains postpatch: "Oh yeah she's the best and doesn't lose to anyone."
While I think Pink Fresh is a decent player, he's living in the very recent past about Bayonetta. She's a decent character worthy of top 20, but she was nerfed, so her MUs were pretty nerfed too.
 

GeneralLedge

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On the flip side, the number of angry people who dropped Bayo resulted in "her no longer being a threat", and many players neglecting to learn the MU at all, if only due to a lack of practice. Not helping was the silent ban, blame-and-shame, and perpetual mis-information.

Now we only have the "perpetual mis-information" part. Oh yeah you can SDI out of her move really far now! ...If you nick the controlstick once a frame every frame. But don't tell people that last part, I'm sure it's an easy fight you'll win no matter what.

So, spawned from this, Bayo players are really cocky because nobody ever thought they had to learn the MU when you can 'just SDI'. Which is ironic, because I think Bayo players used that as a negotiable factoid to begin with.

What ever happened to that "how to beat Bayonetta" video, and was it ever revisited post-patch?
 

~ Gheb ~

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Mr-r who has played against top level Bayonetta players before and after the patch thinks she is the 3rd best character in the game.
Pink Fresh who is the most successful Bayonetta player in the US right now and has tons of tournament- and matchup experience against all sorts of characters in general thinks she has a very favorable matchup spread.
ikep who is the best Bayonetta player in Japan and has a lot of matchup experience thinks she has a very favorable matchup spread.

I choose to side with the informed minority here. Mob mentality already had people completely misled in cases of Diddy and Sheik. A character that doesn't have a specific, abusable flaw can never be counted out entirely for top 5.

:059:
 
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Fenny

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While I think Pink Fresh is a decent player, he's living in the very recent past about Bayonetta. She's a decent character worthy of top 20, but she was nerfed, so her MUs were pretty nerfed too.
See, the difference between pre-patch and post-patch Bayo is that one has a far more developed neutral then the other. It's easy to see Bayo for her previously more nuts attributes, but to those who got past that, she was someone who wasn't a massive problem to lay into once you were in because, well, she rarely needed to get that far. Now you have a Bayo who can use Diddy's bananas to negate her landing lag after aerial specials, which isn't something we even knew was possible until recently. And in Pink Fresh's case, where he's beginning to perfect Bayo's abundance of frame traps and DI-situational combos, it's no wonder you have people like Mr R seeing Bayo as a legit contender for top 5.
 
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blackghost

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See, the difference between pre-patch and post-patch Bayo is that one has a far more developed neutral then the other. It's easy to see Bayo for her previously more nuts attributes, but to those who got past that, she was someone who wasn't a massive problem to lay into once you were in because, well, she rarely needed to get that far. Now you have a Bayo who can use Diddy's bananas to negate her landing lag after aerial specials, which isn't something we even knew was possible until recently. And in Pink Fresh's case, where he's beginning to perfect Bayo's abundance of frame traps and DI-situational combos, it's no wonder you have people like Mr R seeing Bayo as a legit contender for top 5.
I am curious about how well all her major players do in last tournaments of summer. but there's a high level if not elite bayo in almost every region now (except normal I think) that will contribute to people learning her and let's not act like the animosity towards her (and cloud) isn't gone. that still prevents a lot of people from using or learning how to fight her.

pink fresh is demonstrating unique combos in a variety of situations but is there even sufficient data to know how to escape these setups? knowing her frame data overall there must be holes somewhere but unless pink is messing up the only thing being escaped are the wt2 enders at the cieling.
 

Wintermelon43

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People saying Bayo is top 5 right now is, while still being ridiculous and defitenly wrong, will probably never be as bad as what people said about pre-patch Bayo.

"Bayo is OP she needs nerfs immediatatly to keep the game alive she kills at 0 OP plz nerf and ban now.......

............

........Alright now let's talk about how my main goes even with, or beats, Bayonetta"
 

EternalFlare

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Regarding Marth, does the character really have any bad matchups? He seems to have a very favourable matchup spread against the top tiers. He seems to go even with or loses only slightly to all of them with the possible exception of Sonic.

