Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[jet56]

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).


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.

I actually think there are other stages to consider.
UCT and Omega Stages are the biggest ones that come to mind. I would kill to have Yoshi's island from the 3ds or Pokemon stadium 2 without the stage changes (which is possible, but only in 5 player smash.)

UCT has actually been for me the one stage i wanted for a very long time, as i feel it adds a fresh and unique dynamic, and is a better stage than duck hunt. However, it was too quickly dismissed, for reasons such as the stage layouts being too problematic, or background being too distracting. However, i find this unfair, because if duck hunt is a legal stage besides it's problems and setbacks, i see no reason why UCT is not.

regarding the Omega stages, i fail to see why this has not been added. There are enough differences between certain omega stages and FD to warrant a consideration in adding them, at the very least as a possible option. I BF and DL (and in some cases, Mii Verse) are allowed to be different stages on the same stagelist, i fail to understand the reasoning for not including Omega stages. The argument for BF and DL is that they are different enough to be allowed two different stage slots, but we can't even go to an Omega stage for an FD pick (I would love for FD and Omegas to count as two different stages and isn't unreasonable, but counting as one stage regarding a ban would be nice as well.)

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.

I concur on this. ATM, the stagelist benefits some characters much more than others, which is actually one of the MAIN reasons they are considered high or top tier in this game. Tweak or change the stagelist/stage ruleset, and you change the landscape of the smash competitive scene. People talk about balance through changing the characters, when you have the much more viable and easier ability to change the stagelist/stage ruleset to be more balanced.

 

[L9999]

I actually think there are other stages to consider.
UCT and Omega Stages are the biggest ones that come to mind. I would kill to have Yoshi's island from the 3ds or Pokemon stadium 2 without the stage changes (which is possible, but only in 5 player smash.)

UCT has actually been for me the one stage i wanted for a very long time, as i feel it adds a fresh and unique dynamic, and is a better stage than duck hunt. However, it was too quickly dismissed, for reasons such as the stage layouts being too problematic, or background being too distracting. However, i find this unfair, because if duck hunt is a legal stage besides it's problems and setbacks, i see no reason why UCT is not.

regarding the Omega stages, i fail to see why this has not been added. There are enough differences between certain omega stages and FD to warrant a consideration in adding them, at the very least as a possible option. I BF and DL (and in some cases, Mii Verse) are allowed to be different stages on the same stagelist, i fail to understand the reasoning for not including Omega stages. The argument for BF and DL is that they are different enough to be allowed two different stage slots, but we can't even go to an Omega stage for an FD pick (I would love for FD and Omegas to count as two different stages and isn't unreasonable, but counting as one stage regarding a ban would be nice as well.)

I concur on this. ATM, the stagelist benefits some characters much more than others, which is actually one of the MAIN reasons they are considered high or top tier in this game. Tweak or change the stagelist/stage ruleset, and you change the landscape of the smash competitive scene. People talk about balance through changing the characters, when you have the much more viable and easier ability to change the stagelist/stage ruleset to be more balanced.

I adressed UCT indirectly with "seizure inducing." Draining color pallette+a lot of HD monsters with every single blessed detail moving too fast kills eyes. On Omegas, we could take one page of the Japanese meta and add Omega Wily Castle. I don't see why not. Good music, walls for variety, not too big, not too small. (If Yellow Devil wasn't in the regular the stage would be decent). A breath of fresh air from playing in Trashville over and over again. As FeelMeUp said, with more strikes the "pick your poison" against jugglers is more and less solved. (Fun retrospective: The stage list in Brawl was made the way it is because DDD and MK ruined every decent stage).

 

[TheGoodGuava]

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.

it was a n64 joke pls dont

 

[Nathan Richardson]

When it comes to stages I actually don't mind stages that don't have obstacles that damage (meaning halbard, Donkey Kong, Flat Zone, and Norfair are out) or aren't overly huge (what was the name of the stage based on Xenoblade Chronicles? Yeah that one).
I don't mind pokemon stadium with or without the stage changes because none of them are damaging. Midgar is a no, that summon monster mechanic is WAY too random.
UCT....I find myself constantly getting distracted by the monsters in it's omega form.
Both mario kart stages do give you fair warning before the obstacles pop up but....the blastzones are right on the edge like in Wii Fit studio, a person can just camp on the edge and throw you off with little to no effort....annoying.
I don't mind the Fire Emblem stage but it IS TINY when you first start out. I can see someone losing a stock within the first few seconds due to it's tiny initial stage!
Boxing ring suffers from the same problems as wii fit studio.
Actually that's about it I don't play the other stages enough to have an opinion of them.

