Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Dee-SmashinBoss]

No mention of Kirby? Would others agree he might beat fox?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I think most people are settling on even on that one. Both sides understand how the matchup is supposed to work out on paper and why it's ... unlikeable for either character but there's not a whole lot of observable data on it. MikeKirby vs Larry has happened one time and that's long ago now.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Kirby gets the lead Kirby wins, Kirby gets in the air and Fox wins. Early game neither of them have to approach so its just a game of seeing who's more patient. Since Fox players are usually super ****ing impatient, they lose more often than not.

 

[Kofu]

It makes sense why G&W is tough. His kill power is very potent in the pika matchup especially since he can bucket thunderjolts and thunders. His high-damaging combos are dangerous for such a light character like pikachu.

It's a combination of factors, and you hit on a few. Oil Panic restricts Pikachu's usage of Thunder Jolt as a neutral tool and deters reckless use of Thunder (both are easy to react to) as they give Game & Watch a potent kill option. Game & Watch has to be careful about bucketing and high percents, though, since it can leave him open to being killed.

Pikachu doesn't like disjointed attacks and that's basically all Game & Watch has. Their lingering frames make it harder to immediately punish them and Game & Watch's aerial mobility is leagues above Pikachu's.

High damaging combos are nice, but they don't lead immediately into a kill in most cases. But it's easier for Game & Watch to keep a percent lead, and he gets more out of rage than Pikachu does. Pikachu really has to be careful taking to the air against Game & Watch.

I think the biggest factor is how solid Game & Watch's recovery is. Pikachu has a hard time harassing him offstage and as that's where the rodent usually is the strongest, he's taking that away and whacking it with his hammers.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Lol people still think he's high tier? Such child-like wonder

Ness having high damage output and good kill options means nothing if he can't win neutral; which more and more people are starting to realize is one of his major weaknesses

Out of curiosity, who do you think Ness beats/goes even with in the low and mid tier areas? You don't have to go into detail. Two separate lists of names will suffice. If you're uncertain of a character you can just leave them out or make a separate list for that as well.

Out of a couple mid/low tiers I'll be very brief due to mobile posting
-All those aura spheres and force palms Lucario likes to throw around is absorbed, Lucario doesn't get to abuse aura/rage for long since Ness kills early.

-You will get outboxed up close but one grab can carry Mac off stage where you can edge guard him for free. It's pretty volatile in both directions but I think in Ness' favor
-Robin's tome game is candy for Ness, forces Robin to approach which Ness wants so he doesn't have to deal with Levin's range.

The only characters that are currently placed below Ness that I believe beat him are Corrin and Marthcina for sure, (I think Falcon is in Ness' advantage slightly) The pits, Bowser, not sure about Ike or Lucas, G&W probably and Shulk.

Granted I haven't played alot of good lower tiered character mains my experiences are pretty limited but from what I've seen and played I can say what I have.

 

[my_T]

Out of a couple mid/low tiers I'll be very brief due to mobile posting
-All those aura spheres and force palms Lucario likes to throw around is absorbed, Lucario doesn't get to abuse aura/rage for long since Ness kills early.

-You will get outboxed up close but one grab can carry Mac off stage where you can edge guard him for free. It's pretty volatile in both directions but I think in Ness' favor
-Robin's tome game is candy for Ness, forces Robin to approach which Ness wants so he doesn't have to deal with Levin's range.

The only characters that are currently placed below Ness that I believe beat him are Corrin and Marthcina for sure, (I think Falcon is in Ness' advantage slightly) The pits, Bowser, not sure about Ike or Lucas, G&W probably and Shulk.

Granted I haven't played alot of good lower tiered character mains my experiences are pretty limited but from what I've seen and played I can say what I have.

