Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[RonNewcomb]

Anyone heard from their TOs about the Smashbox, the fightstick replacing the main joystick with digital buttons? I see some discussion on YouTube but not much else.

And is it just the main stick's replacement? Because it's just a fightstick otherwise, which have always been legal?

 

[Nidtendofreak]

The fact that Samsora is doing as well as he is while only using Rosa as a backup on occasion is kind of a rebuttal to this notion in and of itself.

You could have said that about Palutena and TLTC or Prince Raman not long ago. Minus having a backup at all.

Current moment doesn't always tell the full story. I just don't see Peach as having lost her Brawl weaknesses. Which will mean once people properly remember them again, she's going to tumble back down.

 

[YerTheBestAROUND]

we can't praise the character [Marth] too much when only one person is getting top 8 with them.

Pssst... Mr. E got top 5 at UGC, another super stacked tournament. It's not just Leo putting in work.
I obviously don't think Marth's better than Sheik, Diddy, or Mario, and Cloud's a bit up in the air, but let's not forget about the other top level Marth players just because they're not Leo.

 

[Rizen]

I hate to say it but, barring patches or some new super AT, I don't think there will be lasting upsets that make characters jump/drop tiers. SSB4 is balanced enough that you can't sleep on any character and within tiers characters will keep shifting. But overall the tier list looks like one of those science projects with oil and vinegar etc that don't mix; tiers ultimately stay stacked as they are.

 

[The-Technique]

Pssst... Mr. E got top 5 at UGC, another super stacked tournament. It's not just Leo putting in work.
I obviously don't think Marth's better than Sheik, Diddy, or Mario, and Cloud's a bit up in the air, but let's not forget about the other top level Marth players just because they're not Leo.

Adding onto this, one player achieving an outstanding result with a character doesn't always make them an outlier, it could be that players like Mr. E and Pugwest aren't on Leo's level yet.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

Wait, wait. Are we not at the point in the meta where we understand that trash belongs in the garbage can?

Palutena is garbage. She does not belong in serious competition. Can you lose if you have no idea how to fight her?

Sure can. Does that mean she is worth a damn? Not at all.

These are the characters that are worth



These are the characters that are semi-worth



Honorable mention worth





This is it guys.

This is the game.

Aren't we forgetting about Shulk and the rest of the cast?

 

[InfinitySoul]

Also InfinitySoul yes Dath believes Robin is a top 20 character but that doesn't mean that Robin IS a top 20 character to has the potential to be anything more than a mid tier

That just means there is room to change for that character.

TL;DR: Don't give up on your developing your character but don't be foolish this is just how competitive games become over time.

I see your points on why we are developping faster than older games. I still believe two years is not enough.

The most important point is, over time. Palutena mains will slowly drop her. But we cannot come two years after and be like "ok time, let's wrap up everything" and remove every characters that haven't proved beeing strong.

Pit and Dark Pit are quite vanilla in this meta. They have a tool for arguably any situation, and do pretty well in the neutral. The thing is, they do not have a polarizing option in their kit. Bayonetta's Witch Time/Witch Twist/Bullet Arts, Diddy's Banana & Dtilt setups, Cloud's Limit Cross Slash, etc come to mind. These can turn the tide in an instant during a match. The Pits don't have access to one of these, and this coupled with a top/high tier full of foes with those tools means Pit won't be ascending anywhere higher than upper mid tier.

On another discussion, I feel that Pit is still vanilla because it's best players don't exploit his particularity.
I have watched some Nairo games (from one year ago) and he was already much more technical than Earth (like side-B ledge/platforms cancel), after only one year !
Why did you drop Pit Nairo, why ? ToT
So I can see Pit reach the very top of mid tier.

 

[Rizen]

would be scary if he had better hitbubbles. Marcina got huge buffs on arching slashes and Pit was left with the short end of the sword.

What is 's big weakness(es) that keeps him from succeeding? I feel like he's in the same boat as the Pits; pretty good but gets overshadowed by high tiers who have crazy things going for them.

 

[Fenny]

Aren't we forgetting about Shulk and the rest of the cast?

W-What about him?

 

[Emblem Lord]

I feel most of these posts in response to me are purely on the defensive.

Also I never called the game simple guys. Come on. Cut that out. Don't put words in my mouth.

"Competitive viability" is subjective to a degree only because we all disagree what that actually is. I have been consistent on what I think it is since day one of posting on this website and I get the same backlash I always do.

But, I have usually turned out to be right in that regard so I will leave it alone.

I have a strong feeling that many of you don't even think I am wrong.

