Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Daymaster]

Then technically the term is a 'ground jump' because that's the term the games use, not a jump squat.

Yeah but we don't call SDI Hitstun Shuffling and we don't call L-canceling Smooth Landing.

 

[SaltyKracka]

Then technically the term is a 'ground jump' because that's the term the games use, not a jump squat.

..."Jumpsquat" is the term used to refer to the length of the animation before the character ever actually leaves the ground.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Then technically the term is a 'ground jump' because that's the term the games use, not a jump squat.

But you're not jumping yet; you squat first, then jump. That particular window is what we call," jumpsquat" and the game never talks about it.

Idle thought time, my friends. What is the simplest change you think you could make that would introduce the greatest amount of balance?

Now I'm the one who's been thinking about this, so here's mine.

Ignoring the inevitable idiot howls of 'homogenization', I would set every character to have a frame 5 jump squat.

Sounds fun to me (will try to do the minimal amount)

Frame 5 jump squat for every character is nice, but too strict. I'd rather have every character between 3-6 frames with bowser at 6.

Hard Landing lag would be 4 frames for everyone for sure; no need for diversity here.

Dash-to-shield frames, or dash length, will fall between 8-13; being able to reactively shield is something everyone should be able to do.

There is a ton of stuff I could add on (like, properly tuning every character to their moveset and attributes, like Luigi's traction contributing to his mobility), but I'm being a minimalist here.

 

[Deleted member]

You comparing a great move to a good move.

Just because one move is awesome doesn't mean the slightly worse version is absolute worthless trash.

I didn't say DED was absolute worthless trash. I said it was Roy's most important buttons just above.

But if it came off that way, my apologies.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

I think one of the better options to the game (and i'm going to get a lot of arguing over this I know) is for a character to not be able to instantly shield if they're in the middle of a dash. What I mean is in order for a character to shield if they're dashing they have to stop the dash first then shield.
This will make dash spammers like sonic much easier to punish (and besides the game says dashing all the time is supposed to be more dangerous than simply walking so this makes it true)

 

[Daymaster]

I think one of the better options to the game (and i'm going to get a lot of arguing over this I know) is for a character to not be able to instantly shield if they're in the middle of a dash. What I mean is in order for a character to shield if they're dashing they have to stop the dash first then shield.
This will make dash spammers like sonic much easier to punish (and besides the game says dashing all the time is supposed to be more dangerous than simply walking so this makes it true)

This would absolutely break all aggressive character's Neutral against Cloud and he would become god-tier.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

This would absolutely break all aggressive character's Neutral against Cloud and he would become god-tier.

Actually Cloud relies on his dash too, in fact he relies on ita lot. This would actually make shielders more upper tier since characters who rely so much on their dash (shiek, captain falcom, cloud, sonic, little mac) now are suddenly dedicated to it so they'd have to rely more on reading. Something that cloud is terrible at. The game would switch to learning which characters have good OOS options and can cover ground more through walking instead of dashing.

 

[Daymaster]

Actually Cloud relies on his dash too, in fact he relies on ita lot. This would actually make shielders more upper tier since characters who rely so much on their dash (shiek, captain falcom, cloud, sonic, little mac) now are suddenly dedicated to it so they'd have to rely more on reading. Something that cloud is terrible at.

Yeah but the only way to play against Cloud well in Neutral with an aggressive character is by staying just inside his sword's range but just outside his grab range so you can bait and block his aerials while staying safe from Grab. Since most aggressive characters don't have a really good projectile, not actively trying to engage in footsies will just be giving him Limit for free.
EDIT: And besides, that would remove the best method of beating projectiles and make it so that users of projectiles could easily predict and counteract opponents jumping over projectiles because it's really the only other good way of beating projectiles that doesn't take forever to reach the opponent.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Yeah but the only way to play against Cloud well in Neutral with an aggressive character is by staying just inside his sword's range but just outside his grab range so you can bait and block his aerials while staying safe from Grab. Since most aggressive characters don't have a really good projectile, not actively trying to engage in footsies will just be giving him Limit for free.

Then don't play aggressively. The whole point of the change was to actively discourage aggressive play and besides which the worst way to play cloud is to go running at him guns blazing. Cloud was built to punish play like that! There is more ways to play a character than aggressively, in fact some would argue that that's the WORST way to play nearly half the roster.

 

[Daymaster]

Then don't play aggressively. The whole point of the change was to actively discourage aggressive play and besides which the worst way to play cloud is to go running at him guns blazing. Cloud was built to punish play like that! There is more ways to play a character than aggressively, in fact some would argue that that's the WORST way to play nearly half the roster.