 

[Bowserboy3]

When it comes to stages I actually don't mind stages that don't have obstacles that damage (meaning halbard, Donkey Kong, Flat Zone, and Norfair are out) or aren't overly huge (what was the name of the stage based on Xenoblade Chronicles? Yeah that one).
I don't mind pokemon stadium with or without the stage changes because none of them are damaging. Midgar is a no, that summon monster mechanic is WAY too random.
UCT....I find myself constantly getting distracted by the monsters in it's omega form.
Both mario kart stages do give you fair warning before the obstacles pop up but....the blastzones are right on the edge like in Wii Fit studio, a person can just camp on the edge and throw you off with little to no effort....annoying.
I don't mind the Fire Emblem stage but it IS TINY when you first start out. I can see someone losing a stock within the first few seconds due to it's tiny initial stage!
Boxing ring suffers from the same problems as wii fit studio.
Actually that's about it I don't play the other stages enough to have an opinion of them.

Pokemon Stadium 2 is just annoying at times.

Like, the stage transformations aren't too bad in layout, but it's mainly the effects of them. The Flying one is just downright annoying because of how floaty it makes everyone. The Electric type one is annoying when you are near the ledge, as the conveyors push you off the ledge, which straight up makes some ledge getup options irrelevant. The Ice type stage is also just annoying because of the lower traction. The Ground type stage is pretty solid overall.

In Melee, non of the stage transformations affected the gameplay as much as some of the ones in Stadium 2.

The interesting thing is they could just fix some of the transformations and make them better. While the Ice one is annoying, I could live with it if the other two were good. The Electric one could be fixed by making the middle portion instead of the two side portions be a conveyor; it could even randomly go left or right each time it spawns. The Flying one could be unique and add floating helicopter type platforms that move up and down in the air in a set pattern (think the platforms in Saffron City) while removing the wind effect. One of the wind turbines could also come forward a little to create spinning platforms like the windmill on Melee's Pokemon Stadium. Those two would be legitimately good transformations. I'd live with the Ice one if the others were like that.

Pokemon Stadium 2 is actually legal in some places IIRC... Routa , isn't it legal in your area?

 

[FeelMeUp]

Stadium 2 has transformations that ALL enforce camping. Stadium 1 only had about 2 or so that did this iirc.
Rock and Fire. Water and Grass didn't slow down gameplay to a nonexistent pace like Stadium 2's everything does.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

If there's three stadium locations that aren't mentioned it's Mario Sunshine, Wii Sports Resort, and skyrealm. There isn't anything damaging on any of the locations, camping goes out the window because you HAVE to be in a certain spot or you'll be left behind (gimps ahoy! Even zard can gimp easy when people are trying to get back to center stage) the stage DOESN'T have anything to move you around (except skyrealm's waterfall, that was mentioned in the hints) and unless you're stalling all day you won't even see the no pitfall blast zones in skyrealm and sunshine.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

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.

Throw him in the air, off stage, or go to a stage with platforms.

Tell me what he does then.

 

[viewtifulduck82]

Throw him in the air, off stage, or go to a stage with platforms.

Tell me what he does then.

You dont understand the character at even the most simple levels if you suggested buffing his aerials, and then cited these reasonings as to why he needs changes.

His problem is not getting juggled. yeah it sucks, but thats not what keeps him from shining, and its a flaw he really should have as screwing up his god like ground game deserves a punishing. Its losing the percent or stock lead, and then not having an answer to platform shield camping. Thats how macs get timed out for free.

The only things he could really use to prevent these things are giving him a higher initial jump, as this would allow him to reach the sv and lower dream land platforms without having to burn a jump. Giving his aerials increased shield damage would be amother way to discourage platform camping. Another route would be buffing his pitiful grab range and speeding it up, because as it is now, mac has very few safe on shield options, and no reliable ways to beat shield in high level play.

 

[Luco]

Stadium 2 has transformations that ALL enforce camping. Stadium 1 only had about 2 or so that did this iirc.
Rock and Fire. Water and Grass didn't slow down gameplay to a nonexistent pace like Stadium 2's everything does.

Right, but this is the kind of stage striking choice I'd expect to see - consider how certain playstyles already aren't viable on certain legal stages anyway (Duck Hunt is timeout city for a bunch of characters, whilst FD is generally better for aggressive characters and worse for characters who have limited options when cornered).