I agree with all of this except for the part about Falcon. I don't see how this match-up could possibly be in Ness' favor. Neutral is hard as **** in this match-up because there's almost nothing Ness can do that Falcon can't punish with a dash grab/attack or Uair if you approach from the air. Falcons jab beats all of Ness' options in CQC because of the range, speed, and disjoint. And if Falcon gets a good lead on you it's really easy for him to just runaway and bait you. I'm aware that Ness wrecks Falcon when he gets a hold of him but you have to get a hold of him first. It also doesn't help that Ness gets wrecked when people get in on him in a lot of match-ups because of his sub-par disadvantage state. The only thing keeping this match-up from being a 6:4 or worse is that Falcon has the weaker advantage state in this match-up because his hurt box overlaps with his hit boxes a lot so he has to respect Ness' hitboxes when he's juggling him.

Pac Man is another questionable match-up for Ness. I don't know enough about Pac to say that he wins but Elaxio seems to give S1 trouble in this match-up. But the games between those two is the only footage I know of at high/top level. You should look it up.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Is it alright to ask about charizard matchups or is that taboo here at this point? Sorry I just adore charizard...

 

[DunnoBro]

I feel a lot of people fail to understand Ness's design when they refute his viability.

Yes, his options in neutral are poor. However, the risk of failure is much higher vs ness than the neutrals of other characters.

His advantage state is absurd. Easily superior to most if not all top tiers since he can both pressure you and maintain stage control at the same time with PKT. And after certain percents, you're just dead. (Uair/Bthrow covering all options in a 50/50 scenario very consistently at high percents)

Unless you have an easy way to negate his fortress style neutral (hello needles) you can't guarantee you'll beat him in neutral with any single option, and things start to get scary once percents on both of you start to rack up.

Not to mention, challenging ness near the ledge is such a risky option at mid-high percent, you could even argue ness's stage control in that situation is far more potent.

 

[Kofu]

Ness's UAir is bonkers, it's reminded me of an aerial version of a lot of USmashes, most notably Mario's, for a long time. Similar hit frames and damage, large range, similar FAFs (Ness's UAir is two frames worse but has the advantage of being able to land), and general usefulness. Ness's UAir has very low base knockback but ridiculous growth which lets it function as a combo move at low percents.

Ness vs. Game & Watch is slightly in Ness's favor but the MU is volatile and definitely winnable for Game & Watch.

 

[Aaron1997]

Komo > Masha 2-0. Don't let the score fool you. this set was very close

 

[bc1910]

Ness is like Pika's worst MU according to ESAM / apparently other Pika mains [exist] geez.

Gren with energy projectiles would be a bit of a shame, it's already such a fun MU as it is (for Ness) not having to approach would kinda suck the fun out of it a little bit (that's a weird thing to watch myself type). In case anyone doesn't know Gren Ness is considered to be hella even and pretty much all available evidence / results point towards this (I actually believe S1 is up on iStudying but tbh the theory balances it out well enough - either character getting sent into disadvantage is a freaking nightmare).

The evidence points to it being in Ness' favour.

It's not a MU that gets played enough for us to draw a solid conclusion but I would be interested to see FOW fight a top Greninja player.

It's not a fun MU for Greninja. Fighting a character with OoS that good is incredibly stressful for him. If shuriken was an energy projectile (and I don't know why it isn't; despite being matter, water is a compound and is usually considered elemental in Nintendo games) then Ness would be in Greninja's bottom 3 MUs.

Gren would probably still go even with Lucas since, quite simply, Gren can actually pressure his shield due to his slower OoS options.

 

[Aaron1997]

Sumabato 14 Osaka ,Japan (Cat 2) 197 entrants

1. Ranai
2. Earth
3. Shuton
4. 9B
5. DIO
5. Oishiitofu
7. Komorikiri
7. Masashi
9. Masha
9. Ri-ma
9.Chanshu
9. Tamiflu
13. Egapon
13. KapMK
13. Shogun
13. Jan

 

[ARGHETH]

(and I don't know why it isn't; despite being matter, water is a compound and is usually considered elemental in Nintendo games)

I'm wondering why DFS (a ball of water) gets absorbed, but Shuriken doesn't.
Other than that, though, "energy projectiles" seem to mean real-life energy-related stuff, like plasma (fire,electricity), light (lasers, Dark/Pit's arrows), and explosions.