Again, you need to be aggressive against Cloud if you don't have a great projectile. I'm not saying you should mindlessly approach, I'm saying that you need to be just inside aerial range but outside grab range so you can block and punish his aerials. If you aren't aggressive you just let Cloud get Limit unless you have a good projectile.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Again, you need to be aggressive against Cloud if you don't have a great projectile. I'm not saying you should mindlessly approach, I'm saying that you need to be just inside aerial range but outside grab range so you can block and punish his aerials. If you aren't aggressive you just let Cloud get Limit unless you have a good projectile.

Actually I don't find cloud getting limit to be that big of a deal because again it goes back into the change, what happens once cloud gets limit? He has four options. Cross slash which needs to be chained from a grab. Blade beam which is easily shielded. Climbhazard which cloud has to be right on top of you to connect. The last one is finishing touch which tbh is a complete joke. To top things off in order to get into his cross slash chain he needs to dash which immediately brings the change into play as it'll now be easier to simply hit cloud with a smash or a shield and then punish if he jumps. I do admit he gets limit for free but once he gets it it's 'use it or lose it'.

 

[Daymaster]

Actually I don't find cloud getting limit to be that big of a deal because again it goes back into the change, what happens once cloud gets limit? He has four options. Cross slash which needs to be chained from a grab. Blade beam which is easily shielded. Climbhazard which cloud has to be right on top of you to connect. The last one is finishing touch which tbh is a complete joke. To top things off in order to get into his cross slash chain he needs to dash which immediately brings the change into play as it'll now be easier to simply hit cloud with a smash or a shield and then punish if he jumps. I do admit he gets limit for free but once he gets it it's 'use it or lose it'.

Actually Limit Cloud is more dangerous because of more than his just Limit Break specials, but I'll get to that in a second. Cross Slash dosen't need to be chained from a Grab, it can be used to catch Rolls, Approaches and edgeguard. Blade Beam is powerful BECAUSE it forces you to either shield or jump; The Cloud can either then take advantage of the shield damage it does by being more aggressive until the Shield regenerates. If they jump he can just use an aerial and boom, he won Neutral. This can only be done if he's close enough, of course, so it's useless at a distance. Climbhazard is supprisingly easy to use as a combo breaker, but you're right in that it's not a good kill move. Finishing Touch catches air dodges, giving him a strong aerial finisher. Anyway, so these things on top of his increased movement give him insane shield pressure, spacing and more. Plus, simply having these options makes the opponent fear them because of what I just established that they can do, making them play more defensilvly, which allows Cloud to get his incredible Shield Pressure going in the first place. If it really wasn't that valuable, then Cloud players wouldn't make it such an important objective for them.

 

[SaltyKracka]

Dude, just accept that people think not being able to dash into shield is dumb.

The game does not need one of the few decent options for dealing with projectiles and campy play shut down.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

*holds up hands* I said right off the bat that I was going to get arguments about this right? Anyways that's the only thing I honestly got, anything else would go under specific character changes which we've already gone over.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Except you didn't give any explanation as to how it would competitively balance the game except "make dash spammers easier to punish"? Sonic is just going to do exactly what Shaya posted earlier as a substitute for dash to shield, he's going to just jump back and continue doing whatever he wants completely unpunished because you have no answer to Spin Dash. You're also removing one of the only answers a lot of characters have to projectile camping which drastically slows down the game and makes it less competitive overall. Removing dash to shield would probably be the death of smash in all honesty

If I could make one change to balance the game the only things I can really think of is make every characters dash to shield frame 7, make all jumpsquats 4 or 5 frames, or give every character who doesn't have a projectile a projectile. Little Mac with a projectile does sound kinda broken though

Shaya's post

Spoiler

You can dash forward and jump back still, it just requires 'tech skill'. You maintain momentum in the direction you're dashing when you jump and because Roy has no extra air acceleration he gets stuck in his jump position, making him very punishable. This is still a thing with every other char, just the other notable ones such as ZSS and Sheik have an a-okay acceleration so you probably wouldn't notice as much - at least in ZSS's case it's a substantial but you can still jump further away than most players/characters can punish (i.e. not being lazy with ZSS means you stop being punishable, duh!). It wasn't like this in Brawl, so it took me a really long time to figure it out and suddenly fundamental knowledge started translating clearer to the game. You wouldn't notice this on most chars, such as Marth: okay acceleration, soso max air speed; i.e. a lot of the cast!

