Official 4BR Tier List v2.0 - Competitive Impressions

[Nobie]

While we're discussing design, here's a little exercise for you guys.

If your main is not top tier, name the smallest possible change that you can think of that would make your main top tier.

If your main is already top tier, name the smallest possible change that could potentially knock your main out of top tier.

Also explain why the change would have such a large impact on the character's relative power.

Note that I said smallest. Nothing ridiculous like "Bowser suddenly has a kill throw starting at 20!" or "Sheik no longer has Bouncing Fish!"

I'll start with Pikachu (because I'm sure someone else will do Bayonetta anyway):
increase up-air damage to 8% (from 4) with relevant knockback adjustments

Probably an obvious one. Giving Pikachu a decent aerial KO option at reasonable percents (still nothing crazy because up-air's hitbox won't permit silliness) and also a much stronger juggling tool makes his mediocre advantage state into a pretty good one, thereby patching up the character's only real flaw.

How to make Mewtwo not top tier (ironic because of the patches): Drop movement speed back down to its original level. Even with all of the buffs to landing lag and such, the movement speed is what has allowed Mewtwo to really feel even or better in what were once difficult matchups.

How to make Mega Man top tier (if he isn't top tier already, according to some): Short hop auto-cancel bair. Welcome to hell.

Some for characters I don't main, but have thought about:

Jigglypuff: Frame 4 jump squat, give Jigglypuff's pound a Ryu-esque hitlag modifier/make it safe on shield in general.

If Jigglypuff could get to the air more quickly, I think that alone would change so much. Not only does it allow Jigglypuff to be in its element more quickly, but out-of-shield jumping Rest punishes would be super potent.

Zelda: Improve air acceleration to be roughly as good as Mario's, but keep air speed as-is. I think if people were actually scared of Zelda's lightning kicks, it would shoot her up dramatically. At the same time, I don't think something like short hop auto-cancels for fair/bair would be good for the game or Zelda players (they're even stronger than Mewtwo's fair!), because it would just turn Zelda into Short Hop fair/bair the character. By improving her aerial acceleration, it would allow her to aim those aerials better, and so even if the opponent shields, a sweet spot fair/bair is still safe on block.

If that isn't enough, make it so that you can cancel the charge on Phantom Knight. I think storing it might be too good, but being able to cancel Bullet Arts Climax style would just give her a useful option in most situations without pushing her way over the edge.

Ganondorf: I think a lot of people would probably say better frame data in a bunch of places, but I think it's actually all right for the character he's supposed to be. Instead, I'd give better air speed + Untechable flame choke. The former would improve his recovery (even though he's heavy, he often just dies because of edgeguarding/gimping) thus making him more reliably get to high rage, and also improve his punishes (easier follow-ups). People have already talked about untechable flame chokes and what that would mean. I might even want to just give him better grab range too.

 

[Yikarur]

I have to question whether any of those are true upsets.

They are upsets by definition.

 

[verbatim]

If your main is not top tier, name the smallest possible change that you can think of that would make your main top tier.

If your main is already top tier, name the smallest possible change that could potentially knock your main out of top tier.

If items had rage pacman would start killing off of tech chases at 80%, and Diddy would lose a lot of banana kill setups.

Of the top tiers that I've been thinking about wrt this question:

• Bayonetta not getting her movement options back if she gets hit.
• Slight kbg Nerf to sheik uair.

 

[Yikarur]

Banana would not be affected by rage at all.

 

[Y2Kay]

Tbh, does anyone have a better grab than Falcon's dash grab?

Greninja's dash grab is, at worst, just as good as Falcon's grab.

 

[Krysco]

Nobie already mentioned the reverting of Mewtwo's ground speed but I could also see a nerf to dtilt or fair doing him in. You give dtilt more lag or make it not send the opponent in a favourable position and there goes one of his best ground options. Fair is a bit of an odd case since it combos and kills but decreasing either the damage or knockback on it would make it only do the former.

I feel the answer to Robin is quite easy, take a frame or two off of his jumpsquat. Effectively decreases the startup on every one of his aerials.

