Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[YerTheBestAROUND]

It's worth noting that Battlefield is one of Fox's best stages as well. It's easier to pressure Marth's landings to some extent too, not just Fox's, because of the way Marth lands. Marth's landings mostly come from a combination of smart dodges and aerials (falling up air on shield, generally fairly safe falling neutral air, down air). It's a lot harder to pull off the landing aerial mixups on Battlefield because Marth will just land with lag on the platforms instead of on his opponent's shield, which actually makes his landings less safe. In general, Fox's punish game is so good on Battlefield with the platforms that it ends up being a good pick.

The tri-platform layouts and maybe T&C are definitely the best stages Fox can get in the Fox vs Marth matchup because they offer Fox better opportunities in terms of neutral and punish game).

This is definitely true, but it just wasn't working out that way for Larry on Battlefield. Sometimes you have to counter pick the player, not the character, and T&C would've been just what he needed game 5 had he not gotten killed by fsmash at a relatively low percent. Larry was in the lead that game until that point, then Leo really just turned it on and beat him into the dirt. Can't change the past, but switching to T&C earlier would have been a better choice I feel.

 

[The-Technique]

It's worth noting that Battlefield is one of Fox's best stages as well. It's easier to pressure Marth's landings to some extent too, not just Fox's, because of the way Marth lands. Marth's landings mostly come from a combination of smart dodges and aerials (falling up air on shield, generally fairly safe falling neutral air, down air). It's a lot harder to pull off the landing aerial mixups on Battlefield because Marth will just land with lag on the platforms instead of on his opponent's shield, which actually makes his landings less safe. In general, Fox's punish game is so good on Battlefield with the platforms that it ends up being a good pick.

Some of the reasons that Leo looked like he was having trouble at times with Fox were probably more related to Larry reading his rolls than anything else. This may not be Melee, but Fox is still punished incredibly hard by Marth to the extent where he can die from combos and punishes without much surprise. Marth's punish game and walling out Fox's limbs with his sword make up for his deficiencies in dealing with Fox up close and when Fox is under him, which are the two worst scenarios for Marth. Both characters can execute crazy punishes on each other and have various aspects of neutral that work out to around an even neutral overall, if not even slightly in Marth's favor for the neutral aspect of the match. Fox's advantage is the juggle game, specifically his consistency in setting up the juggles, but Marth has juggles too so I think this advantage isn't too absurd. I think realistically Fox vs Marth works out to around even.

We Melee HD now, boys.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

It won't be Melee HD until they buff Falco enough for him to actually be viable

For now were stuck with 2005 Melee, where people are just now starting to use all of the movement tech

I'm actually wondering, what kind of buffs would Falco need to actually be relevant? He has a goodish punish game, decent frame data, good pokes, and viable kill moves. What about him makes him so bad?

 

[Das Koopa]

By the time you get to the middle of the stage as Falco or use Laser you've turned 86

 

[Nobie]

There's something I've been curious about regarding Ryu, and I wanted to see if anyone more familiar with the character might have some insight.

My question is, could Ryu players possibly be underutilizing Jab/Strong Shoryukens?

Pretty much any time I see anyone do a Shoryuken, it's always the Fierce version. I understand why: it's the strongest, kills the earliest, and platforms can sometimes help with the recovery. But are there situations where Jab Shoryuken would be the right choice, perhaps one where you're trying to find a middle ground between safety and power?

Same applies to some extent to the Hadouken and Tatsu as well.

I'm not sure if this is just an under-explored aspect of Ryu, or if there really is no reason to not go for the Fierce SRK.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Explain.

Yea top 5 neutrals with no order be like




I think

 

[SaltyKracka]

There's something I've been curious about regarding Ryu, and I wanted to see if anyone more familiar with the character might have some insight.

My question is, could Ryu players possibly be underutilizing Jab/Strong Shoryukens?