 

[FeelMeUp]

Sheik doesn't rely on her dash at at all. She has a top 3 walk(Ryu Fox Sheik) and her dash is strictly used for burst punishes, taking space and mixups. Dashing is inferior to walking in almost every other scenario.
Just happens to have one of the best dashes in the game as well.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

How ould giving every character a frame 5 jump squat balance everything out though? I mean I know some characters have better jump squats than others so how does changing that balance the game out?

 

[Rizen]

Idle thought time, my friends. What is the simplest change you think you could make that would introduce the greatest amount of balance?

Now I'm the one who's been thinking about this, so here's mine.

Ignoring the inevitable idiot howls of 'homogenization', I would set every character to have a frame 5 jump squat.

IMO make hitbubbles match animations better. That would decrease the disjoints of characters who aren't supposed to have them (Diddy's Fair, CF, etc) and help big slow characters.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

How ould giving every character a frame 5 jump squat balance everything out though? I mean I know some characters have better jump squats than others so how does changing that balance the game out?

OOS options and overall agility/mobility. Bowser and heavy characters don't get screwed, while top tiers get their best traits toned down a bit.

Same goes for landing lag, dash length, and other pieces of miscellaneous frame data.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

So essentially being able to jump out of shield? But that wouldn't help characters with poor jump height/aerial speed (like my zard). Wouldn't giving all characters a more balanced air speed be equally useful then? (without taking away air move effectiveness last thing we need is to take away little mac's main weakness)

 

[Baby_Sneak]

So essentially being able to jump out of shield? But that wouldn't help characters with poor jump height/aerial speed (like my zard). Wouldn't giving all characters a more balanced air speed be equally useful then? (without taking away air move effectiveness last thing we need is to take away little mac's main weakness)

Everything is just a piece of the whole picture; just doing x' won't make huge-sweeping changes, but instead would push characters closer together

(And little Mac needs a tweak; weaker ground game for better air game).

 

[Daymaster]

Everything is just a piece of the whole picture; just doing x' won't make huge-sweeping changes, but instead would push characters closer together

(And little Mac needs a tweak; weaker ground game for better air game).

Nerfing Mac's ground game would remove his gimmick/niche. While I don't personally see this as a bad thing, many do as evidenced by the mission statements for things like Project M and SD Remix.

 

[jet56]

Personally, I am much more interested in something that is not only a lot more possible in the near future, but would affect the metagame even more than patches or changes to game mechanics (which is unlikely at this point anyways). I'm talking about stagelist here, where lets be honest, players of all skill levels still have issues with. My biggest question is how is this stsgelist even decided, or even the general rule set? I honestly want to get to a point where we aren't winging these important aspects and rules in the competitive scene, and have a more structured format. Remember how long rainbow cruise was legal in melee?

 

[Nathan Richardson]

What do you think needs to be removed from little mac's ground game so his air game can be improved? No super armor on his smashes or is that too drastic?

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Nerfing Mac's ground game would remove his gimmick/niche. While I don't personally see this as a bad thing, many do as evidenced by the mission statements for things like Project M and SD Remix.

Not tweaking him leaves him as a RPS character that gets countered by a lot of crap, and counters a lot of crap entirely based on his oppressive ground game. Idk about you, but I'd rather have little Mac not easily countered and not as oppressive so he can stand somewhat on his own. You're toooo worried about the degree of how much Ima change little Mac.

What do you think needs to be removed from little mac's ground game so his air game can be improved? No super armor on his smashes or is that too drastic?

Nothing extremely drastic. Removing some armour frames on Dsmash, Dtilt being slower, jab being a frame slower, and Ftilt frame a couple frames slower, in exchange for waaay less laggy Fair with more damage and better hitbox, ditto with Bair, and Uair. Side B would also go a little further as well.

 

[Ilikebugs]

I think that making grabs better overall would be a huge boon to lower tiers.

Olimars been trending up, his bad matchups can be won through campy play. Do we envision him as high tier yet?

 

[jet56]

Changing little mac to be a more air based fighter, or buffing his aerial game at all is contradictory to the characters design. If you want a quick way to make him a better character, and it would only require one change, and solve all of the characters problems, let him charge Ko punch (which is a terrible idea). Now, if you want a way to make him better without making him busted or ruining the characters design, a couple fixes and minor changes would be all he needs (better grab range, Nair becomes positive on hit so he can land with an aerial and use a combo breaker, fixing dead zones and no connecting moves, like ftilt.)

