Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[YerTheBestAROUND]

He has a projectile, but it's negated in neutral by literally every move in the game save for two.

Certain moves when stale will also fail to knock Gordos back at Dedede. Falcon jab, to name an example (dash attacking or ftilting instead works fine as a substitute however.) And we still have to consider Gordo's awkward hitbox, which can mean that if the move you're using to swat gordos back isn't disjointed your hurtbox could get clipped and you'll either take the hit and knock gordo back, which Dedede can also knock back afterwards, or you'll just take the hit and get forced closer to the edge.

 

[KenMeister]

My argument for Ganon being better than DDD is simple. If a Ganon so much as reads some form of movement or opening, he has decent midrange burst options to go in and deal quite a bit of damage thanks to moves like his dash attack or sideB for example. Approaching with DDD is like hell because of his nonexistent midrange, which leads to opponents just laming him out outside his range easier than Ganon. That and he has a harder time with shields in general than Ganon does and has to fish for kills, a flaw most heavies shouldn't have due to having only 3 okay kill moves, with Ganon having his entire kit. Ganon's grab may suck but he has ways of mixing up shield pressure with sideB. TLDR: DDD is easier to lame out than Ganon.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Maybe I was wrong and Falco really is bottom 5 material

Bottom ten sure he's hardly functional but does function great combo game, Shine is underrated, good edge guards
and fairly decent smash attacks but once Falco's opponents get into kill percentages you can just dance around him it's pretty annoying having to rely almost entirely on reads to get a kill.

The nice thing about Smash 4 is that it's balanced enough that even the bottom tiers have things going for them so it makes it hard to say a character is a lock for last

I think highly (well highly for a bottom tier lol) of so probably not her

Is bad but she can claim some (yet very few) high placing at recent tournaments like Shine


I'd say worst character in the game is a toss up between and leaning more to 1111 .

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Anyone who says Ganon is worse than DDD is probably still falling for gimmicks at this point in the meta. c:

Considering how bad the characters are at that level, I could say the opposite and be just as equally valid in saying as much.

They're simply different types of terrible. What's worse, weak long range options or non-existant long range options but weak short range burst option? Multiple jumps to throw off juggling attempts but lower air speed, or slightly higher air speed with a smaller frame but no multiple jumps? A ledge trapping game that is very good but you can eventually adapt to, or follow ups out of a command that are good but you can eventually adapt to?

Both are going to get lamed out. Both are going to get juggled to death. Both have a good amount of power behind them but not great ways to use it. One at least has recovery distance and sometimes ledgetraps just can't be avoid because of how you got knocked off stage. That's why I'd rank D3 higher: he has marginally more options over all.

As for Jigglypuff: she doesn't even have strength: if you screw up against her you are most likely not suddenly scared for your life. She has a gimped Rest with few if any reliable ways to combo into it and that's the only thing killing you on stage at a decent time outside of a lucky smash near the ledge (and you can be punished for successfully killing with it, which is just horrible). An off stage game that frankly I would rank barely better than D3's, and in some situations potentially worse than D3's (and yes I have watched high level Jigglypuff play). She doesn't get juggled to death, but instead just gets flat out killed stupidly fast and will die extremely early to the combos that do work on her. Can't even shield reliably in a game where characters like Marth and Lucina can and will wear down shields significantly. She doesn't get walled out quite as badly as D3 and Ganondorf, but still pretty darn badly. She's just horrible.

D3 at least has Dsmash fishing and ledgetrap pressure. Ganondorf at least has the threat of Dash Attack or Flamechoke getting his game finally started. Jigglypuff is just non-threatening unless you are way off stage and probably dead against most characters anyways.

And then there is Mii Swordfighter sobbing in the corner wishing for Trela to come back.

 

[Kung Fu Treachery]

There's one clearly terrible aspect of Ganon that exemplifies what @DunnoBro always says about DLC/"finished" characters vs launch characters: his grab.

Ganon is supposed to be a plodding tank with massive power but not many ways to string hits together or chase down his opponent. His design works largely as intended, in that he's dangerous up close if you're not careful, but you'll beat him if you're smart and not too predictable. But his grab sticks out like a sore thumb. There's no reason it should be so terrible. Nothing about his character model or other moves suggests that Ganon's elbows are glued to his rib cage, cruelly stunting his range of motion. Nothing in the archetype of "slow powerhouse" intuitively connects to T-Rex arms. In fact, given what Ganon is trying to do in a match, I would expect his grab to be pretty good, like some kind of grappler or wrestler character. He can't chase you down, but if you run into his arms, he might mess you up, right? But no, it's just bad.

