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Not a widely known player, but a player named Bluebeast mains Pit/Corrin and uses them both frequently, on top of placing very well at regionals within the area (North and Central Florida). It's not a solo-main, but it's *something*.
And that first point is VERY contradictable. Couldn't you say the same about characters like Rosa (to an extent), Mega Man and Toon Link?
...Plenty of good players other than Dabuz and Kameme play Megs and Rosa. Just off the top of my head there's Falln for Rosa and Scatt for Megs. Tink's in a unique situation, what with the whole...Hyuga thing.
Not a widely known player, but a player named Bluebeast mains Pit/Corrin and uses them both frequently, on top of placing very well at regionals within the area (North and Central Florida). It's not a solo-main, but it's *something*.
And that first point is VERY contradictable. Couldn't you say the same about characters like Rosa (to an extent), Mega Man and Toon Link?
Also, I noticed Game & Watch has a lot of points. Is there something I'm missing about him? I'd put him in bottom 10 myself but I seem to be missing something (Don't say Regi, I know about him.)
...Plenty of good players other than Dabuz and Kameme play Megs and Rosa. Just off the top of my head there's Falln for Rosa and Scatt for Megs. Tink's in a unique situation, what with the whole...Hyuga thing.
Also, I noticed Game & Watch has a lot of points. Is there something I'm missing about him? I'd put him in bottom 10 myself but I seem to be missing something (Don't say Regi, I know about him.)
Bowser +0.7%
Donkey Kong +0.4%
Marth +0.3%
Zero Suit Samus +0.3%
Diddy Kong +0.2% Cloud +0.1%
Corrin +0.1%
Mega Man +0.1%
Peach +0.1% Fox = 5.8%
Sheik = 5.7%
Mario = 4.7%
Ryu = 2.3%
Captain Falcon = 2.2%
Ness = 2.0%
Pikachu = 1.5%
Yoshi = 1.3%
Olimar = 1.2%
Wario = 1.2%
Other = 13.4% R.O.B. -0.1%
Villager -0.1%
Rosalina & Luma -0.1%
Luigi -0.2%
Toon Link -0.2% Greninja -0.2%
Meta Knight -0.2%
Mewtwo -0.2%
Sonic -0.3%
Bayonetta -0.5%
Conveniently, there's very little to discuss about December as a month since it saw very few changes in the last month, the most significant one being Bowser having an abrupt rise. Donkey Kong's increase is likely due to DKWill and Konga getting 1st and 2nd at Don't Park on the Grass while Salem's failure to reach the top 16 at ZeRo Saga likely is why Bayonetta declined.
I won't pad the post out in this regard. Here's the rest of the December charts before I cover 2016:
C2, 1-8:
2GGT FOW Saga
OutFoxx’d
The Arena 2016
Midwest Mayhem
Super Smash on the Hill
Sumabato 9
Umebara 22
Midwest Mayhem 2
EGLX
2GGT Fresh Saga
NEW FISH
Battle Arena Melbourne 8
LEVEL UP EXPO
Umebura 23
Momocon 2016
Sumabato 10
2GGT Mexico
Midwest Mayhem 3
KTAR XVIII
Smash n’ Splash 2
Sumabato 11
Apex 2016
Low Tier City 4
WTFox 2
Midwest Mayhem 4
PPT Summer
Umebara 24
Sumabato for the Big House
Smash Factor 5
Clutch City Clash
Rebirth VIII
Endgame
Sumabato 12
Collision XIV
Umebura 25
Syndicate 2016
Mega Smash Mondays 67
Sumabato 13
Smash Conference LXVII
Glitch 2
Little Big House 2
Sumabato 14
Eclipse 2
Come to Papa 2
Canada Cup 2016
2GGT: Pay it Forward
TUS Tournament 6
Midwest Mayhem 5
Smashdown: Battle Royale
Umebura BenQ ZOWIE Cup
Sumabato Tokaigi Qualifiers
C3, 3-10:
Pound 2016
Get on my Level 2016
2GGT KTAR Saga
Umebura SAT
Shine 2016
2GGT: Abadango Saga
KTAR XIX
Smashdown World
UGC Smash Open
C4, 7-14:
CEO 2016
EVO 2016
Super Smash Con
The Big House 6
2GGT: ZeRo Saga
Inactive/low activity states internationally: Alaska, Louisiana, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Missourri, Iowa, West Virginia, South Carolina, Delaware, District of Columbia, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine.