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Changing little mac to be a more air based fighter, or buffing his aerial game at all is contradictory to the characters design. If you want a quick way to make him a better character, and it would only require one change, and solve all of the characters problems, let him charge Ko punch (which is a terrible idea). Now, if you want a way to make him better without making him busted or ruining the characters design, a couple fixes and minor changes would be all he needs (better grab range, Nair becomes positive on hit so he can land with an aerial and use a combo breaker, fixing dead zones and no connecting moves, like ftilt.)

He'll still be ground-based, but he won't be a linear, one-trick pony as he currently is. He'll have depth and options in his belt.

 

[jet56]

He'll still be ground-based, but he won't be a linear, one-trick pony as he currently is. He'll have depth and options in his belt.

If I may ask, what about this character is a linear, one trick pony? He already has plenty of options under his belt and actually, quite a extreme amount of depth. What you are suggesting his butchering his best aspect, and improving his worst, which is a very simplistic way to go about balancing a character, and will ultimately make the character worse, rather than better.

 

[I speak Spanish too]

To completely fulfill Little Mac's design he should certainly have more shieldstun on his normals. I can't understand from a design aspect how this would be neglected, overpowered, or contradictory.

I think this is definitely a hole in his advantage game and even contrasts his disadvantage state even more.

 

[FeelMeUp]

he should certainly have more shieldstun on his normals.

What sane person would come to this as an answer?
Why would you even suggest this?

 

[L9999]

I think that making grabs better overall would be a huge boon to lower tiers.

Olimars been trending up, his bad matchups can be won through campy play. Do we envision him as high tier yet?

The thing with Olimar is that he always had the good stuff to be worthy in Smash 4. Small and floaty so he is not a walking sandbag; zoning tools that not only latch, do chip damage, and have a variety of powers, but combined with his small size makes it annoying to approach him, (which has always been the case); very good grab, really cheap Smash attacks that have different effects, grab2win, and raw kill potential. The whole argument of "Olimar sucks" was an elaborated mindgame that made people sleep on Olimar and don't bother to learn the MU so Olimar players could grind management and combos, as Olimar received some nerfs from Super Camp Bros. "But his recovery suckz" Let's be real, how often to you kill Olimar by edgeguarding him? Spikes don't count, however gets caught by those deserves it. Olimar has options.

As for lower tier characters and grabs, BEG for a better grab and throws, has a good grab but his throws are "...", need a gameplan focus to put their alright throws to good use, have good throws, has a hideous abomination of game design instead of a grab, has a mediocre grab and alright throws, needs an inmediate slash to his jumpsquat to have a saving grace, ...he has footstool combos IIRC, throws don't accomplish much but the grab is alright,throws are alright.

 

[I speak Spanish too]

What sane person would come to this as an answer?
Why would you even suggest this?

Before we continue, are you aware of Little Mac's advantage on shield?

 

[LancerStaff]

One change eh... Bit of a stretch but whatever.

It'd be nice not having shield safety, combo ability, damage, safety on whiff and shield damage not all tied together in a hideous abomination that makes Gen I's Special stat look like a good idea.

 

[Megamang]

That question came in like a smart bomb. CCI was not ready.


Slighlty buffing his aerials to be... still useless, while nerfing his normals, would be a nerf.

I I speak Spanish too

I know that when Mac Dtilts or Fsmash-downs my shield I usually cant do much. This are enough for pokes, if all his pokes were safe he'd destroy tons of characters way too easily.

...

Gah i fell for the bait too. lets talk about something else. Some stall n fall characters can dair Diddy's banana for a quick safe return to neutral, supplemented with a decent hitbox.

Mario seems to work better as a ground fighter until the advantage state kicks in, at least vs fox.

Something else interesting not about proposing changes... please?

LancerStaff I cant figure out what youre talking about.

 

[Daymaster]

That question came in like a smart bomb. CCI was not ready.


Slighlty buffing his aerials to be... still useless, while nerfing his normals, would be a nerf.

I I speak Spanish too

I know that when Mac Dtilts or Fsmash-downs my shield I usually cant do much. This are enough for pokes, if all his pokes were safe he'd destroy tons of characters way too easily.

...

Gah i fell for the bait too. lets talk about something else. Some stall n fall characters can dair Diddy's banana for a quick safe return to neutral, supplemented with a decent hitbox.

Mario seems to work better as a ground fighter until the advantage state kicks in, at least vs fox.

Something else interesting not about proposing changes... please?