 

[NairWizard]

Watching people theory about neutral is frustrating sometimes, because it's almost always partial theory that makes one side of a matchup look stupidly dominant. Sonic always has the lead and can run away all game long, Sheik never gets powershielded or called out on her movement patterns, etc.

You can ask, "How does Ness approach you?"

But you should also be asking, how do you approach Ness?

 

[Y2Kay]

Sumabato 14 Osaka ,Japan (Cat 2) 197 entrants

1. Ranai
2. Earth
3. Shuton
4. 9B
5. DIO
5. Oishiitofu
7. Komorikiri
7. Masashi
9. Masha
9. Ri-ma
9.Chanshu
9. Tamiflu
13. Egapon
13. KapMK
13. Shogun
13. Jan

Tasty tofu is cursed to always get 5th at Sumabato lol

 

[Deleted member]

Sumabato 14 Osaka ,Japan (Cat 2) 197 entrants

1. Ranai
2. Earth
3. Shuton
4. 9B
5. DIO
5. Oishiitofu
7. Komorikiri
7. Masashi
9. Masha
9. Ri-ma
9.Chanshu
9. Tamiflu
13. Egapon
13. KapMK
13. Shogun
13. Jan

This is Masha's third offline tournament yet he's already starting to establish himself as a threat in Japan. He also got 17th at Umebura 25 and 13th at Karisuma 10.

His Shulk play is incredible, and he held up very well against Komorikiri in his set against him. I can't wait to see more of him, he makes such intelligent choices with the character and it ends up being so rewarding. If he got to be able to travel to America someday that'd be awesome.

Worth noting that another Shulk main, Kome, got 25th at this tournament. He previously got 9th at Shulla-bra VII.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

This is Masha's third offline tournament [...]

Uh, no it's not. Masha has been around since Brawl days where he won major tournaments and beat M2K's MK with Falco. He actually has tons of tournament experience.

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

Uh, no it's not. Masha has been around since Brawl days where he won major tournaments and beat M2K's MK with Falco. He actually has tons of tournament experience.

I think she means 3rd offline tournament in smash 4, which is what juddy said in the twitch chat

 

[Deleted member]

Uh, no it's not. Masha has been around since Brawl days where he won major tournaments and beat M2K's MK with Falco. He actually has tons of tournament experience.

I meant in Smash 4. I'm fully aware he's a top Brawl Falco.

 

[Vyrnx]

It's also very hard to fight Ness once Ness has the lead. If Ness gets a sizable percent lead on the first stock, it's very possible for him to get an early kill and play a stock ahead the rest of the game, in which case the opponent has to get through his aerials/avoid his grab if they want to have a chance.

Fow did this all the time. He'd get a small lead early on that quickly turned into a stock lead. The fact that Ness has such great KO power available is a really big deal.

I remember a commentator that called Fow the Ally of Ness players because of the way he never hit back on the control stick and always moved towards the opponent, and somehow made it work. And whatever happened to Shaky?

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Since I have next to no Ness experience, can someone please explain to me why he's so hard to approach?
You're also making him sound like a poor mans Mewtwo

 

[FeelMeUp]

He has a bunch of wonky hitboxes, a small stature, low cooldown on his aerials, and weird knockback on said aerials compared to the lag they have. But like most have said, there's really no reason to approach him if you have any disjoint at all. He's even easier to lame out than because he doesn't have the massive reward and damage output per hit that Ryu does.

 

[FullMoon]

If shuriken was an energy projectile (and I don't know why it isn't; despite being matter, water is a compound and is usually considered elemental in Nintendo games)

Water Shuriken is physical in Pokémon. Plus I'm pretty sure no water moves in Smash can actually be absorbed (such as Scalding Fludd and even Hydro Pump which while a windbox also causes damage) so it's consistent with Smash in general I think

 

[ItsRainingGravy]

Water Shuriken is physical in Pokémon. Plus I'm pretty sure no water moves in Smash can actually be absorbed (such as Scalding Fludd and even Hydro Pump which while a windbox also causes damage) so it's consistent with Smash in general I think

Fun fact: Water Shuriken is actually a special move in Pokemon now in Sun and Moon. Though this is off-topic, and has no bearings upon Smash. It was a physical move beforehand though, but then again, Scald was always a special move. *shrugs*

 

[bc1910]

I do think Ness is one of the hardest characters to beat if the opponent has the lead. Sonic comes to mind as being more difficult, plus a couple of other top tiers, but there aren't that many characters that are harder to take back the lead from.