Your significant deadzones in terms of activity are best described as:
-Rocky Mountain Area
-Upper New England
-Central Plains
-Alaska
-WV/DC portion of MD-VA-DV-WV
-Delaware
All other areas are generally active, regularly featuring tournaments that breaks 100 entrants. Includes:
-Lower New England
-Tristate
-Southwest
-MD/VA
-Southern California
-Northern California
-Florida
-Midwest, Great Lake Region
-GA-Southeast Region
1: Diddy Kong is king.
After many months, a big takeaway from 2016 is that Diddy Kong is indisputably one of the best characters in the game. While Cloud's monthly averages have creeped up due to his popular secondary status, Diddy Kong remains the most statistically relevant solo-main character in the game, with countless successful players backing him.
2: Marth and Mewtwo rise from the ashes.
The two biggest success stories of the year in terms of the game's increased diversity were Marth and Mewtwo. Both believed to be low tiers, both taken by prominent players to undeniable relevancy, going as far as being in the upper echelon of characters in the game. Almost appropriately, the first and last major used by my data collection both featured the apex of these characters.
Mewtwo's rise was abrupt and fairly stunning, but Marth's was something that trended upwards - though MKLeo's win at ZeRo Saga was certainly unexpected. He's not a solo main and did use Cloud early in Top 48, but the majority of his run was on the back of Marth, and now both data and public opinion seem to indicate that Marth should be grouped among the other "big 10" characters.
3: The cast is big.
With Sheik, Meta Knight, and Zero Suit Samus receiving significant early-year nerfs, the meta as we knew it was shaken to the core. Character diversity seemed to increase and the top ceased to be dominated by Sheik. While former #1 Diddy Kong seemed to find his way back at the top, the subject of which character is the best is still hotly debated on.
As a result, a significant chunk of the cast appears to be at least somewhat viable at the top level - likely somewhere in the range of 30-40 characters, meaning roughly around 60% of the cast. Impressive mid-tier performances are frequent, and we've had a roller coaster of low-tier characters stepping up to the plate.
4: Low tiers score decent marks compared to previous titles.
A decent chunk of the lower cast can still claim something of relevancy. Link, Samus, Shulk, Duck Hunt, Charizard, and a few others have all had a pretty good year in retrospect. While the answer's still out on Duck Hunt until we see what the dog crew can do at G4, the others I mentioned are more relevant now than ever before.
Charizard has been score increases through successful secondary usage, Shulk's meta has evolved to where he seems feasible at high level play, and both Link and Samus had untapped potential in the hands of players with strong fundamentals that resulted in breakout victories for the characters.
5: Initial perceptions of Mii Swordfighter were likely correct.
I'd hate to go ahead and assume too much of these characters due to their lack of exposure, but it's really hard not to interpret Mii Swordfighter as a good candidate for worst character in the game when, after a year, he has absolutely nothing to his name in terms of results. When I've had to open one of my many Microsoft Word files, never have I once needed to type in (Mii Swordfighter) in the tournament results files I've run. Not once, ever, and with the new categorization/scoring rules that trim 9th/16th from tournies with low attendance, it's unlikely I'll ever need to unless a Swordfighter main breaks out from the depths and does something really special.
6: 2016 was a big year for the game.
I'm glad I started this data gathering project. Despite some slumps in activity, I think the many projects and data collection bits we've seen from numerous users on reddit and Smashboards over the months have helped give a solid foundation to work with when discussing characters and how well they're doing.