Seems like many of you just want me to be wrong. Or rather many of you "need" me to be wrong.

And after the fiasco that was Brawl, frankly I do not blame you.

 

[Myollnir]

Wait, wait. Are we not at the point in the meta where we understand that trash belongs in the garbage can?

Palutena is garbage. She does not belong in serious competition. Can you lose if you have no idea how to fight her?

Sure can. Does that mean she is worth a damn? Not at all.

These are the characters that are worth



These are the characters that are semi-worth



Honorable mention worth





This is it guys.

This is the game.

This is the sad truth, he's very right. One could argue that X should be in the list and Y should be moved down, but that's not the most important.

Relevant signature btw

However, on a more positive note, I'd say that these are characters that are viable as solo (dual for the "semi-worth" characters ?) mains. Most other characters can be used on occasion, but they're not "worth" playing and won't win anything big by themselves.

I'd also add that ~20 viable characters is still pretty decent, but stop pretending smash 4 is balanced ; it never was. Plus, due to how the game works, we can still see some mid tier characters do something even on their own, so there's no reason to complain.

If you don't play to win that's 100% fine, but there's no need to pretend that there's hope/untapped potential for lower-mid/low tier characters. They won't be relevant, and if you wanna play them, again, that's fine, but you're heavily hurting yourself.

 

[HoSmash4]

The harsh trush is:

Viable characters consistently place well
Non-viable characters just make upsets

 

[Emblem Lord]

Knowledge drop time.

Nairo plays EVERYONE on his stream. He experiments ALL the time and labs with alot of characters.

But in tournament he is mostly ZSS.

Just because you play to win DOESN'T mean you stop evolving the meta as a whole or stop contributing to the game on a wider scale.

 

[|RK|]

Characters do not rise.

Only the perception of the masses changes.

...Which means you can't say "this is the meta" yet.

Especially since there was a large amount of time between Marth getting his last buffs and people seeing him as "worth." Same with Mewtwo. It seems like you picked an arbitrary point in time based on your experience and said "yeah, that's it" despite no tangible evidence as to your claims. Which is fine - just don't expect many people to treat your claims as fact. If anything, I'd bet there's at least one character that will move into "worth" that is not currently there or into "semi-worth" or "HM" that is currently in neither group.

And that's not even "hope" or anything. That's just pointing out that there is no logical basis to your cut off point.

 

[Heracr055]

On another discussion, I feel that Pit is still vanilla because it's best players don't exploit his particularity.
I have watched some Nairo games (from one year ago) and he was already much more technical than Earth (like side-B ledge/platforms cancel), after only one year !
Why did you drop Pit Nairo, why ? ToT
So I can see Pit reach the very top of mid tier.

Nairo stopped playing (Dark) Pit because he doesn't have a good option in close quarters combat. His tilts have good range, but the cooldown on those moves are quite punishable. Jab's okay, but it's not enough

 

[Emblem Lord]

...Which means you can't say "this is the meta" yet.

Especially since there was a large amount of time between Marth getting his last buffs and people seeing him as "worth." Same with Mewtwo. It seems like you picked an arbitrary point in time based on your experience and said "yeah, that's it" despite no tangible evidence as to your claims. Which is fine - just don't expect many people to treat your claims as fact. If anything, I'd bet there's at least one character that will move into "worth" that is not currently there or into "semi-worth" or "HM" that is currently in neither group.

And that's not even "hope" or anything. That's just pointing out that there is no logical basis to your cut off point.

My logical basis is....

no more patches.

Also it wasn't arbitrary. It's been almost a year since the last patch.

You don't need to treat it as fact. Some things are just obvious.

If you can't fight Diddy, Sheik and other strong characters to some degree of success then no, you have no hope.

And yeah some characters will rise. But some of the people in this thread have this strange unfounded hope that a low tier will magically someday be able to fight Sheik on even ground. Some characters are just fundamentally flawed. Let's be honest.

 

[Dinoman96]

Well, for what it's worth, the heavily rumored Switch version of this game could possibly have balance changes. There probably will some new characters, two of them going by PushDustIn's sources, so depending on how they turn out, that could also change some things in the meta.

 

[Shady Shaymin]

I both agree and disagree with Edgy Lord here.

In terms of the neutral, I think we've almost completely explored this gamestate, and for the most part, we know where certain characters rank within the neutral. Top players use perfect pivots, foxtrots, and movement options pretty consistently. Frame data repositories allow us to see what is safe and what is not safe. Then, deductive reasoning and practical applications allow us to get a pretty good idea of where most characters rank in the neutral. Sheik and Diddy are good because they are fast and they are safe. Ganon and D3 are bad because they are slow and unsafe. Much time has been spent exploring the neutral, and I think by now most characters' potential to develop their neutral has capped already.