I feel the easiest small change for Roy would be increasing his air acceleration. He's already fast on the ground and has disjoints but jumping is a commitment for him and he has little to no weaving ability. It would also make getting back to the ledge from offstage easier. He actually has better air deceleration than most of the cast. If that's not small enough then perhaps a startup reduction to uair so Roy would have an f3 aerial. Would help his disadvantage (granted, only if the opponent is in front of him) and tipper uair sets up for ftilt and bair kills so it'd give more leeway for that.

 

[Fenny]

If your main is already top tier, name the smallest possible change that could potentially knock your main out of top tier.

If Bayo's Fair automatically threw out three hits, also if she went into a helpless state after a second Witch Twist maybe

 

[Nemesis561]

If Bowser jr had grab frame data more comparable to the rest of the cast and not the garbage he has now (Standing grab: Hitbox active Frame 12-13, FAF 36, Dash grab: Hitbox active frame 13-14, FAF 45), I truly believe Bowser jr would be so much better... possibly solid mid tier or perhaps a bit more.

At this point the viable strategy is just hold shield, but if he just had a way to open up shields... tomahawk grabs, kart dash jump cancels into grabs, etc....

But the exercise was to make a small change to make your character high tier, which I dont believe is possible for Jr

 

[TurboLink]

While we're discussing design, here's a little exercise for you guys.

If your main is not top tier, name the smallest possible change that you can think of that would make your main top tier.

If your main is already top tier, name the smallest possible change that could potentially knock your main out of top tier.

Also explain why the change would have such a large impact on the character's relative power.

Note that I said smallest. Nothing ridiculous like "Bowser suddenly has a kill throw starting at 20!" or "Sheik no longer has Bouncing Fish!"

I'll start with Pikachu (because I'm sure someone else will do Bayonetta anyway):
increase up-air damage to 8% (from 4) with relevant knockback adjustments

Probably an obvious one. Giving Pikachu a decent aerial KO option at reasonable percents (still nothing crazy because up-air's hitbox won't permit silliness) and also a much stronger juggling tool makes his mediocre advantage state into a pretty good one, thereby patching up the character's only real flaw.

There is no single/small change that would make Link top-tier.

 

[Nah]

As much as I'd like a reduction in Robin's jumpsquat frames, I doubt it'd make a significant enough difference really. Normal use of aerials would not be affected a whole lot, and they'd all still be too slow to be good OoS options (fastest would be, with a frame 5 JS, a frame 14 Nair/Bair).

Stuff like a better Utilt hitbox, or less endlag on grab or Arcfire would be more helpful, but I still doubt even that would be enough to make the character top tier. To do that you'd probably have to make changes too big to qualify for Solid Sense's little exercise.

Corrin is easy though, just revert the changes made in 1.15 except for Counter Surge and shave a few frames of endlag off of Dtilt.

 

[G. Stache]

I'd say if you'd just give Luigi an airspeed of around 1.0, then he'd be in a much better spot. Better recovery, better aerial approaches, better landings, better aerial pokes with his Bair and Fair and plus he would have extended combos (since now he's fast enough in the air to hit you a few more times). That'd be enough to at least make him high tier for sure. He'd still have the problem of short range and traction issues, but now he doesn't get camped out as easily. Bair and Fair landing lag reductions wouldn't hurt either, but I'm not sure he would need those with the airspeed buffs

 

[Rizen]

While we're discussing design, here's a little exercise for you guys.

If your main is not top tier, name the smallest possible change that you can think of that would make your main top tier.

There is no single/small change that would make Link top-tier.

^this.

Decrease jumpsquat to 5 frames. Reduce Nair/jab 1 starting lag and FAF by 2 frames (7 to 5). Lower jab 1 and 2 angle so floaties don't pop out. Make ground spin attack hitbox include the total energy ring and not just where the sword is (this would let Bair 1 true combo into ground spin on everyone) and let Link move like Bowser's fortress upB. Make Dtilt hit frames 9-12 rather than 11-12 and reduce knockback/KBG on the non-spike, move spike bubble to the tip. Reduce Utilt endlag by a few frames. Make Fsmash 1 always launch like in Brawl (this would make shield pressure always be 14% rather than 7% for hit 1 so both hits do 27% rather than 20% total). Increase Dsmash hit bubble duration on both hits, making the 2nd hit start earlier. Make boomerang launch angle about 15 degrees lower and reduce KBG. Make arrows be able to be shield canceled and increase KBG as they charge. Increase air speed from .88>.90 and air acceleration from .04>.045.