If his grab were just slow, that would be one thing, but the pathetic range is truly mystifying. You basically never have to fear Ganon's grab, even if you're at close range where he's supposed to be really dangerous.

Ah, but perhaps his throws are really good, and so his grab is correspondingly harder to land?* Well, no, not at all.

DLC characters have bad moves, but they rarely have confusingly bad moves. Whereas with Ganon's grab, before even being exasperated about its suckiness, I always have to scratch my head first. What were the devs even trying to do here? Was it just a hold-over from Brawl?

I suppose he has Flame Choke as a good command grab, but that doesn't really help when some fast character is pressuring Ganon's shield.

*This is an aspect of Mewtwo that I think is well designed. His grab is not very good (not the worst, but not good), but that's for the best, because his throws are bonkers. ZSS is obviously a more oft-cited example of the same phenomenon.

 

[The-Technique]

Zelda is nowhere near the worst character in the game, she's bottom 10 at worst. She's basically like Mario in terms of the obscene reward she gets off of landing a single move, and on top of that she has a number of kill setups which is better than anything Zelda has ever had in previous games. The main thing that holds Zelda back is her abysmal mobility and terrible range.

 

[SaltyKracka]

My argument for Ganon being better than DDD is simple. If a Ganon so much as reads some form of movement or opening, he has decent midrange burst options to go in and deal quite a bit of damage thanks to moves like his dash attack or sideB for example. Approaching with DDD is like hell because of his nonexistent midrange, which leads to opponents just laming him out outside his range easier than Ganon. That and he has a harder time with shields in general than Ganon does and has to fish for kills, a flaw most heavies shouldn't have due to having only 3 okay kill moves, with Ganon having his entire kit. Ganon's grab may suck but he has ways of mixing up shield pressure with sideB. TLDR: DDD is easier to lame out than Ganon.

...Uh, Ganon has to fish for kills with moves that are almost universally unsafe on shield against everybody, and a command grab that would be pretty decent if it wasn't both the slowest grab in the game and techable.

Don't get me wrong, Ganon does have a decent midrange burst option (it's dash attack), but it is actually not that good at killing and still loses to shield.

And don't forget, DDD has an actual grab, and the potential for throw combos and/or killing throws.

 

[Y2Kay]

We're actually having an argument over which character is the shiniest turd of the bunch lol

 

[Nathan Richardson]

...Uh, Ganon has to fish for kills with moves that are almost universally unsafe on shield against everybody, and a command grab that would be pretty decent if it wasn't both the slowest grab in the game and techable.

Don't get me wrong, Ganon does have a decent midrange burst option (it's dash attack), but it is actually not that good at killing and still loses to shield.

And don't forget, DDD has an actual grab, and the potential for throw combos and/or killing throws.

The command grab may be techable but the tech is obscenely difficult to pull off and if the command grab is on the ground ganon can effortlessly combo it into down or forwardtilt for a kill confirm, not to mention once you get flame choked the first time ganon can then spam consecutive flame chokes by walking away and then reinputting the flame choke command once someone gets up (depending on timing the opponent will NOT be able to shield or counter before the second consecutive flame choke hits) the timing of the tech also changes depending on ganon's distance from his target once the flame choke connects.
As for his moves being unsafe on shield, I tried that ganon shattered my shield with two consecutive uncharged forward smashes (which come out stupid fast for someone of his size!) taunted and wrapped the whole humiliation up with warlock punch when I couldn't snap out of stun quickly enough to dodge.

 

[Deleted member]

We're actually having an argument over which character is the shiniest turd of the bunch lol

still better than 80% of the discussions in this thread

 

[L9999]

Zelda is nowhere near the worst character in the game, she's bottom 10 at worst. She's basically like Mario in terms of the obscene reward she gets off of landing a single move, and on top of that she has a number of kill setups which is better than anything Zelda has ever had in previous games. The main thing that holds Zelda back is her abysmal mobility and terrible range.

Are you making an argument saying a character is not garbage by saying it is garbage at worst? Zelda is nothing like Mario. Mario doesn't have a posibility of landing a weak attack with no hitstun and have 10 years of lag. Yes, Zelda can kill you at mid %s, but what good is that if she is a walking sandbag? And because she is so light and her moves are so laggy, almost everything Zelda does is a commitment and the risk of getting punished is huge. Now, let's play a game. Name me 10 characters who are worse than Zelda and I'll believe your argument.