Water Shuriken is physical in Pokémon. Plus I'm pretty sure no water moves in Smash can actually be absorbed (such as Scalding Fludd and even Hydro Pump which while a windbox also causes damage) so it's consistent with Smash in general I think

I know it is, and that doesn't make much sense either.

They've changed it to special in Generation 7, though.

 

[PK Bash]

He has a bunch of wonky hitboxes, a small stature, low cooldown on his aerials, and weird knockback on said aerials compared to the lag they have. But like most have said, there's really no reason to approach him if you have any disjoint at all. He's even easier to lame out than because he doesn't have the massive reward and damage output per hit that Ryu does.

You can add fast and very strong OOS options to that list as well.

Now with regards to Ness on a competitive level, I hope to share my insight here from playing Ness in Smash for quite a long time.
The way Ness works is by letting you swing first. I will explain this further in a second. Stay with me.
If you try to approach him, you are playing into his trap.
But if you force HIM to approach YOU, this is where he is weak. Yes I know you know this, stay with me. You have to do it WELL, otherwise you are once again playing into his trap. Cloud for example can just randomly swing nair all day, but if he hits Ness' shield with his nair, although Ness can't punish a well spaced nair directly he can basically cover anything Cloud would want to do after it. So in effect, Cloud got punished for the nair. (Don't go thinking Ness does well against Cloud because of this example in a vacuum - he still loses).
However, Marth's nair is far more problematic because if he tippers it, Ness can't really do anything about it, or about what comes next.
This is how he plays: reactively. Ness plays in Smash similarly to how he functioned in Earthbound. Stay with me, this is the best way I can think of to explain it. In that game, he was a tank: slow but had high endurance and a lot of attack power, as well as tricky abilities that forced his enemies into losing control of themselves. Earthbound also has a lot of focus on Ness' mind, through things like PSI and homesickness.
Now in Smash, he waits for his opponent to attack him first or otherwise make an error he can abuse. Standard bait and punish stuff. His properties as a character lend himself well to getting out of combos easily and his nair is a massive part of his game that reduces the damage he would take (not to mention he has a great airdodge). These serve to extend his survivability. Of course, his ability to combo and kill is crazy. Not to mention his amazing options at keeping the opponent in the air, off the stage or otherwise where he wants them. (PK Fire for example briefly immobilises his enemies; PK Thunder and PK Flash introduce a new point of focus to confuse the opponent, etc.) The tradeoff for this from a design standpoint is he also has to play a strong mental game - you get big damage, if you know what you can punish; you need to be patient, and avoid frustration and making rash decisions, stay focused in order to survive and win. On a competitive scale this mental stuff applies to every character, however it is especially obvious with Ness at any level of play, casual or competitive. What you have got to remember is that Smash was never built with esport-style competition in mind.

And now, finally, to the point. We got there boys.

This all means that if you can shut down Ness' ability to play reactively, you win. By playing around his shield intelligently with disjoints or fast / intelligently-used projectiles, or otherwise preventing his ability to think clearly, or flustering him, making him panic, Ness as a character by design starts to fall apart. This obviously has bad implications for his competitive standing and this is why, I believe, he goes through a similar cycle in (almost) every game of people thinking "oh my god he is so strong and brainless"; to realising that despite this, nobody does that well with him at the highest level; to realising that he is actually kind of exploitable in competitive play. As players get better, Ness gets worse.
He is built to prey off your mistakes - he is bait and punish taken to its extreme. Naturally as you go higher and higher up the ranks in competitive play, less mistakes and oversights are made.The fact that players like FOW and S1 can place as well as they do just goes to show how imperfect even the top players are, in addition to the raw skill of these phenomenal Ness players. And then of course we need to mention that tiers very much exist, especially the top tiers. Whilst he does pretty solidly against Fox, Mario, and arguably Bayonetta, most of the top tiers in this game are top tier PRECISELY because they have the tools that create in any character or any player the kind of mindset that Ness by design needs to not fall into.