Pretty much any time I see anyone do a Shoryuken, it's always the Fierce version. I understand why: it's the strongest, kills the earliest, and platforms can sometimes help with the recovery. But are there situations where Jab Shoryuken would be the right choice, perhaps one where you're trying to find a middle ground between safety and power?

Same applies to some extent to the Hadouken and Tatsu as well.

I'm not sure if this is just an under-explored aspect of Ryu, or if there really is no reason to not go for the Fierce SRK.

There's basically no difference in endlag.

By the time you get to the middle of the stage as Falco or use Laser you've turned 86

Man, it must be terrible playing a character who can just SideB around everywhere without much fear of being punished. I wonder how you would deal with playing a character who was actually slow.

 

[ArnoldPalmer]

Yea top 5 neutrals with no order be like


I think

Id replace Bayo with MM and sonic with Rosa. Bayonettas neutral isn't on the same level as any of those characters, she's good but she isn't "I can theoretically never get touched" good

The only move of Sonics that actually demands respect is spin dash/charge and his oos is kind of bad honestly

 

[meticulousboy]

I can respect that, I just find it funny that people are so quick to pile on a bunch of other similar characters that haven't shaped or affected the meta in any significant way (,, etc.) ahead of .



I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you don't know that FOW had to go against k9sbruce's , one of 's worst (if not absolute worst) MU as well as a player he lost against before. Or the fact that he quite handily defeated Captain Zack's , though this honestly doesn't surprise me since I'm one of those crazy people who believe that the PK kids have slight-disadvantage-at-worst MU against the Umbra Witch.



Except it's not clear at all.
Oh wait why am I even replying to you, you already blocked me ever since I called you out on your penchant to blindly diss without any solid reasoning. NEXT!



Slight correction: FOW got 17th. Slightly less impressive, but still pretty solid given his absence and the fact that he encountered one of 's worst roadblock MUs along the way.
I also believe his match between Fatality could have gone either way, the whole set was basically just explosions of attacks after another.



And... Just... Sigh.

Don't bother replying @L9999, nothing you say will ever change his mind.

I'm curious about what you meant when you said that characters like Peach haven't contributed a thing to the game's meta. Is there something I'm missing?

 

[SaltyKracka]

I'm curious about what you meant when you said that characters like Peach haven't contributed a thing to the game's meta. Is there something I'm missing?

I'm going to go ahead and try to play internet psychic again, but it seems like he's saying that characters like Peach and Lucas are not meta-defining in that their existence and power do not actually change the meta much if at all. In his view, the tiers would look similar to the way they already do even if they were to not exist, as they don't stomp on any characters that are not already bad for other reasons, and people who really wish to win spend their time labbing against and preparing for different matchups.

 

[Routa]

I would not claim Rosa's neutral to be top lvl. Hes approach game is not that great and her options in defence while good are still not the best. I mean what makes Wario vs Rosa so annoying for both is that both have rather "bad" options in neutral against each others. Add to that Rosa cannot force foes to approach... yeah I would not call her neutral top lvl.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

Rosalina doesn't approach, Luma does. Its basically a sword with a controllable length that can soak up enemy projectiles, literally nobody can force an approach on her. Wario having options against her doesn't make her neutral any less godlike, it just means he has a decent Rosalina matchup.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

It won't be Melee HD until they buff Falco enough for him to actually be viable

For now were stuck with 2005 Melee, where people are just now starting to use all of the movement tech

I'm actually wondering, what kind of buffs would Falco need to actually be relevant? He has a goodish punish game, decent frame data, good pokes, and viable kill moves. What about him makes him so bad?

His recovery is by far the easiest in the game to gimp. In most matches I've seen where the Falco player is losing, Falco usually dies due to the opponent hitting him out of phantasm on the edge or hitting him out of his painfully slow Fire Bird (which also barely traverses any distance and deals pitiful damage).