 

[KenMeister]

...Uh, Ganon has to fish for kills with moves that are almost universally unsafe on shield against everybody, and a command grab that would be pretty decent if it wasn't both the slowest grab in the game and techable.

Don't get me wrong, Ganon does have a decent midrange burst option (it's dash attack), but it is actually not that good at killing and still loses to shield.

And don't forget, DDD has an actual grab, and the potential for throw combos and/or killing throws.

Have you ever tried spacing back air? o:

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Hoo boy I'm all for discussion but this looks like that one strip in Brawl In The Family (awesome webcomic) that says that most times the best fights take place outside of the smash stage. Popcorn anyone?

 

[|RK|]

We're actually having an argument over which character is the shiniest turd of the bunch lol

I think it's valuable. For one, it helps us understand why characters are good/bad exactly. Looking at what worse characters do to play around their weaknesses is good for understanding better characters. Additionally, it's better than being behind the curve when a low tier does anything.

Like, people thought Ganon was mid tier when the game came out, but slowly dropped him to bottom 3/5. For most people, that's just because of his lack of results. But it's good to understand... IMO.

 

[Rizen]

DDD's recovery gives him an edge over Ganon, like people have mentioned. I've died using Ganon at 130% because his recovery distance is so short. It nulls his heavyweight advantage from horizontal launches.
I can't see DDD being worse than Ganon.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Yes but the problem is lack of results by itself does not a bad character make. I was saying this either in this thread or in another thread and i'll reiterate. It's easy to find out where a character falls on the tier chart if they have a large player base or if top level players use them, this results in a 'follow the leader' phenomenon where people use characters that they see top level people playing simply because the top tier level players play them which also expands the characters playerbase.
However if a character isn't played often or doesn't get good results when it's played less people use it, this results in a weird phenomenon where people simply assume a character is bad simply because it isn't played often or doesn't get good results on the rare times the character IS played when it all depends on the familiarity of the player with the character translating into results.

 

[SaltyKracka]

argumentum ad my being bad

First of all, no.

Secondly, since you obviously don't actually play Ganon, I'll let you in on a little secret. Guarenteed followups on missed techs only work on about half of the cast. Generally the worse half.

Third, the thing about tech chasing is that it is a guessing game. And it's one that Ganon has to be fortunate to even start, because Flame Choke is just so goddamn slow and risky.

...I'm not even going to address that last bit.

Have you ever tried spacing back air? o:

Have you ever tried getting gud?

Yes but the problem is lack of results by itself does not a bad character make. I was saying this either in this thread or in another thread and i'll reiterate. It's easy to find out where a character falls on the tier chart if they have a large player base or if top level players use them, this results in a 'follow the leader' phenomenon where people use characters that they see top level people playing simply because the top tier level players play them which also expands the characters playerbase.
However if a character isn't played often or doesn't get good results when it's played less people use it, this results in a weird phenomenon where people simply assume a character is bad simply because it isn't played often or doesn't get good results on the rare times the character IS played when it all depends on the familiarity of the player with the character translating into results.

Look, let's not mince about with meandering defenses. If there was any bottom tier character whose usage frequency vastly overshadows their win percentage, it's Ganondorf. Jiggs and Zelda have some mains. Mii Swordsman has...nothing. But Ganon has mains and mains and mains, and has since the day the game came out.

...and he's still got all of jack and **** for results. Not knocking on my boy Ray, but there's a pretty obvious ceiling on Ganon's potential that all the dancing around can't hide.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Er the first part of my quote became incomprehensible because you deleted too much of it, i'm not going to argue about why a character is or isn't bad everyone agrees the characters being discussed are pretty terrible. I'm going after the more obscure characters that most people don't use and people refuse to use them.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Characters that have majors flaws tied to disadvantage but have fairly good advantaged states and can kill very early.

A character that doesn't have a good advantaged state, has a bad disadvantaged state, is so light, she dies to her own shield breaking, has almost no safe ways of approaching or spacing and has a trump card that can easily get HER killed.

??? We have no idea what the character is really capable of. Not top tier, but not necessarily bottom tier.

Frankly, I think is the worst, but I digress.

I'm also the guy who thinks is significantly better than and that both are significantly better than .