Not explicitly saying Pokemon Stadium 2 should be legal, but In terms of diversity of rulesets I'd *love* to see how using it would affect certain areas metagames or impact their stage striking.

I just wish we were bolder with our ruleset decision-making with this game in general.

And as much as I personally *hate* fighting Mac, like we've seen he ended up a somewhat healthy mid-tier. If you're gonna go with that strategy I reckon there are other things you can do with him that won't homogenise him.

 

[Nobie]

Sol recently did an AMA where he mentioned Mac's weaknesses as being lack of grab reward and the fact that there are characters with better ground games, which shouldn't be the case when Mac is so dedicated to that style.

I think some kind of small reward on counterhits (like what most fighting games have) would make sense and be faithful to Punch-Out!!

I'm not sure if I'd give Mac a combo throw or anything, but maybe crazy good pummel damage could be reward enough. How would things change if Mac could consistently get 15% off of pummels alone?

 

[FeelMeUp]

The combination of KO Punch, Dtilt, Fsmash and a f1 jab makes me afraid to consider the idea of buffing the way he plays against shield. I don't think we can change Mac without either breaking him or making him trash. Fact of the matter is, the dev team made a horribly polarizing fundamentally broken character and trying to fix that is a waste of time.

 

[Megamang]

My mac idea has always been giving him something from using meter besides KO Punch. Like let him hold B to keep rising with his Uspecial; if this hits shield it sits there drilling with multihits. Boom, his recovery is ok but getting him offstage burns his gimick punch, and he can kinda answer shielding on a platform.

Mega absolutely destroys at Skyloft. All the transforms encourage me to get one uthrow then unleash 100 Air Shooters.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Sol recently did an AMA where he mentioned Mac's weaknesses as being lack of grab reward [...]

Mac with a better grab plus good throws would be a ****ing monster.

 

[Routa]

Yeah we do indeed have PS2 legal, but I think it will get removed. Why? The stage favours Cloud heavily. Atm Cloud is the main thing that will keep stages like CS, Delfino and PS2 from being legal elsewhere. No other character can abuse all 3 stages as well as Cloud. Also adding more stages makes stage striking progress useless 'cause Cloud would never be forced to go to a bad stage for him (he doesn't have bad stages tho). I'm a person who is very open minded when it comes to stages, but sadly Cloud ruins everything.

 

[Sleek Media]

One global change I'd like to see is hitstun staling. Anything the game considers a combo in training mode progressively reduces hitstun frames by up to half after the fifth hit. Two hit combos are therefore unaffected, so we still have confirms, but Shiek can't just stand there side tilting you for ages and then fair you for ages. It certainly wouldn't balance this mess, but it would be nice to have a chance to break out of some of the crap, and it might give heavies a chance.

The second would be dash stamina. In KIU, any time you begin a dash, and while dashing, you burn stamina. If you run out of stamina, you have to pause for a moment while Pit catches his breath. You recover stamina by walking or standing. Different characters can have different amounts of stamina as a balancing value. Wouldn't it be nice if slower characters actually had the ability to catch/corner characters with mobility advantages? Wouldn't it be nice if it was harder to time someone out? Wouldn't it be nice if your opppnent couldn't easily spam dash shenanigans?

My last change would be to reduce the i-frames on consecutive air dodges. Each consecutive gives you two frames fewer on the start and end, four total. Also applies to counters. No more free landing in certain MUs just by mashing airdodge. No more witch time spam. More aggression/better advantage.

 

[meleebrawler]

But then you have to consider that (excessive) grappling is illegal in boxing...

 

[TheGoodGuava]

But then you have to consider that (excessive) grappling is illegal in boxing...

I'm like 95% sure captain falcon has never jumped out of his vehicle, sprinted towards someone, grabbed them, and proceeded to ass**** them with a 16 hit combo. If Nintendo can allow that then they can allow mac to have decent grab followups

 

[bc1910]

Falcon is not from a fighting game, he's a bounty hunter in a made-up universe where made-up hovercars do made-up things.

Mac is from a game based around an actual real-life sport and despite being fictional clearly has some semblence of realism in his character design, both here and in Punch Out.

The two scenarios are completely different.

 

[Megamang]

Balance would also be slightly improved by the loss of "legacy" moves. CF loses a special, Ganon has to be modeled after a character based soley on the idea of being fast... Fox uair and utilt wouldnt be world ending balance busters while Zelda is destined to be overprecise garbo... etc.