His speed is also an issue, but not as much as his recovery. His speed is poor, but similarly to Ike and Corrin, he has tools to mitigate this, like his amazing initial dash and good pivot slide. His walk is pretty good too. That being said, his low Maximum speed harms his ability to tech chase, extend combos, etc, still making it a notable issue.

 

[blackghost]

Yea top 5 neutrals with no order be like
I think

you must be crazy to attach bayo to that list. scary doesnt equal controlling. bayo dorsnt havr neutral like banana nonsense or shiek in general. she doesnt belong in that category at all. she doesnt even want to be in neutral because it means she has to go get another opening.

 

[bc1910]

But VoiD and Mr. R's frequent top 4 placings are showings that Sheik does have what it takes to win a major, which was the main point of my original comment. Like I said, it's a bit hard to win when ZeRo wins almost everything and the few tournaments that he doesn't win and he's in top 8 for are won by Ally with the only exception being last night won by Leo. Consistency at this many huge tournaments should be enough to say she's good enough to win at least one.

This is a more sensible argument, so why did you start talking about VoiD theoretically winning sets that he lost?

Again, I'm hoping you can see why "if X happened then Y..." is completely flawed when discussing tournament results. We don't look at what could have happened, we look at what did happen.

Note that I didn't say Sheik isn't capable of winning a major solo, just that it's extremely difficult for her now (and other characters are better placed to do it). So her fairly consistent top 5 placings and lack of victories supports what I'm saying anyway.

 

[NairWizard]

Explain.

He's got more disjoints than all of the good characters--sometimes combined--with the exception of Luma (which only partially counts because it takes damage in some way when getting hit) and enough mobility to keep opponents out of close quarters, which enables him to abuse that disjoint.

With just an in-place SH airdodge, Marth covers a huge radius of space between up-air, f-air, and b-air that can punish almost any commitment. Heck, the simple act of Marth moving away from you spacing puts the ball in his court because if both players delay a button press for as long as possible Marth's going to win out because of his massive disjoint. Just watch the first game of Leo vs. ZeRo and you'll see how difficult it is for Diddy to get into d-tilt spacing range because Marth perfect pivoting backwards is so scary (the threat of jab is huge, and at death percents, any tipper tilt or aerial could be death). It's not even just that one yomi exchange, though. For every option that Diddy has in neutral, from holding a banana and waiting to f-air walling to dashgrabs to d-tilt spacing, Leo had a lot of counterplay available to him, from short hop reaction f-air to dancing blade to pivot f-tilt to perfect pivot jab and more. It's incredible to be able to contend with a character like Diddy Kong in the neutral and have multiple options for doing so.

But it's not just about winning exchanges or creating counterplay/set-play moments, because reacting in this game is precarious enough to force guesswork at least some of the time. Sometimes, Marth just hits you on a guess, like an anticipated shield drop for a delayed f-tilt, and with good spacing such a guess will threaten kill you at virtually no risk to himself. It's not the same as Mario reading a roll and f-smashing, because these moves are Marth's long-ranged, disjointed tilts and aerials. Marth's "hard reads" are hardly reads, because they often don't lead to punishment.

Literally all of his relevant moves (except the poking move d-tilt) have this quality at reasonable percents. We're not talking about an advantage-state conversion. We're talking about a straight-out-of-neutral-you-just-slammed-into-the-blastzone-son one way trip to death. You get hit by one guess in the middle of the match and you just explode.

Tipper is not an advantage-state mechanic, it is a neutral mechanic; tipper forces you to play in a certain way to avoid getting obliterated by a random hitbox.

Finally, jab has one of the best (hitbox*reward) : speed ratios in the entire game, it's totally bonkers how much stuff jab leads into with that big of a radius, and it's applicable to a wide variety of situations in neutral. In fact, for many characters, "ideal play" against Marth involves getting close enough to suffocate him in close quarters, which in turn means setting themselves up to get jabbed. Which is beyond hilarious.

Character's neutral is mad good.