Make her Fair a lower reward but evenly distributed kick with low landing lag. Make Din's a functional projectile like Lucas' PKFire maybe. Make phantom shield cancel. All around mobility buffs.

Make Utilt functional like CF or Samus'. Make sideB not cause freefall and not tech-able. Make air DownB move to the side more. Change B warlock punch to a weak but versatile projectile like Palutena's autoreticle, sort of like his light balls in OoT (so he can force movement and target characters on SV platform from a distance). Give F/Usmashes super armor before and during the attack. Increase all grab sizes. Give him a stock cap throw. Make ground upB start sooner, like frame 8 or 9, increase size and be a kill option so he has a decent OoS.

Make rock smash cause a fast drop to aid landings and be canceled by grabbing the edge. Make flare blitz like his custom dragon rush (iirc) so it has less risk/reward and distance but is more functional and doesn't damage Charizard. Increase FF speed. Increase dash grab size or make it in front of him more.

IDK but make chef a usable projectile by having food fly at low angles too and reduce lag. That thing's terrible.

 

[Deleted member]

Give him Marth's frame data, and make all his aerials fullhop autocancel.

Yay, I'm the only one who did the challenge right.

 

[Mega-Spider]

Make the shockwave from Final Cutter go much faster and across the majority of the screen, increase his airspeed a little bit, make Kirby's feet longer to increase range, make Kirby heavier (80-82 maybe).
Not sure if Kirbs could ever be top tier, but those changes would help.

 

[bc1910]

Luigi just needs his old down throw, if that can be considered a small change. Though he'd still get counterpicked hard. I don't think you could make him truly top tier without some fairly drastic movement buffs.

I don't think you could knock Sheik out of top tier with a single small change. At least one out of her autocancel windows, Bouncing Fish and maybe Fair landing lag would need to be hit hard.

For greninja I'd say making it so that you could cancel shuriken charge with shield. Not keep the charge, just cancel it. Hit movement would be even better, and he'd be able to camp so much harder and his ledge coverage would dope

This alone wouldn't make him top tier. He would need to be able to hold the charge I think.

A more subtle change? Reduce Nair's landing lag from 12 to 10 frames. Turns an already safe move into a safe on shield combo starter. Nair Jab as shield pressure would work on the entire cast as opposed to only those with f7 or worse grabs.

An angle tweak for Dthrow to make Dthrow Fair un-DIable (but still a 50/50) would do it too.

 

[BTVolta]

If your main is not top tier, name the smallest possible change that you can think of that would make your main top tier.

For Falcon make his Dive when reversed go the same distance as the normal version. I don't think this will make him top tier, but it'll be a nice QoL change since quite a few back throws turn you around(like Rat's) and that in itself makes his difficult recovery even harder.

 

[williamsga555]

There are a number of different things you could do for D3.

Think the one I'd like to see more would be decreased ending frames on Gordo Toss, reasoning should be pretty obvious.

Other alternatives include giving Inhale grab/super armor, Increasing Gordo reflect threshold, or reducing the ending frames on basically anything in his kit by about 10.

 

[Luco]

Again: wouldn't that be one and the same thing from a competitive player's point of view?

I think the thing you might be skipping over here Gheb is that if we're talking about "design", that doesn't really *come* from our point of view. We're not the ones 'designing' this game, so we don't actually know what the developers want and what kind of 'fun' (there are much better words in the designing industry but bear with me) was intended for this game. I think it's possible to have a game that's well-designed and poorly balanced competitively; especially if you never meant for that game to be played competitively in the first place.