Advantaged states, disadvantaged states and punish games, however, are nowhere near optimized right now, and that includes edgeguarding. These game states are woefully underdeveloped compared to the neutral, and I think it is very possible that certain characters are really being held back by this. As long as there are footstools and weird tech mechanics in this game, there will more than likely be unexplored follow-ups and rewards available for characters for winning the neutral. Earlier I saw an example of this when someone cited ESAM's utilt footstool video. Even if no amount of labbing will make pika's range any less pitiful or make his neutral much better than it is now, we can find rewards and optimized punishes that, even if they don't actually make his neutral better, can make him a scarier character to fight.

That's just one example, too. Would Megaman be where he is right now if metal blade footstool was never a thing? What if Greninja mains had just called it quits after seeing his frame data instead of labbing his nair and footstool shenanigans to make his punish game really scary? What if Sheik mains never bothered exploring her other kill options after the nerfs, and instead of discovering needles->bouncing fish, ftilt 50/50s or bair crossups, they just declared that the character's potential clearly peaked? Same for Bayonetta?

I have no doubt in my mind that there are still undiscovered punishes and follow-ups in this game that could change the metagame, even if the neutral game is very close to optimization.

 

[Emblem Lord]

UGH!!!!

Do not get me started on the Switch and Nintendo's overall choices as a company.

But yeah if two characters get dropped then we can def expect a patch or two.

 

[Funbot28]

I swear the Ice Climbers better come and Bayo better not be nerfed again. Give me those two things and I will be bliss.

 

[bc1910]

Attachment to lower tier characters doesn't have a place in a competitive setting, unfortunately. And it is very true that this game is developing at lightning pace compared to Melee, Melee has probably had a net 3 or 4 years' development by today's standards. It would be foolish to completely rule out cases of hidden potential, but it becomes more unlikely that they will surface with every passing day.

Still, let's take a moment to consider something that has never been true for this series before.

There are ~10 characters who are close to being solo viable and ~15 fringe cases who aren't useless in a competitive setting. There is no clear, top, best character. Almost 50% of the roster is usable in some way.

Compared to every previous game in the series and especially considering the sheer size of the roster in this game, that's extremely impressive.

Low tier loyalists notwithstanding, as a community we don't have much to be complaining about on the balance or competitive variety front. I would strongly encourage anyone who feels otherwise to study the decline of Brawl, so you might just realise how lucky we are.

 

[|RK|]

If you can't fight Diddy, Sheik and other strong characters to some degree of success then no, you have no hope.

And yeah some characters will rise. But some of the people in this thread have this strange unfounded hope that a low tier will magically someday be able to fight Sheik on even ground. Some characters are just fundamentally flawed. Let's be honest.

I agree with this.

Separately, I'm glad I saw this tweet, because this is how I see the meta for a lot of the underrepresented characters:

There was a problem fetching the tweet

You can't magically expect a character to top 8 a national consistently without a top 10 player. Hell, the highest placing Ryu at ZeRo Saga and the only player to take a game off of the best Diddy in the world was... Nairo, a top 10 player. The only DK that can take games/sets off of the best Sheiks in the world is... Larry Lurr, a top 10 player. The highest placing Bowser... you get my point. You can look at this "best" player of this character and that one, but the fact of the matter is you can *never* remove the skill of the player from the results of the character.

But, I digress.

EDIT: This is not saying that some characters aren't straight up bad. They are.

 

[Emblem Lord]

And the best players play the best characters.

You give a master lance wielder a choice between Gungnir and just a plain spear, can you fault him for wanting to use the legendary weapon of Odin?

 

[|RK|]

And the best players play the best characters.

You give a master lance wielder a choice between Gungnir and just a plain spear, can you fault him for wanting to use the legendary weapon of Odin?

You're right, but if Leo didn't use Marth, Abadango didn't use Mewtwo, and ZeRo didn't use Diddy, we'd have an entirely different tier list. And for the purposes of this thought experiment, they're all using other top 10 characters. Doesn't even have to be all three - just one. Looking back and knowing what we know now, if ZeRo wasn't on hiatus during Pound, would Mewtwo have won a major?

...Actually, I'm still waiting to see what Diddy's results look like with ZeRo excluded.

 

[TDK]

I'm not saying I disagree with Emblem Lord, but what if something happens in the future? What if, say, T, Scizor, Cat, IzAw, and I all start winning or top 8ing events with Solo Link? Does Link become "X-worth" then?