My Ryu match-up list if anyone cares.
View attachment 114429
Continuing the discussion from yesterday, I think Pacman is a lot worse than you think. I don't know if you've faced any good Pacmans but when a decent Pacman plays as lame as humanly possible, there's not much Ryu can do.

Yeah he can catch his items and get rid of Fire Hydrant fast (fair and downSmash ftw) but then what? Pacman is still not going to engage him, he has no reason ever to. He can dance all around Ryu's threatening ranges and Ryu simply can't catch him on the ground or in the air.

Ryu theoretically kills early. But good luck ever getting a chance to use said kill confirms versus a good Pacman. You're much more likely to close stocks with stale bairs at 140+ making Ryu's early kill power irrelevant.

Pacman might not have a lot of direct kill power in return either but he edge guards Ryu better than most. He can key Tatsus on reaction and then when Ryu is low enough, drop Fire Hydrants on him. At the very least Ryu is taking plenty of damage before he can make it back.
 
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Rizen

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IMO Bayo is really good but her results don't add up to a top 3, or even top 5 character. At least not yet.
http://smashboards.com/threads/tournament-placing-database-scoring-project.437773/#post-21355986
(credit to @Das Koopa )
top 8 weighted
Sheik: 208
Diddy Kong: 192.5
Cloud: 175.5
Sonic: 133
Rosalina & Luma: 123.5
Mario: 111
Fox: 108.5
Zero Suit Samus: 98.5
Bayonetta: 74

She still has a considerable gap in results compared to Sheik and Diddy and lags behind others too. I'm not saying Bayo couldn't be top 5 or better in the future, she has potential. Not now though.
 

Emblem Lord

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I agree. It was actually Zage that changed my opinion. He thinks Pac-man counter play is very under developed and that pac gets away with a lot due to this.

I personally would rather right 100 mega Man mains over 1 good pac-man.

I do my best not to let my personal opinion effect my thought process.

Btw you guys realize that if Ryu does lose these matches I listed AND the ones you guys mentioned he is probably only mid tier.

How do you feel about that?
 
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Frihetsanka

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Some characters people seem to suggest might be top 5:
  • :4bayonetta2::4diddy::4cloud::4sonic::4fox::4mario::4mewtwo::rosalina::4ryu::4zss::4sheik::4pikachu:
12* characters fighting for the "top 5" spot. Very interesting.

*Pikachu got #5 in the Official Tier list and ESAM's tier list, but few people, aside from ESAM, seem to consider Pikachu top 5 material right now.
 

~ Gheb ~

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IMO Bayo is really good but her results don't add up to a top 3, or even top 5 character.
That's debatable.

If you can solo win a US major [Category 3 on @Das Koopa's ranking] in freaking SoCal Socal with the likes of Void, Larry, Marss, Mr-r, falln, Tyrant and Mr E in attendance, citing results to support the claim that Bayonetta is top 5 is probably legitimate.

:059:
 

EternalFlare

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I agree. It was actually Zage that changed my opinion. He thinks Pac-man counter play is very under developed and that pac gets away with a lot due to this.

I personally would rather right 100 mega Man mains over 1 good pac-man.

I do my best not to let my personal opinion effect my thought process.

Btw you guys realize that if Ryu does lose these matches I listed AND the ones you guys mentioned he is probably only mid tier.

How do you feel about that?
Well I've been saying he's not top 10 for a while. He lacks the matchup spread.

He also lacks results when you take away regional bias where people are running/landing/shielding into charged focus attacks (I've lost track of how many times I've seen this). It'd be like landing into Bowser Fsmashes (in fact this is more likely as it has LESS startup) and then claiming Bowser is top 10 because of it.

His 9th place at Evo is pretty much the only decent placing at a super major he's gotten. But Earth's Pit also achieved this, does that mean Pit is suddenly top tier? How about Olimar's amazing results in Japan? If you bring those up people will likely say it means little as those aren't international majors, yet they make the same arguments for why Ryu is good (good regional results, barely anything at majors).