 

[Luco]

Yeah we do indeed have PS2 legal, but I think it will get removed. Why? The stage favours Cloud heavily. Atm Cloud is the main thing that will keep stages like CS, Delfino and PS2 from being legal elsewhere. No other character can abuse all 3 stages as well as Cloud. Also adding more stages makes stage striking progress useless 'cause Cloud would never be forced to go to a bad stage for him (he doesn't have bad stages tho). I'm a person who is very open minded when it comes to stages, but sadly Cloud ruins everything.

Was gonna say, Cloud pretty much has no bad stages so it could be interesting in any match where he's not involved.

Would it heavily influence a given set in terms of actual stage striking if he was involved though? As in, seeing as you'd be going up to say a 9-stage list that would mean you're getting the extra ban anyway?

 

[Shady Shaymin]

Besides new characters and potentially new balance changes, do you guys think Smash Switch could bring new overall changes to the engine? If so, what do would you like to see/what could be beneficial for the meta?

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Besides new characters and potentially new balance changes, do you guys think Smash Switch could bring new overall changes to the engine? If so, what do would you like to see/what could be beneficial for the meta?

2 or 3 frames less input lag overall, less input lag online making it a much better place to practice and host meaningful tournaments

 

[BSP]

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

This suggestion isn't too far fetched. Mac really doesn't have a good answer to shield outside of breaking it, which the opponent can avoid if they want.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Yeah we do indeed have PS2 legal, but I think it will get removed. Why? The stage favours Cloud heavily. Atm Cloud is the main thing that will keep stages like CS, Delfino and PS2 from being legal elsewhere. No other character can abuse all 3 stages as well as Cloud. Also adding more stages makes stage striking progress useless 'cause Cloud would never be forced to go to a bad stage for him (he doesn't have bad stages tho). I'm a person who is very open minded when it comes to stages, but sadly Cloud ruins everything.

So we won't see things like Wii Sports resort, Skyloft, or Delfino Plaza because of one character which, by your own admission, doesn't have any bad stages to begin with so it's a moot point anyways.

 

[Megamang]

Its not a moot point.

Getting knocked out of bracket because you got uair'd into limit climhazzard at 90 at battlefield sucks. it doesnt mean we should make it happen at 30.

 

[verbatim]

Besides new characters and potentially new balance changes, do you guys think Smash Switch could bring new overall changes to the engine? If so, what do would you like to see/what could be beneficial for the meta?

I don't foresee any global changes more complex than the shieldstun changes in 1.1.0. Bar new content, the most that I could see is a patch's level of changes to weird hitboxes to make them link better and balance adjustments to moves and character stats.

 

[LancerStaff]

LancerStaff I cant figure out what youre talking about.

It's all tied together... So for example moves that are safe on shield will either be strong combo tools (just short of some ridiculous knockback) or hit like a truck. Sometimes both.

Most fighting games have these values as separate as possible so they don't end up with things like Sheik fair.

 

[Aaron1997]

I'm pretty Sure Dyr was High on something when he made this

 

[I speak Spanish too]

The combination of KO Punch, Dtilt, Fsmash and a f1 jab makes me afraid to consider the idea of buffing the way he plays against shield. I don't think we can change Mac without either breaking him or making him trash. Fact of the matter is, the dev team made a horribly polarizing fundamentally broken character and trying to fix that is a waste of time.

I really wouldn't consider KO punch an option of dealing with shields because it's more of trump card and has reliability issues. Also important to note that jab and f-smash aren't safe on shield. Though I believe jab shouldn't really function that way. All in all, despite this he still has trouble dealing with shields.

I do agree on the notion that the essense of Mac's design would ultimately be unsucessful in a competitive environment or at least not very viable. The optimizations that can be given to him through various AT's can prove to be helpful but he'll always be hurt by his major weaknesses.

 

[Daymaster]

View attachment 121084

I'm pretty Sure Dyr was High on something when he made this

Do we even need to talk about what's wrong with that list?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

View attachment 121084

I'm pretty Sure Dyr was High on something when he made this

Yeah, I hope you don't get infracted for sharing it because this list is coming dangerously close to trolling ... and not the funny kind...

 

[I speak Spanish too]

Yeah, I hope you don't get infracted for sharing it because this list is coming dangerously close to trolling ... and not the funny kind...

It's actually kinda sad you say this. It just proves the fact that most people are sheep, and that deviating too much from the general opinion can make you seen as being a troll? From what I understand from your post at least. If you were to see who I thought are top characters in the game you would probably think I'm absolutely insane.

In my opinion as long as your opinions are well justified it should be looked at seriously.