 

[ぱみゅ]

I love how this thread seems to have forgotten that characters also have chances to be figured out and drop in performance, like Rosalina has been doing recently (other than Dabuz), as well as Sonic (seriously, when was the last time a Sonic not called KEN did something notable?), and as stated earlier, Palutena (results weren't stellar, and still dropped).

I expect Marth to be figured out eventually.
Once Robin gets figured, Dath won't get many results either.
Cloud's been slowly but surely been figured, so is Mewtwo, so is Megaman.
Bayonetta might be figured out by a majority later, some Top Players already did it.

 

[Yonder]

I love how this thread seems to have forgotten that characters also have chances to be figured out and drop in performance, like Rosalina has been doing recently (other than Dabuz), as well as Sonic (seriously, when was the last time a Sonic not called KEN did something notable?), and as stated earlier, Palutena (results weren't stellar, and still dropped).

I expect Marth to be figured out eventually.
Once Robin gets figured, Dath won't get many results either.
Cloud's been slowly but surely been figured, so is Mewtwo, so is Megaman.
Bayonetta might be figured out by a majority later, some Top Players already did it.

So essentially, the bettee a character is, the more puzzle pieces they have to them. The best characters in the game like Diddy, Sheik, although have been top forever, have missing puzzle pieces that got lost somewhere underneath the couch. So our ultimate strategy on how to fight them is an incomplete picture.
You even have people trying to slam on incompatible shaped pieces in attempt to just get the puzzle finished, but still don't work, because the piece pops right back out. Aka, patches.
Well, they worked on Luigi's downfall anyways.
And then finally we had characters like Mewtwo and Marth, who's puzzle looked like trash when finished. So the effort was actually made by the puzzle creator to burn the entire puzzle down, and order a brand spanking new one as a replacement.

 

[verbatim]

Worth noting that it took something like 8 years without patches before Falco started dropping in Melee results. There's a reason tier lists aren't static, or worth much honestly.

 

[Aaron1997]

Sumabato Tokaigi Qualifer is tonight and it will be streamed on NicoNico

Pools start at 9:00pm EST/6:00pm PST/ 11:00am JST

Stream http://live.nicovideo.jp/watch/lv284331614?ref=sharetw

Notables
Ranai
Kameme
Earth/Kuro
HIKARU
Shuton
Edge
Nietono
Rain
9B/Ikep
Kome
Kie
Gomamugitya
Oishiitofu
Taiheita
T
You3
Ginko
Rin
Fuwa
Sayia/Tsu~
FILIP
Atelier
Masashi
Shogun
Nasubi
Zaki
Shu
Lucia/Lickey

 

[InfinitySoul]

I don't think "possible balance patch" argument should be brought. But as of right now, we should do with what we have and know which is the 1.1.6 Smash bros.

The issue I had with Emblem lord's post is that it made it look like there was a finit set of viable characters anything else doesn't exists. At least that is how I understood it.

Nairo stopped playing (Dark) Pit because he doesn't have a good option in close quarters combat. His tilts have good range, but the cooldown on those moves are quite punishable. Jab's okay, but it's not enough

Like any swordmen pretty much. I don't blame him for dropping Pit.
The only thing that confuses me is his pocket Lucina. Why not Marth then ?

 

[The-Technique]

I don't think "possible balance patch" argument should be brought. But as of right now, we should do with what we have and know which is the 1.1.6 Smash bros.

The issue I had with Emblem lord's post is that it made it look like there was a finit set of viable characters anything else doesn't exists. At least that is how I understood it.


Like any swordmen pretty much. I don't blame him for dropping Pit.
The only thing that confuses me is his pocket Lucina. Why not Marth then ?

Nairo plays more hype-based than optimal, which is why he prefers Doc over Mario too

 

[TDK]

The only thing that confuses me is his pocket Lucina. Why not Marth then ?

Lucina is much easier to pocket because you don't need to space as much.

EDIT: Speaking of Marth: https://twitter.com/Mr_RSmash/status/812685141621542912

 

[L9999]

Lucina is much easier to pocket because you don't need to space as much.

I think it is that her flowchart doesn't require much split second improvizing as Marth with his tippers and no tippers. You still have to space with Lucina if you don't want to get whiff punished by using jab or Fair. Also rage Lucina reads are salt inducing (mid % deaths at the edge) and Nairo loves salt inducing read KOs, as shown with his Bowser play.