That said, I think people are freaking out over what constitutes (let's humour the idea here) 'good design'. Hearing people say and others concur with the idea that Palutena is a "badly designed" character shocked me, especially when the reasoning given was "she's all aerial with barely anything to her ground game." I think we should be aware from Little Mac not being hilariously bottom tier that it's possible to make these kind of seemingly extreme design choices without ruining a character - in fact, you can make them function quite fantastically even if their options are linear. If linearity is what constitutes good game design then let's all accept that every character not named Shulk / Peach / Ryu / Pacman (or otherwise top tier) is "poorly designed". I was kinda hoping we'd all come to celebrate the diversity this game offered us but apparently people think developers shouldn't do that?

----

In regards to Solidsense's post, keep in mind that this is the 'smallest' change possible, which I think implies usually quantifying your buff / nerf. How many run speed units would you need to alter to take Mewtwo out of top tier? Or if you're not sure, maybe say something like 'reducing x mobility stats so that y option isn't safe any more'. Etc. Alternatively make your change to a single move, or a single aspect of a move, or a single stat.

So with that in mind, I think you could do a couple things with Ness to pop him back into top tier relevancy. You could change PKT2 so that it doesn't have its distance cut short when you hit someone (ala 64 Ness' PKT2), reducing currently the most effective way of gimping Ness' viability and making his biggest weakness *much* less volatile. You could also buff the hitbox size of Fair to make it a move with enough range to contest all but swordies in range, giving Ness an all-round neutral tool that demands respect and allows him to get in and do his damage when he's at a deficit (would probably REALLY help vs Rosa / Sheik). Or, you could make his Nair f3 which would definitely help him vs Sheik and generally be a massive combo-breaking tool moreso than it already is. One last thing is you could buff Dsmash's hitbox by a large enough margin to make it possible to 2-frame any recovery angle.

For Lucas, it's easy. Reduce Nair's SDI multiplier to I think the regular 1x, making Lucas' 45% combo pretty much guaranteed on everyone. You could also make Nair a f3/f4 move giving Lucas the much desired OoS he wants / needs.

Any one of these changes would seriously impact their characters' viability. Kinda makes you realise just how much of a careful balancing act, well, balancing is.

 

[TDK]

Waseda Festival 2016 Tokyo, Japan (128 entrants) (Cat 1)

1. KEN
2. Earth
3. Kameme
4. Tamushika
5. Fuwa
5. Eim
7. Taiheita
7. Todoman
9. Kept
9. Umeki
9. Manzoku
9. Abadango
13. Kirbus
13. Raito
13. Gomamugitya
13. Kenkenpa
33. T

Upsets

Toboman> Abadango
Tamushika> T
Tamushika>Umeki
Paseriman>T
Toboman> Raito

Abadango.

What happened?

Losing the ditto to Rich Brown is acceptable, since he's the best American Mewtwo, but you lost the Mewtwo ditto to essentially a random (Has he done anything before? Legitimately curious.).

Yes, Toboman is probably really good but still. Japan's consistency blows.

 

[ReRaze]

but you lost the Mewtwo ditto to essentially a random

Nobody is just a random in Japan.

 

[BSP]

While we're discussing design, here's a little exercise for you guys.

If your main is not top tier, name the smallest possible change that you can think of that would make your main top tier.

If your main is already top tier, name the smallest possible change that could potentially knock your main out of top tier.

Also explain why the change would have such a large impact on the character's relative power.

Note that I said smallest. Nothing ridiculous like "Bowser suddenly has a kill throw starting at 20!" or "Sheik no longer has Bouncing Fish!"

I'll start with Pikachu (because I'm sure someone else will do Bayonetta anyway):
increase up-air damage to 8% (from 4) with relevant knockback adjustments

Probably an obvious one. Giving Pikachu a decent aerial KO option at reasonable percents (still nothing crazy because up-air's hitbox won't permit silliness) and also a much stronger juggling tool makes his mediocre advantage state into a pretty good one, thereby patching up the character's only real flaw.

Give the first hitbox of Pac-Man's Pac-Jump the same KB angle as Mario's forward throw. It already doesn't KO until ~200 so KB numbers would be fine.