 

[Rizen]

Like I've said in the past, tippers are a huge benefit for Marth. Being able to land powerful hits, not off a hard read/slow option/high risk, but by properly spacing on a character who is good at spacing is very potent. IDK if Marth's better than Cloud or Rosa (he could be but I'm waiting for more evidence) but he does surpass the other high tiers like Mega Man.

 

[The-Technique]

Let's talk about Zero saga for a minute. In top 8, Leo did not switch off Marth for even a single game, even while Larry Lurr was on the cusp of winning the tournament after the bracket reset.

Clearly Leo was playing to win, so what is it that Marth can do that Cloud can't? Besides having a tremendously better recovery, obviously.

 

[AusJJV]

Marth's tipper overall isn't just a great mechanically competitively, but also creatively. The idea of creating a character who relies on excellent spacing for their reward is honestly great. The mechanic properly rewards those who space properly throughout the match, rather than mainly focusing on huge reads.

And it's a part of his whole moveset as well, rather than having a few moves who have this mechanic and a few who do not. This consistency is great, similar to Marth's design overall.

 

[SkippyJ]

I would not claim Rosa's neutral to be top lvl. Hes approach game is not that great and her options in defence while good are still not the best. I mean what makes Wario vs Rosa so annoying for both is that both have rather "bad" options in neutral against each others. Add to that Rosa cannot force foes to approach... yeah I would not call her neutral top lvl.

These things are all sort of irrelevant, seen as 1. she isn't intended to have an approach based neutral and 2. "defensive" options do not constitute a characters neutral.

"Defense" is what what one utilizes with the intent of preventing ones self from entering a disadvantaged state. If the action is intended to put ones self into an advantaged state, then it is offensive.
If you are in a state in which your best option is one not intended to put you into an advantaged state but simply prevent you from being put into a disadvantaged state, while the opposing character has options open that may lead into an advantaged state, then you are in fact ALREADY disadvantaged, and therefore NOT in neutral.

One of Rosas best options IN NEUTRAL is, basically just standing there.
Because luma and gravity pull, the opposing character is most often going to try and approach. This is because, as a result of these things, the effectivity of projectile usage in neutral against her is stunted in such a way that, often times, commiting to the option of using a projectile against her either accomplishes little to nothing, or it gives her the advantage, as you have already committed to an option while she still has all of hers open (not the least of which being simple movement, allowing her to further press her positional advantage).

Now that you likely are being forced to approach by her standing there, you are automatically put at a disadvantage. If you dash or jump at all, you are already MASSIVELY limiting your options. And if you walk, well, you arnt limiting your options, but you are going to walk right into a floating, deadly hitbox not tied to your actual opponent that can move and perform a diverse array of attacks, and one that, even if you were to hit away before it hits you, your opponent can punish you for hitting regardless. Now, if you somehow manage to get passed said floating hitbox and hit your ACTUAL OPPONENT, well youll still likely get punished by the floating hitbox right behind you.

If she doesn't have a good neutral, then explain how rosa still places so high when she doesn't get nearly as much off of hits as almost every other top tier, and her disadvantaged state is mediocre at best?

So, tldr, by just standing there in neutral, rosa forces most characters to put themselves in a disadvantages position, and even if you win under said disadvantaged circumstances, you'll still likely get punished for it.
THATS a good neutral.

 

[SkippyJ]

IMO

Best neutrals (no order):

*wins most exchanges*

Best advantaged states (no order):

*wins 1 out of every 5 exchanges, still wins the match*

Best disadvantaged states #1 (no order):

*you are seriously beginning to reconsider this whole "hitting them"/"doing damage" thing*

Best disadvantaged stated #2 (no order)

*hits them* FINALLY! :D *blinks* Well that didn't last long >_>

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Judging on results Cloud might not have good enough results as a solo pick, but the essence of the game means you dont have to solo main Cloud, and his effectiveness as a tertiary/secondary keeps him in the top 10 for sure.