I don't know about mid tier but I can see him being top 20 at worst down the line (would that qualify as mid or barely high tier, not sure). Sure he has potential, he also has a ton of gimmicks he's currently getting away with.

Take the aforementioned focus attack for instance which even top Ryus commit to all the time. The counter play? Simply roll back on reaction (not forward, he can catch that). Then go in for the easy whiff punish. Don't sit in shield, don't charge single hitting Smash attacks on his landing and don't land right next to him with single hitting moves. Congrats, you're never going to get hit by it again outside of hard reads from the opponent.
 
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WeirdChillFever

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I agree. It was actually Zage that changed my opinion. He thinks Pac-man counter play is very under developed and that pac gets away with a lot due to this.

I personally would rather right 100 mega Man mains over 1 good pac-man.

I do my best not to let my personal opinion effect my thought process.

Btw you guys realize that if Ryu does lose these matches I listed AND the ones you guys mentioned he is probably only mid tier.

How do you feel about that?
Yes, Pac-Man gets away with a lot of things, but I think what Zage meant was that Pac-Man gets away with easily counterable traps. (Whose threat disappears by simply not caring about the trap and waiting until it goes away)

Not hitting Hydrant first and shielding things in general goes under this too, playing on reaction and patience goes a long way to beating Pac-Man. (And imo, Pac-Mains themselves should play more reactionary too instead of always doing something)

However, in this match-up, Ryu probably has to take the initiative and good, reactionary and calm play (No unneccesary traps and risks) from Pac-Man's part can keep him out pretty well. (Trampoline forces Ryu to jump and we all know how much Ryu likes to jump)

Though unlike other zoner characters, Pac-Man can't keep up the fortress forever.
In a way, he's like Robin, where each resource (Trampoline, Fruit, Hydrant) can't always be spawned safely, which means the fortress isn't going to be completely build all the time, though I do not know if and when Ryu can take advantage of that.

Then again, reactionary play from Pac's part and not throwing out "fortress parts" wily nily should help.
 

Ninety

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I agree. It was actually Zage that changed my opinion. He thinks Pac-man counter play is very under developed and that pac gets away with a lot due to this.

I personally would rather right 100 mega Man mains over 1 good pac-man.

I do my best not to let my personal opinion effect my thought process.

Btw you guys realize that if Ryu does lose these matches I listed AND the ones you guys mentioned he is probably only mid tier.

How do you feel about that?
I've found that, with a couple exceptions, midtier mains tend to say their character is much better than commonly perceived, while the opposite is true of high and top tier mains. I wonder why.
 

EternalFlare

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Some characters people seem to suggest might be top 5:
  • :4bayonetta2::4diddy::4cloud::4sonic::4fox::4mario::4mewtwo::rosalina::4ryu::4zss::4sheik::4pikachu:
12* characters fighting for the "top 5" spot. Very interesting.

*Pikachu got #5 in the Official Tier list and ESAM's tier list, but few people, aside from ESAM, seem to consider Pikachu top 5 material right now.
No one thinks Pikachu is even top 10 anymore let alone top 5.

Esam recently lost to a Falcon in pools, aka Pika's best matchup. Pikachu is so bad the best Pikachu can't even win his best matchups against non-ranked players....Kappa

Not but seriously, Pikachu isn't that good. I doubt he even has results to justify top 15 at this point.
 

Emblem Lord

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I am pretty objective when it comes to chars I play. Flashback to 2008 when I played Marth in Brawl and I said he was probably 3rd at best and maybe 7th at worst, but either way a completely stupid character.

I also feel Ryu counter play is poor and this allows him to shine as he ****s on standard meta habits like landing traps with smash attacks, and constant SH aerial approaches (chars with disjoints can do it to him but if you dont have them he will snuff you). And of course...people just not sitting on a life lead. I am glad Ranai showed, the last thing you do when you have Ryu on the ropes is literally jump into the nonsense.
 