Still, I'm just glad that is nowhere near these discussions anymore.

 

[bc1910]

We don't have enough data to observe on 1111 Swordfighter.

However, with the current spread of results, s/he's the most logical pick for worst character.

This could change with alterations to customs rules or the return of a good Swordfighter player, but we needn't make excuses for the character's complete dearth of results at present.

Parts of their kit are decent on paper, they're just offering no data in the current meta.

Tbh Jiggs is super underrated, low tier for sure but far from the worst character in the game. Her aerial mobility and crouch makes it hard to camp her and bair gives her a decent spacing option. Her long lasting high bkb aerials makes it a nightmare to be offstage against her and she has kill confirms at ~40. Oh and not to mention her disadvantage state being much MUCH better than nearly everyone around her rank, that makes life a lot easier against top/high tiers that thrive on abusing the low tiers poor disadvantage.

She has potential, a lot more than Dorf and DDD at least

She may not be as bad as the masses think, but "super underrated" is a bit far. Can a character really be that underrated if they're "low tier for sure"?

As always, if you just list a character's strengths they will always come off well. For example, her aerials don't really have that much knockback at low percents and her 40% kill confirms are difficult to land. As in, if you manage to get weak Fair to Rest, your opponent probably didn't know about it. Or ****ed up big.

 

[Routa]

People still think that Swordspider is the worst Mii in Guest 1111 form? Have people really forgot how bad Brawler is in Guest 1111 form? Like he has only one thing going for himself and that is combo game. Swordspider least has above average ground game and combo game going for himself. Add to that he at least has neutral and can barely recover unlike Brawler. People don't realize how much the Up-B and Down-B matter for Brawler.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

She may not be as bad as the masses think, but "super underrated" is a bit far. Can a character really be that underrated if they're "low tier for sure"?

By super underrated I mean shes more of an F tier than an H tier. If I were to say Rob was 12 - 18 spots better than hes currently ranked I'd be implying he was super underrated, right?

As always, if you just list a character's strengths they will always come off well. For example, her aerials don't really have that much knockback at low percents and her 40% kill confirms are difficult to land. As in, if you manage to get weak Fair to Rest, your opponent probably didn't know about it. Or ****ed up big.

I'm not even going to attempt to play it off like her flaws don't matter because she does have some really REALLY ****ty flaws like a dumb jumpsquat, bad ground game, and bad knockback until around 25%, but her kill confirms really aren't that hard with practice. Falling up air confirms into rest, FH retreating dair confirms into rest, pound sets up for soft fair > rest pretty reliably, and then you have that one stupid gimmick move that you can sometimes get lucky with by just spamming it out of a ledge hop.
She also has some simple but effective landing traps against characters who don't have a ridiculous get out of jail free card like BF. An example would be something like a rising FH fair > falling uair > SH rest
If they airdodge through the up air they get hit by rest but if they don't then rest is a true combo from landing up air. You can set this up pretty easily with pound or you can just go right in with the fair, your choice.

Shes a high risk character sure, but the reward is there if you play your cards right and that's what Puff has been about in every game, right?
Lol no, she's for the masochists who really like watching MK's up air them to death at 2%

 

[bc1910]

Jigglypuff is not 12-18 spots better than her current ranking.

Probably not even half that.

 

[Deleted member]

If we're gonna talk about characters who have the potential to rise from where they are at the moment, I'll give my two cents just for fun:

Main bias, woop woop.

Shulk has always been one of the most contentious characters in the Smash 4 metagame in the regard where everyone has wildly different opinions on him. Some say he's awful or bottom 10/15, other think he's a sleeper high tier and some think the character is just alright. I fit in the last camp.

Shulk probably won't ever see a significant rise in this meta, but a more positive perception as I see it fit. I think the character is around 40-38th for what it's worth. The character has been continuing to put on pretty decent showings for most of this year, much more than he did than the entirety of 2015 and the release of the game. Nicko has committed to traveling more and it's doing him favors (such as him getting to beat Fatality at Battlegrounds 3 and get 4th at said tournament, even though Fatality got the runback), so that's rad in of itself.

The character won't ever be solo viable, but most in this game aren't. Despite his class he's shown that he's been able to put in work at higher levels. Don't even get me started on how stupid the character would be if his players actually committed to camping.