That's a great way to put it and kind of sums up why I'm not really willing to throw Cloud out of my personal top 10. It just wouldn't be right. I still think Marth is the better character though.

 

[outfoxd]

Out of curiosity, since i never played melee or Brawl, how does Marths high tier playstyle compare to how he is in those two games? what stayed the same and what had to be implemented (besides buffs) that brought S4 Marth out of low and mid tier into high/top consideration?

 

[Goombo]

Literally all of his relevant moves (except the poking move d-tilt) have this quality at reasonable percents. We're not talking about an advantage-state conversion. We're talking about a straight-out-of-neutral-you-just-slammed-into-the-blastzone-son one way trip to death.

This isn't even true.




Marth can kill confirm you from sourspot dtilt via untechable spin.

 

[SkippyJ]

That's a great way to put it and kind of sums up why I'm not really willing to throw Cloud out of my personal top 10. It just wouldn't be right. I still think Marth is the better character though.

The issue with this sort of thinking is that, the effectivity of having a secondary comes from the exploitation of matchups and how certain characters interact. The thing about cloud is, general "interactions" are in the positive for him vs just about every character, but that's not the issue. The issue is his recovery, which can be exploited by EVERY character.

It's not like let's say villager where I can play him in some matches but then against characters that shut down my projectile usage I'll play sheik. Villy would still have a use, because only SOME characters can exploit his weeknesses. Cloud EVERYONE can. It's not a matter of "cloud is bad In X matchup so I'll play my other character," it's a matter of "cloud is bad against good players, period."

It's no different than Ness. Ness is a FANTASTIC character with an unfortunately exploitable recovery. And where is ness now, in the metagame? Well, ppl don't put him in top 10 anymore, to say the least.
And who has a pocket ness? Nobody. Because no matter how good he is, against good players, no matter their character, there's a good chance you will eventually get thrown off stage, and you won't come back. And what's the point of a secondary if you can only play them against ppl who suck, lol? You should beat them anyway.

Of course all this is assuming you believe his recovery is as bad as ppl say it is, but uk.

 

[bc1910]

Ness isn't a fantastic character. His only fantastic aspect is Bthrow.

His tools are stronger in this game, yet he's as linear as ever with the same overtly exploitable weaknesses as always. None of his game states are exceptional. It always takes Ness a while to drop in peoples' estimations but it happens in every game.

Lucas is better.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Out of curiosity, since i never played melee or Brawl, how does Marths high tier playstyle compare to how he is in those two games? what stayed the same and what had to be implemented (besides buffs) that brought S4 Marth out of low and mid tier into high/top consideration?

If this old fool's opinion means anything to you here's two posts on that subject from about 3 weeks ago:

[...] Mr r and Leon played Marth nowhere close to what theorywarriors suggested to be 'ideal Marth play' and Mikeneko succeeded mostly on being the ****ing most skilled player Brawl has ever seen.

Marth is actually quite different in smash 4 because his disadvantaged state is easier to exploit whereas powershields are less dangerous for him than they used to be. That shifts the focus towards a more defensive, safer and less pressure-based neutral in smash 4 and being more dependent on maximizing advantages scenarios.

Fwiw I think the Brawl Marth community has been totally wrong about how their character is played ideally. Marth's stronger neutral and less vulnerable disadvantaged state [compared to smash 4] gave him way more room to play aggresive and pressure based. A non-commitial Marth in Brawl may have been able to shut down whatever low tier character but against stronger characters he had to go in at times to get the reward needed to keep up with, say, Olimar or Diddy Kong. Leon's and Mr r's success against these characters in prove of that. That's probably my main gripe with Brawl's Marth community - they just couldn't accept the fact that Marth was never the character they fantasized about and the great 'savior' with 'ideal' Marth gameplay of non-commiting spacing never came. If anything, all the Marth players that enjoyed longterm success with the character proved the opposite to be true.