What this would do is cause the opponent to be launched offstage when Pac-Man trampolines them at higher percentage. If this was the case, then we could see the ridiculous potential of his ledge trap game come to light and maybe he wouldn't be killing at 160% like he is now. In other words, give him a real advantage state for beating shield.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I think the thing you might be skipping over here Gheb is that if we're talking about "design", that doesn't really *come* from our point of view.

This ... doesn't make sense at all?

We're analyzing the competitive merits of characters here. From that point of view Ganondorf is poorly designed. It's really... not complicated.

 

[Yikarur]

Nobody is just a random in Japan.

lol no need for hyberbolism

Rich Brown almost got 3 stocked by a random german Mewtwo player at Syndicate (he got the reverse 3 stock tho) and Abadango lost a game to Luigi player. The Mewtwo mirror has just a really high variance level. Mewtwo is just dying so early to himself that anything can happen.

 

[conTAgi0n]

While we're discussing design, here's a little exercise for you guys.

If your main is not top tier, name the smallest possible change that you can think of that would make your main top tier.

If your main is already top tier, name the smallest possible change that could potentially knock your main out of top tier.

Also explain why the change would have such a large impact on the character's relative power.

Note that I said smallest. Nothing ridiculous like "Bowser suddenly has a kill throw starting at 20!" or "Sheik no longer has Bouncing Fish!"

I'll start with Pikachu (because I'm sure someone else will do Bayonetta anyway):
increase up-air damage to 8% (from 4) with relevant knockback adjustments

Probably an obvious one. Giving Pikachu a decent aerial KO option at reasonable percents (still nothing crazy because up-air's hitbox won't permit silliness) and also a much stronger juggling tool makes his mediocre advantage state into a pretty good one, thereby patching up the character's only real flaw.

Since I gave this some thought for Bowser a while ago in a different thread, I'll copy my thoughts on the subject here (slightly edited):

Here are three changes that together would probably move Bowser up to at least high tier, and are actually realistic ones I could see the balance team making. None of them are dramatic or re-work anything fundamental about the way the character plays.

1. Buff fair

At least 2 out of 3 of the following changes:
* Increase damage from 13/12/11 to 14/13/12.
* Reduce either startup, faf, landing lag, or some combination of those.
* Increase range

Bowser's fair is already a decent move, but it would serve Bowser so much better with these changes. This gives him a more potent response to a lot of characters' air games and a pretty good aerial to toss out in neutral. Plus making fair a better kill move would help diversify Bowser's kill options.

I didn't bother specifying exact frame reductions or range increases, but they wouldn't need to be dramatic. Most helpful would probably be shaving off some startup frames, and maybe speeding up the arc of it so that you can get the hitbox out in front of Bowser earlier. Something in the ballpark of Charizard's fair would be delightful.

Compare Bowser's fair to Ike's, which now does 13 damage through the whole hitbox, has better range, is disjoint, has better KBG, and has significantly lower landing lag. Making Bowser's fair as good as Ike's (or at least comparable) seems fine to me. I don't think Ike's other moves are so much worse than Bowser's that Ike needs a better fair to compensate.

2. Substantially improve side b grab box

I would give numbers for this one but I don't really have an intuitive understanding for the range units in this game.

A little more horizontal reach would be nice, but vertical reach is what really matters for this one. Extending klaw range to reach slightly below Bowser would make landing a lot easier, since to punish, opponents would have to predict what landing option Bowser is going for, rather than just holding shield and reacting, as they can currently get away with.

3. Improve air speed significantly

Increase from 1.0 (same as Robin) to 1.08 (same as Ike/R.O.B.)

This would help Bowser in a lot of areas he currently struggles in more than he should, not least of which is his susceptibility to juggling. I considered an improvement to air acceleration instead, but I think it makes sense for a super heavy dragon turtle to have fairly low air acceleration. His disadvantage would still suck of course - after all, look how much R.O.B. suffers with that air speed - but it would be a lot more manageable.




I don't know if Bowser would quite be top tier with these changes, but I do think he would easily be high tier. This would make him much better in the air, much better at landing, and much less overly exploitable in disadvantage. Best of all, he would be a much more balanced character, instead of depending on uthrow combos for relevance.