Of course, I didn't make the game so I could be straight up wrong and just wasted everyone's time reading (and typing) this wall regardless of that though, these are some thoughts I have had on Ness in Smash for a good while now, and now just seemed like a good time to put them out there as it offers some kind of an explanation as to why Ness does not perform particularly well in competitive play despite actually being a solid character.

 

[ARGHETH]

Water Shuriken is physical in Pokémon. Plus I'm pretty sure no water moves in Smash can actually be absorbed (such as Scalding Fludd and even Hydro Pump which while a windbox also causes damage) so it's consistent with Smash in general I think

DFS (Corrin's Neutral B) can be absorbed, and it's a ball of water (that paralyzes for some reason).

 

[Hippieslayer]

Bayo Mario MU? Any ideas?

 

[FullMoon]

DFS (Corrin's Neutral B) can be absorbed, and it's a ball of water (that paralyzes for some reason).

I knew I was forgetting something lol

 

[blackghost]

DFS (Corrin's Neutral B) can be absorbed, and it's a ball of water (that paralyzes for some reason).

If it paralyzes it's obviously not just water. ness absorbs energy he can't do bayo bullets or water shuriken because there is nothing to absorb. it'd be like asking why ness can't absorb Robin's book.

the bayo Mario mu is interesting. Mario gets an easy grab combo at low percent. done correctly Mario can either go for guaranteed damage or read a witch time or batwithin and get extra damage. ally took pf 0 to 70 off one grab and 0 to 40 like 4 times. this was ongoodshi gaming.
bayo can wall out Mario with bair but it's hard to combat Mario superior normals and.grab game. probably close to 50 50.

 

[Deleted member]

You can add fast and very strong OOS options to that list as well.

Now with regards to Ness on a competitive level, I hope to share my insight here from playing Ness in Smash for quite a long time.
The way Ness works is by letting you swing first. I will explain this further in a second. Stay with me.
If you try to approach him, you are playing into his trap.
But if you force HIM to approach YOU, this is where he is weak. Yes I know you know this, stay with me. You have to do it WELL, otherwise you are once again playing into his trap. Cloud for example can just randomly swing nair all day, but if he hits Ness' shield with his nair, although Ness can't punish a well spaced nair directly he can basically cover anything Cloud would want to do after it. So in effect, Cloud got punished for the nair. (Don't go thinking Ness does well against Cloud because of this example in a vacuum - he still loses).
However, Marth's nair is far more problematic because if he tippers it, Ness can't really do anything about it, or about what comes next.
This is how he plays: reactively. Ness plays in Smash similarly to how he functioned in Earthbound. Stay with me, this is the best way I can think of to explain it. In that game, he was a tank: slow but had high endurance and a lot of attack power, as well as tricky abilities that forced his enemies into losing control of themselves. Earthbound also has a lot of focus on Ness' mind, through things like PSI and homesickness.
Now in Smash, he waits for his opponent to attack him first or otherwise make an error he can abuse. Standard bait and punish stuff. His properties as a character lend himself well to getting out of combos easily and his nair is a massive part of his game that reduces the damage he would take (not to mention he has a great airdodge). These serve to extend his survivability. Of course, his ability to combo and kill is crazy. Not to mention his amazing options at keeping the opponent in the air, off the stage or otherwise where he wants them. (PK Fire for example briefly immobilises his enemies; PK Thunder and PK Flash introduce a new point of focus to confuse the opponent, etc.) The tradeoff for this from a design standpoint is he also has to play a strong mental game - you get big damage, if you know what you can punish; you need to be patient, and avoid frustration and making rash decisions, stay focused in order to survive and win. On a competitive scale this mental stuff applies to every character, however it is especially obvious with Ness at any level of play, casual or competitive. What you have got to remember is that Smash was never built with esport-style competition in mind.

And now, finally, to the point. We got there boys.