Ironically, the way he's ideally played in smash 4 may be a lot closer to how people thought Marth *should* be played in Brawl. Smash 4 Marth might just have become the character that yall have been dreaming about the last 8 years. He still sucks tho.

 

[meleebrawler]

There's something I've been curious about regarding Ryu, and I wanted to see if anyone more familiar with the character might have some insight.

My question is, could Ryu players possibly be underutilizing Jab/Strong Shoryukens?

Pretty much any time I see anyone do a Shoryuken, it's always the Fierce version. I understand why: it's the strongest, kills the earliest, and platforms can sometimes help with the recovery. But are there situations where Jab Shoryuken would be the right choice, perhaps one where you're trying to find a middle ground between safety and power?

Same applies to some extent to the Hadouken and Tatsu as well.

I'm not sure if this is just an under-explored aspect of Ryu, or if there really is no reason to not go for the Fierce SRK.

Mostly I use light Shoryuken when hitting a shield, which is where the safety matters, same in Street Fighter. A more underutilized aspect of it is using it as, you know, an actual anti-air. It's MU-dependent; heavy utilt and usmash may be sufficient for some, but having a safe, invincible rising attack against air disjoints is something often overlooked by people focusing solely on the strong hit and not staling it for that.

Hadouken's different speeds are self-explanitory; you mix them up to surprise and control the opponent. And both versions of Tatsu are best used to punish excessive empty short-hopping from a short to medium distance.

 

[SkippyJ]

Out of curiosity, since i never played melee or Brawl, how does Marths high tier playstyle compare to how he is in those two games? what stayed the same and what had to be implemented (besides buffs) that brought S4 Marth out of low and mid tier into high/top consideration?

More range (his sword + a lightning fast grab that literally reaches further than some teather grabs), better combos (his grab being a chain grab, down air spike comboing from fair, ect) better movement (some of the best wave dash and dash dancing in the game) and melee as a whole has worse shields, recoveries and defensive options for ppl to deal with these things.

What made him good In this one is they made his sword longer, also no character is really able to pressure his sheild like let's say melee fox or Falco, so instead of having to approach or keep ppl out 100% he can pretty much just wait around and shield unsafe stuff then punish. Melee marth has to be very calculated and methodical. Smash 4 marth can kinda just flail around (exaggerating of course, but that's how I feel). d:

 

[Emblem Lord]

Out of curiosity, since i never played melee or Brawl, how does Marths high tier playstyle compare to how he is in those two games? what stayed the same and what had to be implemented (besides buffs) that brought S4 Marth out of low and mid tier into high/top consideration?

Marth would have made you quit melee. You see Mario's grab conversions in this game? That was Marth.

With more grab range.

And a longer sword.

And actual death combos. A bigger spike. You know how Ryu can combo into spike? Yea like that. Full stage combos ending in spikes or tipper fsmash.

And his frame data was better.

He was honestly a god-king. A monstrousity who annihilated everyone but a select few characters.

 

[TriTails]

Man, it must be terrible playing a character who can just SideB around everywhere without much fear of being punished. I wonder how you would deal with playing a character who was actually slow.

Aaaaaactually, Phantasm has this piss poor hitbox coverage in which the hitbox of the move lasts for about the first half of the move. Any further than that and he literally is defenseless.

Compare that to Fox's which hits you for the entire move and sets up for an U-air at higher percents.

Falco dashing in to you can be punished if you get too predictable. Considering the general mobility of top tiers in general, it's not much of a surprise to see this move being punished (Although, it can work). This move is also prone to being stuffed by meaty hitboxes due to aforementioned lack of hitbox coverage.

Phantasm-ing away from the opponent kind of doesn't make sense unless you have the percent lead. Lasers are garbage, Falco is mainly a footsie character, he prefers the air being close to his opponent, he sucks at approaching. Falco is not the one to rack up damage from afar (Which reminds me. If lasers were to do more damage and/or be less laggy then this move may be obnoxious) and he can't get in for s***.