I'm not sure which of these I would choose if I had to pick just one. I keep going back and forth on it. I think you really need the combination of them.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Removing KB scaling on needles(aka the nerf that should have happened instead of fthrow/tilt/vanish/fair changes.....) should do it.

 

[QualityQ]

While we're discussing design, here's a little exercise for you guys.

If your main is not top tier, name the smallest possible change that you can think of that would make your main top tier.

If your main is already top tier, name the smallest possible change that could potentially knock your main out of top tier.

Also explain why the change would have such a large impact on the character's relative power.

Increase air speed (top) from .89 to 1.1, and change jumps to match appropriately. Even something like 1.02 might do it.

Not only would that make his edge-guarding game even more brutal, but it would probably improve combo game and some characters would never be able to get back to the ground.

...and yes, the character with wings does take 50th place in top air speed.

 

[Lauqe]

You could reduce the overall damage on all of Bayonetta's moves so that they all do near 1% or lower. Then she has to get insane combos for simple amounts like 30%. For her smashes, reduced knockback and damage could be around 5%. (Down Smash should have the same knockback though).

 

[Lauqe]

For Palutena to be viable, just patch the game so that Lightweight is her default down special move instead of Counter.

 

[Shady Shaymin]

having a melee grab with throws that confirm into his aerials (fair/dair at low percents, bair/uair at mid percents and for closing stocks) would probably make this character top ten, and just for lols now his neutral b lets him tether to the ledge and he's the best character in the game

 

[TDK]

While we're discussing design, here's a little exercise for you guys.

If your main is not top tier, name the smallest possible change that you can think of that would make your main top tier.

If your main is already top tier, name the smallest possible change that could potentially knock your main out of top tier.

Also explain why the change would have such a large impact on the character's relative power.

Note that I said smallest. Nothing ridiculous like "Bowser suddenly has a kill throw starting at 20!" or "Sheik no longer has Bouncing Fish!"

I'll start with Pikachu (because I'm sure someone else will do Bayonetta anyway):
increase up-air damage to 8% (from 4) with relevant knockback adjustments

Probably an obvious one. Giving Pikachu a decent aerial KO option at reasonable percents (still nothing crazy because up-air's hitbox won't permit silliness) and also a much stronger juggling tool makes his mediocre advantage state into a pretty good one, thereby patching up the character's only real flaw.

I wouldn't suppose that giving Link Toon Link's Mobility would be a valid change for this?

 

[|RK|]

There are a number of changes that could make Kirby top tier, IMO. Airspeed and aerial frame data improvement alone might be enough to do the trick. Or airspeed and cutting the startup endlag of final cutter. Now he has a move with usable range and lower comittment on top of a combo game that cares about DI less. Throw inhale endlag buffs in there too.

 

[meleebrawler]

Wouldn't a lot of characters with poor airspeed but decent to great dashing speed benefit from Melee's ability to carry momentum from dashing to your initial jump?

 

[Nu~]

While we're discussing design, here's a little exercise for you guys.

If your main is not top tier, name the smallest possible change that you can think of that would make your main top tier.

If your main is already top tier, name the smallest possible change that could potentially knock your main out of top tier.

Also explain why the change would have such a large impact on the character's relative power.

Note that I said smallest. Nothing ridiculous like "Bowser suddenly has a kill throw starting at 20!" or "Sheik no longer has Bouncing Fish!"

I'll start with Pikachu (because I'm sure someone else will do Bayonetta anyway):
increase up-air damage to 8% (from 4) with relevant knockback adjustments

Probably an obvious one. Giving Pikachu a decent aerial KO option at reasonable percents (still nothing crazy because up-air's hitbox won't permit silliness) and also a much stronger juggling tool makes his mediocre advantage state into a pretty good one, thereby patching up the character's only real flaw.

*rubs hands maniacally*

This should be fun.

...
I have 2 different routes:

1) Raise the percentage of all bonus fruit by 2% and lower the FAF to 32.