I will continue to make a few various posts in 2016 data over the next months. I've been meaning to throw a trend chart together to show where characters started and ended over the course of the year, but the time that would've taken got eaten up by about 3 weeks of constant work on OrionRank, my player ranking project. I'll try to have that ready in the future if possible, though most character movements over the year are fairly evident simply from discussions we've had.
The post wasn't as big as it could've been considering the content of the year, but I think I broke down a lot of the relatively big events down pretty well, and my previous posts go into deeper detail on specific issues such as certain monthly trends like Bayonetta's rise, fall, and second rise, or Cloud's common usage as a secondary.
IDT it's really worth drawing conclusions from Mii data since most smash majors have a clause specifically dedicated to making them worse. I'd imagine that Ice Climbers would also wind up at the bottom of Melee's list if tournament rules required them to kill Nana inbetween stocks.
FWIW Mii Swordfigther probably sucks under any ruleset though...
IDT it's really worth drawing conclusions from Mii data since most smash majors have a clause specifically dedicated to making them worse. I'd imagine that Ice Climbers would also wind up at the bottom of Melee's list if tournament rules required them to kill Nana inbetween stocks.
FWIW Mii Swordfigther probably sucks under any ruleset though...
is a train wreck. It's like the designers couldn't decide if they wanted to make him a heavy hitter, half sword zoner or rush down/grappler and he ended up getting the raw deal in all 3. He gets outmatched by sword characters' reach (like Marth), out-zoned by campers/zoners, doesn't have the mobility or frame data to be a Roy-like close combat swordie, and he lacks the power/survival prowess to justify all this mediocrity. He has some good grapple stuff and good normals but they're still under-tuned for all the other bad stats.
Something I've been thinking about are schools of thought surrounding different characters.
For example, in Melee you have the Florida 20GX ideal for as a more methodical approach to the character, while there's also the S2J approach which is a lot more flashy.
For , you have players that are much more neutral-heavy (Samsora and SlayerZ) vs players that really like to abuse her movement options (Meru, Umeki). In you have WaDi who plays the character pretty much like a zoner (a holdover from his time with ) vs Abadango & Rich Brown who are much more willing to mix things up and get in if need be. And of course, you have the more aggressive class of (SGK and 6WX) vs Wrath's very patient play. Not just different playstyles, but different ways of seeing the game as correctly played.
Are there similar schools of thought with other characters?
SoCal's new PR. Ignore JK (his spot is an honorable mention due to him not actually living in SoCal), and it's pretty solid. Seeing ImHip above Nicko and Mr. ConCon surprises me.
I agree with Rizen
that Mii Swordfighter makes no sense at all. Here are the reason why he sucks:
1) Frame 7 jumpsquat. Yes, 7. Swordfighters typically employ empty SHs or full jumps to get into their opponent 's head and hit them. Except , because his is so slow that you cannot trick anyone outside of 8 year olds. Unlike (who also have frame 7 jumpsquats), doesn't have the raw power of those 2 to justify it.
2) His lag is all over the place. I looked at his frame data and found a literal mess. A frame 11 F-Tilt that doesn't kill nor combo. His Up Smash also starts at frame 11, let that sink in. A frame 5 Dtilt with good FAF, but has 65 degree angle that ruins it. None of his aerials except frame 8 Bair have a startup lower than 11, so that frame 7 jumpsquat bites in the ankles even more. The landing hitbox on Dair is frame 2 for some absurd reason.
3) His mobility is bad. His ground speed is worse than and while his air speed is OK, his aerial acceleration cancels it out.
4) His recovery is the worst in the game. Up B is super easy to get a 2-frame on and it has very limited horizontal distance (nothing). His side B is side B if it were super predictable and traveled at the speed of a snail. I would say it is impossible to mixup his recovery because his air movement is bad and the startup on his specials is garbage. And nothing in his recovery moves is good. No big hitbox to compensate lack of distance (), no absurd KO power to compensate how slow it is (), no speed to compensate lack of general utility (). Nothing.