This all means that if you can shut down Ness' ability to play reactively, you win. By playing around his shield intelligently with disjoints or fast / intelligently-used projectiles, or otherwise preventing his ability to think clearly, or flustering him, making him panic, Ness as a character by design starts to fall apart. This obviously has bad implications for his competitive standing and this is why, I believe, he goes through a similar cycle in (almost) every game of people thinking "oh my god he is so strong and brainless"; to realising that despite this, nobody does that well with him at the highest level; to realising that he is actually kind of exploitable in competitive play. As players get better, Ness gets worse.
He is built to prey off your mistakes - he is bait and punish taken to its extreme. Naturally as you go higher and higher up the ranks in competitive play, less mistakes and oversights are made.The fact that players like FOW and S1 can place as well as they do just goes to show how imperfect even the top players are, in addition to the raw skill of these phenomenal Ness players. And then of course we need to mention that tiers very much exist, especially the top tiers. Whilst he does pretty solidly against Fox, Mario, and arguably Bayonetta, most of the top tiers in this game are top tier PRECISELY because they have the tools that create in any character or any player the kind of mindset that Ness by design needs to not fall into.

Of course, I didn't make the game so I could be straight up wrong and just wasted everyone's time reading (and typing) this wall regardless of that though, these are some thoughts I have had on Ness in Smash for a good while now, and now just seemed like a good time to put them out there as it offers some kind of an explanation as to why Ness does not perform particularly well in competitive play despite actually being a solid character.

Absolutely superb post. I can agree with the EarthBound comparison myself, nice analogy you made with it.

It's also an excellent game that everyone should at least play once.

While I think Ness has fallen off for prevalent reasons, he probably won't be any worse than mid or high-end of mid. The character is still solid but does have aspects of him that can be exploited by the top tiers like you said.

 

[L9999]

Absolutely superb post. I can agree with the EarthBound comparison myself, nice analogy you made with it.

It's also an excellent game that everyone should at least play once.

While I think Ness has fallen off for prevalent reasons, he probably won't be any worse than mid or high-end of mid. The character is still solid but does have aspects of him that can be exploited by the top tiers like you said.

Second this. Ness' clutch factor is real. PKT mindgames are very strong and work even at top level, Down Smash nets some cheap 2 frames, Bair/Uair are very strong, Nair spam is real, does 11% and can kill at the edge, Foward Smash kills at 50% with the tip and yes, it is possible to get a F-Smash with a missed tech or a read. Also, I present to you my favorite jank kill of all time and the reason why you should never let Ness live and have rage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_wZMqj523s&feature=youtu.be

 

[Yikarur]

The first big 2 Stock tournament has happened in germany and there have been huge upsets.
How can you endure this ****ty format? :/

 

[soniczx123]

The first big 2 Stock tournament has happened in germany and there have been huge upsets.
How can you endure this ****ty format? :/

What was everyone's initial reaction to the format?

 

[FeelMeUp]

The first big 2 Stock tournament has happened in germany and there have been huge upsets.
How can you endure this ****ty format? :/

I don't.
I think this game is truthfully not fun at all in 2 stock, and if I left Houston to play in a scene without 3 stock I'd most likely quit.

 

[mountain_tiger]

I always found it odd that Brawl remained with a 3-stock format for years, despite being slower-paced and by all rights a much better candidate for the 2-stock format.

The only reason I can think of that the 2-stock format goes mostly unquestioned is because it more closely matches the 'best 2 of 3 rounds' format most fighting game tournaments are played with (the only exception I can think of off the top of my head being Tekken)

 

[FeelMeUp]

If For Glory didn't have 2 stocks and instead had 3 I highly doubt we would be playing 2 stocks today.

 

[Nobie]

While Brawl was always 3 stocks, it was sometimes blamed as one of the causes for why the game was "boring" and "not as hype" as Melee. There was even a movement to switch Brawl to 1 stock best of 5's late into its life. I think that when it came time for Smash 4, a lot of folks were like "Never again!" because they feared Smash 4 getting a similsr negative reputation.