Olimar is good. Myran is in my state so I guess there's bias in that as well. It is a fact that practically nobody really knows the matchup in detail, but it's his biggest boon in the current meta and I can't argue against his results. Even looking at his toolkit Oli has what's probably one of the dumbest advantage states in the game if managed correctly especially in terms of damage racking. There's also his amazing grab to consider, pivot grab is probs top 5 in the game. Hella scary smashes and conditioning in general.

 

[Nobie]

Characters that have majors flaws tied to disadvantage but have fairly good advantaged states and can kill very early.

A character that doesn't have a good advantaged state, has a bad disadvantaged state, is so light, she dies to her own shield breaking, has almost no safe ways of approaching or spacing and has a trump card that can easily get HER killed.

??? We have no idea what the character is really capable of. Not top tier, but not necessarily bottom tier.

Frankly, I think is the worst, but I digress.

I'm also the guy who thinks is significantly better than and that both are significantly better than .



Still, I'm just glad that is nowhere near these discussions anymore.

Jigglypuff has a bad disadvantaged state? I'm not so sure about that. Multiple jumps, crazy air speed, and being so light and floaty that most combos don't work means that Jigglypuff has a pretty good time getting back to the neutral.

 

[Jamurai]

We're actually having an argument over which character is the shiniest turd of the bunch lol

Problem with this mentality is that no one talks about the worse characters and that leads to lots of misinformation and unproductive discussions.

Which is totally not happening here.

What is almost as bad is that beyond obvious stuff (eg. Puff is light and has some setups into rest), I don't even know what is or isn't misinformation. So I don't trust a lot of the info being given here. An exception being what @adom4 says about Ganon, but that's not enough to make a comparison.

.

I think it's fairly agreed that bottom four is some order of ...

Next worst is probably one of

Or maybe based on results.

Not much point bringing Miis into this when they are essentially banned, no conclusion will be reached until they aren't and people have incentive to pick them up.

 

[Yikarur]

Brawler is by far the worst 1111 Mii (this rule should've never existed tho obv)
Gunner and Swordfighter are pretty "ok". They have no business being mentioned as potential worst.
Thes obv get no results because of their ruling issues so you can't extrapolate from their results how good they are.
Results with all moves seem to show that Brawler rises to high mid tier while Swordfighter and Gunner are still sitting in low tier.

I still think Ganondorf is by far the worst. The moment you play the MU optimally there is nothing Ganondorf can do anymore and he should be dead every time he's put off-stage. No mobility is sadly a death sentence.

 

[Deleted member]

Problem with this mentality is that no one talks about the worse characters and that leads to lots of misinformation and unproductive discussions.

Which is totally not happening here.

What is almost as bad is that beyond obvious stuff (eg. Puff is light and has some setups into rest), I don't even know what is or isn't misinformation. So I don't trust a lot of the info being given here. An exception being what @adom4 says about Ganon, but that's not enough to make a comparison.

.

I think it's fairly agreed that bottom four is some order of ...

Next worst is probably one of

Or maybe based on results.

Not much point bringing Miis into this when they are essentially banned, no conclusion will be reached until they aren't and people have incentive to pick them up.

I definitely agree with you on Wii Fit. People have overestimated that character for so long.

Falln said a while ago that one of her flaws was how her zoning led into nothing, when you think of it it's pretty damned true. Being cursed with such a bad grab and hitboxes also doesn't make fighting short or disjointed characters all that fun.

 

[Nah]

Jigglypuff has a bad disadvantaged state? I'm not so sure about that. Multiple jumps, crazy air speed, and being so light and floaty that most combos don't work means that Jigglypuff has a pretty good time getting back to the neutral.

It's sorta terrible in the sense that Jiggs, like Mewtwo (or lightweights in general really), has almost literally no margin for error because of her weight. Having aerial mobility of that caliber, multiple jumps, and being somewhat less susceptible to combos is sort of rendered moot when a few stray individual hits is all that's needed to kill you, especially when you lack the ability to stay out of trouble as much as Mewtwo/Sheik can and also don't get the reward for winning neutral like they do.

or maybe that's more the character's problem in general and not so much her disadvantaged state

I suck at explaining **** lol

 

[KenMeister]

Problem with this mentality is that no one talks about the worse characters and that leads to lots of misinformation and unproductive discussions.

Which is totally not happening here.

What is almost as bad is that beyond obvious stuff (eg. Puff is light and has some setups into rest), I don't even know what is or isn't misinformation. So I don't trust a lot of the info being given here. An exception being what @adom4 says about Ganon, but that's not enough to make a comparison.