5) He is combo food. He has above average fall speed and is heavyweight. We all know why that is never good .
6) He can't kill! Uair is too slow, Dair needs to be offstage or at high %, Bair lasts too little frames considering the jumpsquat, Fair is underpowered, Foward Smash and Up Smash are super slow, none of his throws kill and neither do his tilts.
So, mobility sucks, his frame data is bad, his projectile is bad, his kill moves are slow, and his recovery is garbage. Perfect recipe for trash tier and to get pressured super hard by any good character and lose in 1 minute. No one will ever play this character, end of story.
lets not beat around the bush. we all know deep down another reaosn all three "default" miis are sorry. im not calling anyone out but the data and result as well as our overall growth in knowledge about the game has shown that their issues are their special or rather the combination of their specials.
they were designed to not accel at anything. That was intentional. they were designed for you to pick which aspect of thier design you wanted to enhance and make it happen. we sentenced those characters (epecially swordfighter) to irrelevance. while it is shocking to see a score of 0 keep in mind mii players were not only facing a character uphill battle but also a semi hostile plaer environment which is silly but its a reality. its basically the equivalence of people hating on DDD players. Many factors have contributed t where all three miis are in the meta but not everything affecting them is in game.
^Who hated on DDD players? DDD's the freaking Santaclaus of SSB4. A jolly old fat guy who we wish in our hearts to be real but deep down know he isn't.
It seems like Ganon's archetype simply isn't viable for 1 on 1s (inB4 Melee where he was more like CF than a slow heavy hitter). He gets inundated by skuttery little critters but if you buffed him, keeping the sluggish power punisher style, it would lead extremely lame and campy battles.
D3 tilts me to extremes when I backthrow him at 110 and he still lives, floating around everywhere with his giant hammer never just dying ever, lol.
On a serious note, no Dorf's archetype really doesn't work in the established 1 on 1 meta we have. If Flatzone or Melee Mushroom Kingdom 2 were legal he would do better by the simple fact he can kill you even earlier with how close those blast zones are. With the way the community has made the rule set for competitive 1v1 matches it further hurts Dorf when his other attributes (Like being combo food, super slow, exploitable recovery) already don't help him out.
I know there is more you can do to make his archetype work better in a competitive 1v1 but Smash isn't designed or balanced solely for 1v1 play. Hence why moves like PK Flash exist still and Palutena's customs are all unlocked from the start.
^Who hated on DDD players? DDD's the freaking Santaclaus of SSB4. A jolly old fat guy who we wish in our hearts to be real but deep down know he isn't.
It seems like Ganon's archetype simply isn't viable for 1 on 1s (inB4 Melee where he was more like CF than a slow heavy hitter). He gets inundated by skuttery little critters but if you buffed him, keeping the sluggish power punisher style, it would lead extremely lame and campy battles.
I feel like Zelda and Ganondorf are perhaps the biggest victims of Sakurai's "NEVER CHANGE A CHARACTER'S MOVESET COMPLETELY" mentality. Those two have obvious and crippling fundamental issues in their designs that will seemingly hold them back for the rest of their days in Smash, and yet he refuses to overhaul or majorly change them, due to some irrational fear of people being offended by their characters being changed or whatever.
I mean, I kinda get that some people would probably miss Captain Ganondorf, but let's put it this way: There's a lot of people that miss characters from the previous games like Snake, Squirtle, and Ivysaur, and yet when they got the axe, their fans accepted it and moved on. I don't see why we can't do the same with Ganondorf, provided they wanted to give him a new moveset.
I mean, I kinda get that some people would probably miss Captain Ganondorf, but let's put it this way: There's a lot of people that miss characters from the previous games like Snake, Squirtle, and Ivysaur, and yet when they got the axe, their fans accepted it and moved on. I don't see why we can't do the same with Ganondorf, provided they wanted to give him a new moveset.