LancerStaff I cant figure out what youre talking about.

Ok, so how bad does this hurt Diddy? I've seen a decent amount of Sheik VS Diddy, and it seems like it's really situation as evidenced by the fact that almost no one ever uses it. Is this just Sheik or do Sonic and the like not get much off this either?

 

[jet56]

Something else interesting not about proposing changes... please?

I mentioned this already, but i really would like to discuss the stagelist and how it is currently affecting the smash 4 meta. I feel many people really underestimate, or even forget, how instrumental stages are in shaping MU's, tier lists, and character viability. Here's an exreme example:
If the only legal stage was Hyrule temple, who would be the best character in the game? Probably Sonic or Pacman.
Another more realistic scenario:
If Omega Stage CP replaced duck hunt on the stagelist, Would little mac be more viable and seen as a better character? would he be higher on the tier list? probably so.

We really need to discuss stages and how the affect they smash 4 competitive scene, and the fact that the way we select and choose our stages for the smash 4 scene is muddled and unorganized.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

I mentioned this already, but i really would like to discuss the stagelist and how it is currently affecting the smash 4 meta. I feel many people really underestimate, or even forget, how instrumental stages are in shaping MU's, tier lists, and character viability. Here's an exreme example:
If the only legal stage was Hyrule temple, who would be the best character in the game? Probably Sonic or Pacman.
Another more realistic scenario:
If Omega Stage CP replaced duck hunt on the stagelist, Would little mac be more viable and seen as a better character? would he be higher on the tier list? probably so.

We really need to discuss stages and how the affect they smash 4 competitive scene, and the fact that the way we select and choose our stages for the smash 4 scene is muddled and unorganized.

Please, the best character would be Pikachu. The only character that could go even with him on Hyrule is Fox because he can laser camp

 

[L9999]

I mentioned this already, but i really would like to discuss the stagelist and how it is currently affecting the smash 4 meta. I feel many people really underestimate, or even forget, how instrumental stages are in shaping MU's, tier lists, and character viability. Here's an extreme example:
If the only legal stage was Hyrule temple, who would be the best character in the game? Probably Sonic or Pacman.
Another more realistic scenario:
If Omega Stage CP replaced duck hunt on the stagelist, Would little mac be more viable and seen as a better character? would he be higher on the tier list? probably so.

We really need to discuss stages and how the affect they smash 4 competitive scene, and the fact that the way we select and choose our stages for the smash 4 scene is muddled and unorganized.

I think it has been done pretty well. We got past the dark ages were we played on the horrid messes of Castle Camp and Haljank. There are enough stages to keep the top tiers on check from choosing the tri-platform stages they love all the time. The most complained stages right now are Lylat and DH. Lylat because no one practices it and overrate the tilting. I find it to be a valuable asset to play mindgames in CPing, as many people dislike it. Duck Hunt is kind of a bleach drink for some characters, but it is usually striked anyways. If* NX adds another decent stage I can see DH getting axed. And there is no other stage in this game that fits the criteria of a good/decent competitive stage. Either they have a lot of hazards, are seizure inducing, promote camp2win, have huge blastzones that draw out games for ages, or are too big they annoy. Remember that competitive playing drains the mind, and having annoying distractions drain it harder and from a viewer standpoint the games look cheap because reasons (too much camp, hazard deaths, not really a duel, jank, etc).

Please, the best character would be Pikachu. The only character that could go even with him on Hyrule is Fox because he can laser camp

Those lasers don't reach the whole screen, don't be silly. But on silly things, has campy Pikachu been experimented? When Pikachu crosses under the stage with Quick attack against characters with bad mobility for timeout and throwing jolts without commitment.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Stages are an unjustifiably ignored aspect of the metagame.
There's our current list with 1 ban and BF/T&C/DL that artificially boosts a character like ZSS because she puts you in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario when banning. Then there's other characters that have a few bad stages you can CP them to in order to make the matchup more bearable. An extreme example of both would be . Pretty bad stages being Smashville and Lylat, while his ridiculous CPs are BF/DL and, to a lesser extent, T&C.
This sort of situation in the meta is why I would prefer a 2 bans no DSR ruleset.
The characters with no bad stages don't change(), but the characters with 1-2 extremely strong counterpicks() can end up forcing you to play there and throw games.
In 2 bans no DSR, this doesn't happen. You get the much lesser evil of BF instead of having to play her on DL or T&C.
Don't have to deal with SV or FD and can instead take her somewhere else. Think about it.