GeneralLedge

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Btw you guys realize that if Ryu does lose these matches I listed AND the ones you guys mentioned he is probably only mid tier.

How do you feel about that?
My personal outlook regarding tiers has shaped over time to simply value a higher tier as meaning "more options available to their gameplan" than "wins the most". Although ultimately this might see better use as an X axis to the traditional "viability" Y axis.

In this sense, I've seen Ryu as top tier since he was shown to have 2 variants per tilt. And unless every move available to him was worthless, it's difficult to argue against his versatility. If given an omniscient demigod player who utilized every move in his kit to its fullest, it's difficult to see him anywhere below the upper quarter of the cast.

On a side-note, there's also a matter of the player's personal gameplan through the character they play. Ryu may be A tier in my mind by number of moves available alone, but different players with different playstyles will seldom use the entire kit in every match, if at all. Augmenting the player themself into any character's tier simply makes that character more volatile on paper, but doesn't necessarily mean they're better or worse for their player's gameplan.

Ryu, for example, may excel through defensive punish play, but this doesn't exempt aggressive behavior from the player, and this aggressiveness doesn't exempt the player from doing well. The sheer number of options available in his kit, and therefore the number of playstyles possible to the character, doesn't necessarily set anyone's individual tier list in stone. Which I think is what puts a character like Ryu in a 'top tier' position to begin with.
 
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Nobie

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Regarding Marth, does the character really have any bad matchups? He seems to have a very favourable matchup spread against the top tiers. He seems to go even with or loses only slightly to all of them with the possible exception of Sonic.



Continuing the discussion from yesterday, I think Pacman is a lot worse than you think. I don't know if you've faced any good Pacmans but when a decent Pacman plays as lame as humanly possible, there's not much Ryu can do.

Yeah he can catch his items and get rid of Fire Hydrant fast (fair and downSmash ftw) but then what? Pacman is still not going to engage him, he has no reason ever to. He can dance all around Ryu's threatening ranges and Ryu simply can't catch him on the ground or in the air.

Ryu theoretically kills early. But good luck ever getting a chance to use said kill confirms versus a good Pacman. You're much more likely to close stocks with stale bairs at 140+ making Ryu's early kill power irrelevant.

Pacman might not have a lot of direct kill power in return either but he edge guards Ryu better than most. He can key Tatsus on reaction and then when Ryu is low enough, drop Fire Hydrants on him. At the very least Ryu is taking plenty of damage before he can make it back.
I agree. It was actually Zage that changed my opinion. He thinks Pac-man counter play is very under developed and that pac gets away with a lot due to this.

I personally would rather right 100 mega Man mains over 1 good pac-man.

I do my best not to let my personal opinion effect my thought process.

Btw you guys realize that if Ryu does lose these matches I listed AND the ones you guys mentioned he is probably only mid tier.

How do you feel about that?
Your best hope is to travel to NYC and spar with Sinji, the lamest Pac-Man of all.
 
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EternalFlare

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I am pretty objective when it comes to chars I play. Flashback to 2008 when I played Marth in Brawl and I said he was probably 3rd at best and maybe 7th at worst, but either way a completely stupid character.

I also feel Ryu counter play is poor and this allows him to shine as he ****s on standard meta habits like landing traps with smash attacks, and constant SH aerial approaches (chars with disjoints can do it to him but if you dont have them he will snuff you). And of course...people just not sitting on a life lead. I am glad Ranai showed, the last thing you do when you have Ryu on the ropes is literally jump into the nonsense.
I've explained how to beat Focus attack gimmicks.

Now let's go over his "amazing" aerial pressure.

Spaced bair and fair are safe on block. JUST before landing nair fastfall is also fairly safe (only barely worse than 0/-2 when done perfectly). Of course Ryu is rarely going to pull off such a nair without the opponent doing something beforehand but for sake of argument let's say that counts.