And for anyone looking for another reason to support 'Falco sucks' argument: Jab is trash. Huge range, frame 2, but is punishable on hit by some characters or at least can be escaped rather easily (x2.0 SDI MULTIPLER!????? HOW IN THE EVERLIVING EARTH IS THIS JUSTIFIABLE!?). Also, he can't approach with that dash grab. Give the character those two stuffs that are functional and he'll shoot up tiers.

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

This is a more sensible argument, so why did you start talking about VoiD theoretically winning sets that he lost?

Again, I'm hoping you can see why "if X happened then Y..." is completely flawed when discussing tournament results. We don't look at what could have happened, we look at what did happen.

Note that I didn't say Sheik isn't capable of winning a major solo, just that it's extremely difficult for her now (and other characters are better placed to do it). So her fairly consistent top 5 placings and lack of victories supports what I'm saying anyway.

I'm not at all saying what could have happened is more important that what actually happened. But it is important to consider what could have happened. If we consider what could have happened, we can also analyze further and see why it didn't, because it goes much deeper than 'he lost.'

Again, it's hard to win tournaments when the scene is dominated by ZeRo, Ally, and potentially Leo. Being constantly right behind the best players is pretty damn impressive for a character that's so hard to play.

 

[meticulousboy]

I'm going to go ahead and try to play internet psychic again, but it seems like he's saying that characters like Peach and Lucas are not meta-defining in that their existence and power do not actually change the meta much if at all. In his view, the tiers would look similar to the way they already do even if they were to not exist, as they don't stomp on any characters that are not already bad for other reasons, and people who really wish to win spend their time labbing against and preparing for different matchups.

Hmm. Well Lucas has that whole, "Don't roll, or eat this Up Smash" going for him to get early and easy KOs, whereas Peach has that, "I will retreat with float and punish your laggy move with Forward Air." So I don't know.

 

[Funbot28]

Ok here is the image I meant to upload before but the website was not working properly. As I said before, Mario could potentially move to the top slot but he really struggles with sword characters too much at times. Also Rosa might seem too low, but the MK and Cloud Matchups are really hard for her and is why Dabuz always needs to switch to Olimar in those MUs.

 

[Deleted member]

Regional happened in Mexico about a week or so ago, just so this doesn't escape anybody's radar:

ConComics 2016 (Mexico | December 10-11, 2016 | 156 entrants)

1) Wonf
2) Javi
3) Bedgar
4) Regi Shikimi
5) Brian
5) Yasuo
7) Sou
7) QROG (no idea who he plays)
9) Mr~Wamu
9) Eeveecario
9) Woah JuanK (anotha one)
9) Lalo
13) StrongHold
13) Ripka

Spoiler: Bunch of other peeps who got 17th

AnDDDy
b3toh
Peterp
Gideon
FuerzaDON
Cardy
MASTER PUFFY
Gio

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Ness isn't a fantastic character. His only fantastic aspect is Bthrow.

His tools are stronger in this game, yet he's as linear as ever with the same overtly exploitable weaknesses as always. None of his game states are exceptional. It always takes Ness a while to drop in peoples' estimations but it happens in every game.

Lucas is better.

Not to do the whole "I'm going to blindly defend my main" thing but your selling Ness short. Ness is very good at racking damage up very quickly off a few wins in neutral be it powerful grab combos or his strong aerial strings. Which the quickly puts you in kill percentage for his BThrow, Up air, Back Air, Down Smash, Fsmash or near ledge Nair. Ness is also very good at ledge guarding do not underestimate how much danger PK Thunder/Fire can put a recovering opponent in and the damage you can rack up off it. He's one of the few characters who can challenge Bayonetta off stage as she flies around with her massive hitboxes and totally safe while doing so on stage controlling the Thunder ball. His down smash is one of the best moves in the game at catching two frames and make recoveries without hitboxes that extend onto stage like Ryu or Marth dangerous everytime they are used.