 

[Jjab430]

I'm sure most of you guys just watched this but Zinoto just beat Salem in 14 games from WF to GF Set 2. Zinoto may have won but holy **** between this and 6-1ing Ally, Salem really showcases just how broken (not overtuned—like second coming of Brawl MK broken) Bayonetta is.

Of course, we saw the regular Bayo nonsense: recovering from the bottom corner of BF, killing at obscenely early percents off the top and the side, 70% witch time kills, etc. But towards the end of the set, Salem was down by a good margin and so he proceeded to platform camp on battlefield, using Bayo's special moves to simultaneously airstall and safely poke at Zinoto's shield with an unpunishable, potential 30%-death combo starter. He almost pulled it off and won the set and I believe that he employed this same strategy against Ally a few days ago to take those two dominant sets. I can't imagine there being much that any character in this game—aside from those with large, disjointed aerials like Rosa, Cloud, and Marth—can do against this strategy. And even then, they're still susceptible to getting witch timed and dying to a fully charged up smash at 70.

This character is so blatantly broken and far and away the best character that it hurts to see so many people try to come up with reasons to excuse these embarrassingly irresponsible design choices. I'm fairly convinced that she loses no matchups (Rosalina being the only asterisk but that's probably just Dabuz being good) and that her evens don't stetch far beyond the likes of Diddy, Rosa, and maybe Sheik. She really doesn't have any holes in her game plan and her supposed "weaknesses" that we hear time and time again usually come down to X top tier doing it better.

 

[Krysco]

Has there ever been a Smash game where the stock count used in most, if not all competitive scenes has changed? I wanna say 64 has always been around 4 or 5 (I don't actually know what it is but I recall it being a rather high number). I've only ever seen Melee with 4 stock, only ever saw Brawl with 3 and most of Sm4sh I've seen has been 2 although I have seen 3 used as well. I ask because a game will naturally start off with slower gameplay and fewer viable characters and less risks taken because everyone has to get used to how the game plays before they fully find out things like Puff or Olimar being viable or how far your character can go off stage to edgeguard or what is and isn't a true combo or a 50/50. Sm4sh adds an extra layer to this by having patches. It's died off for now at least, but before, we couldn't go 3 months or so without at least 1 character getting changed and people having to relearn how to fight with the affected character and how to fight against them.

Looking at Sm4sh at launch where we had hoo-hah Diddy and the likes of Sheik, Rosa and ZSS had all of their crazy tools (and to a lesser extent Fox and Sonic) while at the same time, the likes of and probably more didn't have all the tools they have now. There was also a lack of dlc characters which make up 3 of the generally agreed top 10 with 2 others not too far behind.

Sm4sh was more like its predecessors when it first came out by having ridiculously powerful top tiers and ridiculously weak low tiers. There were also the likes of and probably others who weren't even fully figured out before the waves of nerfs started knocking the others down.

If Sm4sh were to get a universal stock count would it be better now to go with 3 stock or 2? Yikarur's post along with the following ones and even a tweet by...I think Ally that was posted a while ago (may have even been in the older thread) seem to show that 2 stock allows for more upsets. At the same time though, would 3 stock take anything away? Heck, even if it was like 2 stock for pools and then 3 for top 32/16/8.

I'm pretty sure the 'favorable' stock count is entirely based on the pacing of the game. 64 and Melee have higher stock counts because of how quickly a stock can be taken. 2 or 3 well placed shines and a stock can be gone in 5 seconds. Brawl was a far slower game but also had an abundance of MK who destroyed nearly everyone. Sm4sh has more viable characters but at the same time, less powerful top tiers. Along with there being so many different characters that go at such different paces. A match with Fox will go by faster than one with Bayo for example.

And even after this huge wall of text, it likely won't matter. I don't think the Smash community has ever added ANYTHING to their rules and if they have it was either short lived (customs) or something familiar (Dreamland 64, dlc characters like Roy, Lucas and Mewtwo although Bayo was questioned for banning at first).

TL;DR 2 stock vs 3 stock and does it even matter with how stubborn the majority of the Smash community tends to be, especially towards change?