 

[FeelMeUp]

It's actually kinda sad you say this. It just proves the fact that most people are sheep, and that deviating too much from the general opinion can make you seen as being a troll? From what I understand from your post at least. If you were to see who I thought are top characters in the game you would probably think I'm absolutely insane.

In my opinion as long as your opinions are well justified it should be looked at seriously.

Alright then.
Who's your top 10 and why.

 

[I speak Spanish too]

Alright then.
Who's your top 10 and why.

I'm not going to sit here and write essays on it. I personally think a paragraph or 2 of explanations won't suffice, and I don't have the time. So I'm not going to announce them. Secondly, I don't have a top 10. The meta is just not far enough and some characters for me are simply too close to call. And last, why do you ask this? In an attempt to make me look stupid or prove me wrong? That's not the point. I'm saying everybody's opinion-no matter how outlandish it may seem should be considered IF it can be justified/supported etc. If I say for example, DK is somewhere along top 10 because he is heavy has a good horizontal recovery and as a result benefits from rage alot more. This argument is flawed and incomplete due to the fact that it fails to consider other aspects of the character such as stages and how they interacts with games won or loss, disadavnatgeous/advantageous states, how he can use his tools to succed in fundamental aspects of the game, the list goes on and on. The viability of a character, imo, shouldnt be a one, two, or even three paragraph argument-the game is just too deep for that. So for me, to give a top 10 which I already addressed is too close imo, and take days to write that up isn't just the amount of time I have, I believe the BR should do this. Also it being at the mercy of your subjectivity while proposing an argument that is not even close to in-depth and is just more popular shows how blinded people are-and I plan to expose this as I grow as a player. It's just not fair. Sorry if this was a little ranty but I hope you get the point. Nice try though.

 

[Fenny]

I'm not going to sit here and write essays on it. I personally think a paragraph or 2 of explanations won't suffice, and I don't have the time. So I'm not going to announce them. Secondly, I don't have a top 10. The meta is just not far enough and some characters for me are simply too close to call. And last, why do you ask this? In an attempt to make me look stupid or prove me wrong? That's not the point. I'm saying everybody's opinion-no matter how outlandish it may seem should be considered IF it can be justified/supported etc. If I say for example, DK is somewhere along top 10 because he is heavy has a good horizontal recovery and as a result benefits from rage alot more. This argument is flawed and incomplete due to the fact that it fails to consider other aspects of the character such as stages and how they interacts with games won or loss, disadavnatgeous/advantageous states, how he can use his tools to succed in fundamental aspects of the game, the list goes on and on. The viability of a character, imo, shouldnt be a one, two, or even three paragraph argument-the game is just too deep for that. So for me, to give a top 10 which I already addressed is too close imo, and take days to write that up isn't just the amount of time I have, I believe the BR should do this. Also it being at the mercy of your subjectivity while proposing an argument that is not even close to in-depth and is just more popular shows how blinded people are-and I plan to expose this as I grow as a player. It's just not fair. Sorry if this was a little ranty but I hope you get the point. Nice try though.

Y-You could have just said you didn't have a definitive top 10 rofl

 

[Deleted member]

In no order this is what I'd consider the top 10, @Das Koopa made a post showing that these characters earn the collective most results out of all characters (I believe?? somebody clear me up on that if so) so that'd make sense.

 

[I speak Spanish too]

Y-You could have just said you didn't have a definitive top 10 rofl

That's exactly what I don't want to do. I want to explain my reasoning of why and give examples. Also, that's not all that I wanted to address in that post.

 

[Fenny]

In no order this is what I'd consider the top 10, @Das Koopa made a post showing that these characters earn the collective most results out of all characters (I believe?? somebody clear me up on that if so) so that'd make sense.

tbh, while I appreciate the idea of a non-definitive top 10, as the metagame is right now, I don't see how the current occupants of top 10 can be any lower than they are right now. One or two of them might drop off in the future, but currently all of them have such a dominating set of tools on them and a solid to nigh-unmatched matchup spread.


btw feel, I'm gonna assume the 10th one you missed out was lol

 

[Deleted member]

tbh, while I appreciate the idea of a non-definitive top 10, as the metagame is right now, I don't see how the current occupants of top 10 can be any lower than they are right now. One or two of them might drop off in the future, but currently all of them have such a dominating set of tools on them and a solid to nigh-unmatched matchup spread.


btw feel, I'm gonna assume the 10th one you missed out was lol

tfw I can't count lmao (i was gonna put Rosa there)

I def agree with you, though.