Ness' disadvantage is bad yes, but your writing off all his strengths on the basis of a bad recovery alone. You gotta throw Ness off stage first and that's not necessarily the easiest thing to do especially when he has a lead. It's like instantly writing Little Mac off because you can gimp him off stage at 10% and kill him, you gotta get through his amazing ground game first.

He's no way a top ten character at all, too many weaknesses but I always have to question why people are so quick to try and put him in that "meh" category of characters.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

I think Sheik's continued success in the developing meta will be dependent on the competitive hivemind in the coming months, and how susceptible our top players are to it.

I get the impression that Mr. R is waning in his trust of the character for a lot of matchups, which might make Void the only real remaining top level representation of the character. Ramin seems to view Sheik, Cloud & Bayo as the holy trinity of matchup coverage, which is probably true. But it leaves one to wonder what Bayo & Cloud alone couldn't accomplish.

Present attitudes about Sheik are that her neutral is sort of flawless--that once the player reaches a certain point of optimization, she should never be hit. If that attitude shifts towards "but there can never be perfect optimization, therefore..." we could, in theory, see the character being largely forgotten.

 

[zzmorg82]

It won't be Melee HD until they buff Falco enough for him to actually be viable

For now were stuck with 2005 Melee, where people are just now starting to use all of the movement tech

I'm actually wondering, what kind of buffs would Falco need to actually be relevant? He has a goodish punish game, decent frame data, good pokes, and viable kill moves. What about him makes him so bad?

Along with what ILOVESMASH said, he could also a bit more speed on his lasers. Also; personally I have no problem with it, but many others want his D-Air to be re-worked.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Regional happened in Mexico about a week or so ago, just so this doesn't escape anybody's radar:

ConComics 2016 (Mexico | December 10-11, 2016 | 156 entrants)

1) Wonf
2) Javi
3) Bedgar
4) Regi Shikimi
5) Brian
5) Yasuo
7) Sou
7) QROG (no idea who he plays)
9) Mr~Wamu
9) Eeveecario
9) Woah JuanK (anotha one)
9) Lalo
13) StrongHold
13) Ripka

Spoiler: Bunch of other peeps who got 17th

AnDDDy
b3toh
Peterp
Gideon
FuerzaDON
Cardy
MASTER PUFFY
Gio

Another Case of Bayo doing really well at smaller tournaments and regionals. But falls of when it comes to Nationals and Majors

 

[chaos11011]

Speaking of excelent neutrals, I'd like to raise my hat to Duck Hunt, as while he resides in low tier, his faults are far from his neutral game. Much like Diddy, he utilizes Can and Gunmen to force options and initiate set ups. To further that Diddy comparison, placing a Can anywhere near the ledge can restrict options, and hitting the Can can be circumvented by "pinging" the Can while it is hit so it stops the momentum. And from there you can cover a multitude of easy to predict/react options.

But back to neutral. The aforementioned moves force reactions that can be punished. Shield a Can and get grabbed. Jump over a gunmen and get hit by an aerial. Air dodge a Can to fall victim of a UAir kill.

Even leaving the Can on its own mid stage while you battle on the edge is threatening because it forces the opponent away from that location. You can always move it to chase the opponent or cover more ground.

Can + Shield stuffs a plethora of options as well. It can be detonated on reaction to grabs and if you hit the Can, it'll enter contact with the shield and blow up, so if you lack a disjoint, you will be hit and be suspectable to a follow up.

Can is also amazing in both advantage and disadvantage. Back Airing the Can causes it to go backwards when pinged, allowing non comital edgeguards without ever losing stage control, all while being able to two frame too. In disadvantage, it can combo break at frame 1, so it forces players to respect that option and minimize their advantage state if their combo is not true.

I can discuss more if you'd like. The character may not be high or mid tier, but it is definitely a character who is almost always winning or defining neutral unless you possess massive disjoints.