That's about it. All high aerials can be shield grabbed. Dair is never safe on shield. Crossup fair which I personally love to do as it leads to TSRK aerial confirms is also unfortunately not very safe. It's -7 at best but again that's assuming you did it as low to the ground as possible. Normally it will be worse and either way fast Up Smash/reverse up B OOS can punish it among other things.

So on block his aerials are decent overall, but it's far from free and when you recognize when you can punish Ryu OOS you'll notice it's pretty common. I've seen players block high nairs and fairs that were totally shield grabbable and they did nothing,

Now here's where things get bad. His fastfall speed and thus short hop in general isn't the best and fair and bair don't autocancel (Edit: unless if done immediately which won't hit low opponents). That means on whiff, Ryu is left wide open, they are big committments in that case. If he's forced to try to "zone" with his aerials, he's just not very good at it.
 
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FeelMeUp

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Instead of saying "won a major" you should pay attention to what matchups he ended up getting.
i.e 0 Diddy, the most aggressive Sheik out there, one TL, a MK, and a ZSS twice, 0 slow/campy players.
I won't say it was exactly free, but the stars aligned perfectly and he didn't have to stress people actually....yknow, counterplaying his character by abusing the fact that her ground approach options are garbage and that she can no longer divekick you from across the map in the air to approach you.
Hence me saying you guys are absolutely NUTS for not realizing how bad the Sheik and Diddy matchups are. Bayonetta simply cannot do ANYTHING to a Diddy/Sheik committed to camping in shield with banana or needlecamping halfway across the stage. The character's options are.....run up and grab...? Shop bair, maybe?
How can you say she has "no exploitable flaws"? Are you not seeing how garbage her grounded frame data is and how horrible her boxing up close ends up being against any good top tier with rising aerials and fast ground moves(Mario, Sheik, Diddy, etc)? Do you not understand how many options of hers you strip away by committing to playing lame and running the **** away while not playing neutral like an idiot? It's even worse than when you play against Ryu(which you play this matchup similarly to) because you don't even have to camp her out for THAT long. Getting in on her is a lot easier and safer than getting in on Ryu if you aren't stupid with trying to constantly press a button every time you get in her face.
 

Emblem Lord

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I've explained how to beat Focus attack gimmicks.

Now let's go over his "amazing" aerial pressure.

Spaced bair and fair are safe on block. JUST before landing nair fastfall is also fairly safe (only barely worse than 0/-2 when done perfectly). Of course Ryu is rarely going to pull off such a nair without the opponent doing something beforehand but for sake of argument let's say that counts.

That's about it. All high aerials can be shield grabbed. Dair is never safe on shield. Crossup fair which I personally love to do as it leads to TSRK aerial confirms is also unfortunately not very safe. It's -7 at best but again that's assuming you did it as low to the ground as possible. Normally it will be worse and either way fast Up Smash/reverse up B OOS can punish it among other things.

So on block his aerials are decent overall, but it's far from free and when you recognize when you can punish Ryu OOS you'll notice it's pretty common. I've seen players block high nairs and fairs that were totally shield grabbable and they did nothing,

Now here's where things get bad. His fastfall speed and thus short hop in general isn't the best and fair and bair don't autocancel. That means on whiff, Ryu is left wide open, they are big committments in that case. If he's forced to try to "zone" with his aerials, he's just not very good at it.
Bair autocancels. lolwut.

Hate that term btw. Bair also has 12 frames of landing recovery. That is like..the opposite of big commitment.

You seem like an intelligent dude. Don't ass pull ok? Otherwise I might have to go verbal Super Saiyan on ya. Then Shaya and Thinkaman gotta hand out 80 billion warnings and I get banned yet again, shucks its just a mess.
 
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Mr. Johan

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Ryu Bair hangtime means little when it has 12 frames of landing lag anyway

Not to mention a Frame 1 invincible move to be buffered during this landing lag on top of that to make even dash grabbing the landing a big risk. And if you shield in preparation for the buffered TSRK, congratulations, Ryu successfully got away from a marginally bad spot because he knew you were fearful of TSRK, so back to Bairing for him.
 
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