 

[blackghost]

i dont know why so many people are rubbed the wrong way by the simple fact that some characters are better than others. all popular fighting games (street fighter marvel smash ect) have a clear hierchy of characters. there is no game where every character is equally viable. every tool isnt equal and every kit isnt equal which relates to why we have tiers and tiers tie into results.
if people wanted more characters to be competitive they should have pushed harder for customs or a larger stagelist. do not compalin about character equality now if you were or are against those other things. i always argued that those restrictive decsions would limit the roster long term and it will be true.
if you want to be the person to prove character x is top tier or at least viable good luck but that has rarely happened in any fighting game i know of. the closest time i can remember is vergil and rock raccoon in umvc 3. but that wasnt a junp from unviable to viable rather it was about fully using tools that had been overlooked. in smash 4 the only charavter i think with long term potential os shulk and i only think he can reach like high mid.

 

[RonNewcomb]

I both agree and disagree with Edgy Lord here.

In terms of the neutral, I think we've almost completely explored this gamestate, and for the most part, we know where certain characters rank within the neutral. Top players use perfect pivots, foxtrots, and movement options pretty consistently. Frame data repositories allow us to see what is safe and what is not safe. Then, deductive reasoning and practical applications allow us to get a pretty good idea of where most characters rank in the neutral. Sheik and Diddy are good because they are fast and they are safe. Ganon and D3 are bad because they are slow and unsafe. Much time has been spent exploring the neutral, and I think by now most characters' potential to develop their neutral has capped already.

Advantaged states, disadvantaged states and punish games, however, are nowhere near optimized right now, and that includes edgeguarding. These game states are woefully underdeveloped compared to the neutral, and I think it is very possible that certain characters are really being held back by this. As long as there are footstools and weird tech mechanics in this game, there will more than likely be unexplored follow-ups and rewards available for characters for winning the neutral. Earlier I saw an example of this when someone cited ESAM's utilt footstool video. Even if no amount of labbing will make pika's range any less pitiful or make his neutral much better than it is now, we can find rewards and optimized punishes that, even if they don't actually make his neutral better, can make him a scarier character to fight.

That's just one example, too. Would Megaman be where he is right now if metal blade footstool was never a thing? What if Greninja mains had just called it quits after seeing his frame data instead of labbing his nair and footstool shenanigans to make his punish game really scary? What if Sheik mains never bothered exploring her other kill options after the nerfs, and instead of discovering needles->bouncing fish, ftilt 50/50s or bair crossups, they just declared that the character's potential clearly peaked? Same for Bayonetta?

I have no doubt in my mind that there are still undiscovered punishes and follow-ups in this game that could change the metagame, even if the neutral game is very close to optimization.

Good post. Edgeguarding in particular feels underbaked. Game&watch has room to grow, and I feel swordies will eventually figure out Bayo's recovery.

But most of the tier list was figured out shortly after the WiiU dropped, excluding detail on the muddy middle, so it's mostly complete now.

I'm curious what franchise any Switch newcomers hail from.

 

[NairWizard]

Skill matters much more than character choice, and it always will.

That said, though: playing a character worse by 2 tiers than your opponent's character generally means that you have to be 2 tiers of player better than your opponent to win. That's a tall order at top level. Even among the top 10 half of the characters struggle to win a major or place top 8 consistently.

 

[Das Koopa]

MKLeo has signed onto Echo Fox

 

[Fenny]

MKLeo has signed onto Echo Fox

He probably has

But for the sake of holding out until Echo Fox say so themselves

they haven't specified their source they got that news from

 

[SaltyKracka]

if people wanted more characters to be competitive they should have pushed harder for customs or a larger stagelist. do not compalin about character equality now if you were or are against those other things. i always argued that those restrictive decsions would limit the roster long term and it will be true.

...I would respond to this witheringly, but in the spirit of the season I will simply be straightforward.

You are beyond simply wrong, because this stuff has been discussed and debunked before.

• Stages get banned for a variety of reasons, from walkoffs to obvious imbalances to random hazards to simply being incredibly harsh on the eyes.
• Even if we did have more stages from the current stage list, it would not change the current high or top tiers. Anything which would would have enough obvious imbalancing factors that there would be an almost immediate outcry.
• Customs are not used because they are a logistical nightmare for TOs, above and beyond anything else potentially problematic about them.

and none of this is even very relevant because the community is not responsible for the design of the game. We have seen the power that patches and rebalancing can have, the way they can completely change the game with a few lines of code. So sure, maybe we might make some differences in the way the game is played by what we can do, but that is nothing compared to proper patch support.

 

[FeelMeUp]

having different stages does change the state of the tier list.
you must have completely ignored the multiple page discussion we had before.
prime example being ZSS getting hard nerfed by a 2 ban no DSR or FD/SV/BF only stagelist.