.

I think it's fairly agreed that bottom four is some order of ...

Next worst is probably one of

Or maybe based on results.

Not much point bringing Miis into this when they are essentially banned, no conclusion will be reached until they aren't and people have incentive to pick them up.

I wouldn't even put Pac or Bowser Jr in that category if Vicegrip's pretty good results are anything to show for in SoCal (and PRd on top of that), along with Sinji still making the character somewhat relevant. I'd say Falco and Kirby would probably better fit the bill if their showings, results and potential (or lack thereof) are anything to go by.

 

[FeelMeUp]

I've been thinking about it for a few weeks, but never really thought to ask before.
Why has no one mentioned Sheik's ftilt when considering the best tilts in the game and how the hell has this move never been nerfed? Combined with having one of the best walks in the game she has a tilt that's almost completely safe on block and combos or 50/50s at every relevant percent in the game. Combined with PP and buffered aerials you get put in a lot of "at Sheik's mercy" situations where she can mindlessly ftilt at you knowing there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
Fighting a floaty? Ftilt Uair works around 30-40. Fighting a fastfaller? Ftilt confirms into 50+ damage on hit.
In general? Combos into her 3 main aerials for massive stage control, has the obvious Ftilt Uair 50/50 for a very very generoud percent range, instantly stuffs certain moves like Illusion Gordo and Spin Dash, DI traps into big damage on combos like ftilt>PP utilt>FH needles>Anything or Ftilt RaR double bair, etc.
This move is borked and I think it's the main reason she doesn't lose certain MUs() while dominating others()

 

[williamsga555]

Going to be a bit bold and say D3's problem is his advantage moreso than his disadvantage. His disadvantage is typically overblown and isn't actually all that bad (on mobile, can go into this part more if requested later).

His advantage is vastly under tuned for the amount of risk/setup he has to take. He deals amazing damage, sure, but his ability to close out stocks is terrible. No killing tilts, no kill throw (or kill confirm off of a throw), only one particularly lethal aerial (which is slow and perpetually stale)...if he can't land dsmash, you're not dying until 120+ each stock without having made a mistake somewhere.

 

[Game7a1]

Brawler is by far the worst 1111 Mii (this rule should've never existed tho obv)
Gunner and Swordfighter are pretty "ok". They have no business being mentioned as potential worst.

I'm just speaking as someone who's observed Brawler 1111 and Swordfighter 1111 used in bracket in my region, and I see Brawler 1111 being better (here's an example of a Brawler 1111 in my region). At least he has consistent combos, and while he struggles to KO, Swordfighter is worse in those areas in that he doesn't have many moves that connect with others. I guess Swordfighter makes that up by having a better projectile, more range, and a useful Counter, but it just isn't enough.

It doesn't help that their recoveries can be intercepted for a good gimp/edgeguard, but Brawler has the offensive advantage (Soaring Axe Kick is a strong meteor, Onslaught has good KO potential, but the same can't be said about Stone Scabbard and Airborne Assault).

I do agree that Gunner 1111 has no place as being mentioned among the worst.

 

[Jamurai]

I wouldn't even put Pac or Bowser Jr in that category if Vicegrip's pretty good results are anything to show for in SoCal (and PRd on top of that), along with Sinji still making the character somewhat relevant. I'd say Falco and Kirby would probably better fit the bill if their showings, results and potential (or lack thereof) are anything to go by.

Funny you say that, the Falco main AC is ranked above Vicegrip on the PR lol. The reality is you can argue that almost every character has decent results. Results aren't the be-all-and-end-all anyways.

Kirby is theoretically a good counterpick to some really good characters e.g. Fox, Falcon, Sheik (yes, while he doesn't beat Sheik or anything, he has a better MU than most) which boosts his viability in my book.

 

[Vyrnx]

How good is Dedede's ledge trap game? To me, it looks like Dedede has an actual top tier ledge trap game, but I don't know a whole lot about this character so I'm mostly just asking.

When people refer to his 'gimmicks', are they talking about his ledge game? From the matches I've watched, Whiteout and Big D always seem to get something on the ledge, including a lot of kills. Compared with some for sure top tier ledge guarding games like Sheik, Diddy, Lucario, Rosalina, Dedede's seems to have the most potential to be deadly. But is it actually that good?