I am certain that they could rebuild Ganondorf from the ground up and paste the Captain Ganon moveset onto Samurai Goroh or Black Shadow without pissing anyone off. No other character has a moveset so completely uninspired from their franchise appearances.
If you liked his moveset, play Goroh/Shadow.
If you are a genuine Ganondorf fan, you would almost certainly enjoy a revamped Ganondorf with moves inspired from the Zelda franchise more than the sorry semi-clone we have now.
Dunno if this was posted(probably was) but this video showcases a lot of the reasons I scoff at the idea of ZeRo being the "closest to optimizing" his character's good options. Fact of the matter is, ZeRo will never be the player that explores numerous options in order to expand his gameplay. His style is centered around using 5 moves with pretty much every character he plays.
It isn't really that Ganon's moveset is bad, its that he has bottom 3 mobility to go along with it. Imagine a high mobility character like ZSS with Ganon's normal's, sounds fun right?
It isn't really that Ganon's moveset is bad, its that he has bottom 3 mobility to go along with it. Imagine a high mobility character like ZSS with Ganon's normal's, sounds fun right?
That pretends that a character's normals are the whole of their moveset. Like sure, Ganon's normals are...pretty okay on the whole (jab's still trash, the grounded moves are overall slow as hell, his smashes are a joke, utilt is just plain sadism) but it doesn't pay to ignore all the ways his special moves just plain aren't allowed to be good.
For example, did you know that using his SideB too close to a ledge will send him off of it and into special fall? That his UpB is worse than Captain Falcon's in literally every way possible (it does less damage and is even worse at killing)? And WP...well.
Ganon's Up smash is pretty nuts, you can't call that move garbage lol. F-tilt is good for being a kill move that's only frame 10. But yeah u tilt is pretty worthless
I've seen lots of setups (I did one of my own) involving Ganondorf's U-Tilt. I wouldn't call something that can break shields and kill early worthless, even if it's Ganondorf.
How are you going to break shields with a move that takes a second and a half to come out? You need your opponent to have a broken shield just to hit with it...
...Seriously? Ganondorf is a character that relies on hard reads. If your opponent is too slow to react, hitting with Volcano Kick is less than impossible. I refuse to believe that his U-Tilt serves no purpose.
...Seriously? Ganondorf is a character that relies on hard reads. If your opponent is too slow to react, hitting with Volcano Kick is less than impossible. I refuse to believe that his U-Tilt serves no purpose.
Thanks for correctly summing that up. I'll be lurking in the General/Character forums from now on. Hopefully there, my opinions and optimism for "non-viable characters" will be accepted.
Thanks for correctly summing that up. I'll be lurking in the General/Character forums from now on. Hopefully there, my opinions and optimism for "non-viable characters" will be accepted.
Thanks for correctly summing that up. I'll be lurking in the General/Character forums from now on. Hopefully there, my opinions and optimism for "non-viable characters" will be accepted.
Same, I'm generally a nice person who is optimistic and hopeful for lower tiers, and doesn't try to sleep on lower tiers.
I'm not the type of person to just call a character dead, trash, or whatever. Like I said it comes from my personality
Maybe I should go there too lol
Dude there is nothing wrong with defending and talking good about low-bottom tier characters at all, I encourage intelligent discussion on characters that aren't explored often but you can't say false stuff and then get mad when someone calls you on it. Ganondorf's uptilt is simply way too slow to be of any use. The only way that move will ever hit you is if your paying Zero attention or your online and can't react like normal.
In a actual offline 1v1 you will almost never have a use for his Up-Tilt, ever.
Thanks for that catch Rizen
now his F-Tilt is pretty decent of a move
Geez, all I said was that his u-tilt sucks, I didn't say Ganon was irredeemably bad. In the same post I mentioned that he had a really good up smash and a decent f-tilt.