His recovery is more than distance. He can throw gordos down from high up, has multiple jumps for mixups, can turn himself around with his jumps to use the big disjoint on bair, has the huge disjoint on uair, and up b has heavy armor. His ledge options seem...okay? Uair has to be one of the most disjointed uairs in the game (how many characters can cover the top platform of battlefield with sh uair? Edit: actually more than I thought lol but the point still stands, it has a bit disjoint) and is pretty good from a ledge drop down.

He seems like he does well on platform stages with moves like uair and bair or skipping gordos along platforns. And he seems like he lands decently with multiple jumps and falling bair, which most opponents just sort of back off from.

Dedede is pretty unfortunate because his design diverges so much from the other super heavies (not killing with every move or an early grab confirm), but for some reason they decided he needed to have five good moves and make fair, nair, dair, and utilt way worse than they need to be on a character who already has a good portion of his moveset occupied by joke moves. Which having joke moves would be fine, considering there need to be draws for casual play, but then why give a move like fair an awful hitbox and make it slow, kill late, have bad autocancel windows, etc. I feel like his design actually had a lot potential.

I don't main or play Dedede much, but I know Feel did and maybe some others, so please correct me on misinformation.

 

[TDK]

I think it's fairly agreed that bottom four is some order of ...

That's widely agreed on discounting miis. I'd put as next-worst but I seem to be alone in that.

 

[williamsga555]

His ledgetrap game is basically his only saving grace. It's genuinely very strong.

His 'gimmicks' are weird/unconventional moves that require matchup knowledge about. Things like bair having low cooldown+SHAC, how to play around gordos, remembering that his recovery has super armor, etc. Basically, the strengths of his kit aren't conventional, so playing against him can feel 'gimmicky' if unexperienced.

Ledge options are unfortunately terrible. Sharking with uair is great, sure, but it's committal in the sense that he has no way to get above the ledge once he dedicates himself to dropping down (well...he could up b past it, but that's telegraphed and wicked unsafe). All his other options are slow because he has no quick move to throw out once he does get back on stage.

Landing isn't terrible as D3 against most characters. Multijump+fastfalling, bair, and b-reverse inhale are sufficient mixups against most of the cast. Again, it's getting hit horizontally that bothers him, because he doesn't want to be stuck on the ledge.

Of the moves listed as "way worse than they should be," nair is still pretty rad, and utilt is very close to be busted. Shave 10 frames off the end of it and it's one of the best in the game (okay, so "close" might not be the right word, if we're talking a 10 frame change, but everything else about it is really solid).

Fair is a mystery of the universe. How you make a 12% disjointed aerial unsafe on hit is mind-boggling.

 

[Jamurai]

That's widely agreed on discounting miis. I'd put as next-worst but I seem to be alone in that.

Yeah I think Zard is better than, at the very least, a few characters apart from the bottom 4. He has some surprisingly good matchups with top tiers, e.g. Sheik and Cloud. By surprisingly good I mean he's a heavy yet it's nowhere near a stomp. Cloud is almost even (imo at least).

Fox is alright as well only because the off-stage destruction Zard can pull off on him is almost Luigi level. But apart from that it is more or less a stomp lel.

FTR Zard is my second best character only because he's quite simple and very fun. Doc is supposed to be my secondary but god damn it, I love that back air.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

I wouldn't even put Pac or Bowser Jr in that category if Vicegrip's pretty good results are anything to show for in SoCal (and PRd on top of that), along with Sinji still making the character somewhat relevant. I'd say Falco and Kirby would probably better fit the bill if their showings, results and potential (or lack thereof) are anything to go by.

Except Kirby has good matchups against relevant characters. Cant say much for Falco though, hes just bad

Jigglypuff is not 12-18 spots better than her current ranking.

Probably not even half that.

12 - 18 sounded a lot better at 4 am but she's better than literally the worst character in the game at least

 

[bc1910]

Yeah I think Zard is better than, at the very least, a few characters apart from the bottom 4. He has some surprisingly good matchups with top tiers, e.g. Sheik and Cloud. By surprisingly good I mean he's a heavy yet it's nowhere near a stomp. Cloud is almost even (imo at least).

Fox is alright as well only because the off-stage destruction Zard can pull off on him is almost Luigi level. But apart from that it is more or less a stomp lel.

FTR Zard is my second best character only because he's quite simple and very fun. Doc is supposed to be my secondary but god damn it, I love that back air.

FWIW, I can see Zard being the second best heavy (better than DK, worse than Bowser) long-term.