Now Bonus Fruit are scary. You now have more true blockstrings, excellent shield pressure, and WAY easier kills. Following up on your fruit is now easy and combos from BF don't all have to come from item tossing. The FAF is reasonable because getting a fruit in the hand is so much harder for Pac-Man than other item characters. This way he doesn't HAVE to go through all that excess work just to get going.


2) Trampoline no longer puts you into helpless and it stores your jump

One of the biggest complaints that Pacman mains have is that trampoline, while a frame 1 shield popper, doesn't offer much reward. In fact, you can be punished on hit at lower percentages.

However...


If you take away the helpless state like sonic and mega man's...you make it broken.

Now Pac-Man can combo trampoline launches into bairs at the ledge, fruit tosses, uairs...you name it. You also have a much better stage control tool because using it in neutral is not nearly as punishable.

Also, you get a new landing option. Pac-man can trampoline away as he's trying to land OR he can use it as he's being juggled, reverse the positioning of him and the opponent, and now counter juggle the opponent (kinda like Luigi's Nair).
You could do a whole lot of other fun things too like setting up combos (dash attack your opponent into the trampoline and let the ride begin), easy footstool deaths (trampoline under your opponent off stage and keep footstooling them back into the trampoline until they die...lol), and so on.

 

[Illuminose]

Providing some insight on some of 'new stuff' at this Japanese tournament:

Worth noting that this is Todoman's third offline tournament. He beat Fuwa and Ri-ma to get 33rd at Umebura SAT (lost to Kameme/Keron) and beat Tsu- at TUS Tournament 6 last week. Now adds Abadango, Gomamugitya, and Raito to his hit list with a top 8 placing to boot. I believe juddy said yesterday that Todoman was a top 3DS player for a while? In any case, he's definitely an up-and-coming Mewtwo player.

Tamushika has been to many Umebura events and a couple others, though he's never gotten above 25th at Umebura before. He did recently beat Shuton at an online Tamisuma event and now there's this event where he beat Umeki, T, Eim, and Fuwa (and Todoman). His best win before this was DIO and he has no real relevant placings other than this one. Clearly, Tamushika has improved a good bit though; he's another top Duck Hunt player to add to the fold.

Kamemusheik is getting really good. Maybe he's not quite getting first place at these tours with Sheik (the two he has entered in the past weeks), but he's taken sets from YOC, Hayato, Fuwa, and Eim with Sheik, and taken a game from Abadango while achieving top 3 placings at two stacked events. Kameme's Sheik is an interesting blend of technicality and just solid fundamental Sheik play. Not really sure where he's trying to go with the character, but it's a cool pick regardless.

 

[Luco]

This ... doesn't make sense at all?

We're analyzing the competitive merits of characters here. From that point of view Ganondorf is poorly designed. It's really... not complicated.

From that "point of view" we're not the ones designing the game, ergo Ganondorf is poorly 'balanced', not designed. That's my point. This is because 'design' encompasses a variety of things that amount to more than competitive balance. It makes perfect sense if you consider the reason I'm saying this is to correct an effective wording error, unless you actually mean Ganon's *entire* design in which case I disagree; Ganon's great in free-for-alls and boss battles and was designed to be so.

 

[Y2Kay]

All greninja needs to be broken is to change the start up on Forward Air to 10 frames or lower.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

This one's simple, give both downb and flare blitz single-hit shield breaking capabilities like bowser bomb, now you can't simply shield charizard's moves because your own shield will shatter right on initial contact making shield spammers useless on charizard.
Giving him multiple options to break shields without changing the fundamentals of his moves makes the two specials A)Easy to use but also B) broken but not exactly cheap because there are ways to get around them without using shield (dodge rolling, spot-dodging and simply moving out of the way) the biggest weakness I always saw with charizard is how easy it is to simply shield all of his moves, this eliminates that.

 

[Y2Kay]

Abadango.

What happened?

Losing the ditto to Rich Brown is acceptable, since he's the best American Mewtwo, but you lost the Mewtwo ditto to essentially a random (Has he done anything before? Legitimately curious.).

Yes, Toboman is probably really good but still. Japan's consistency blows.

1. Abadango has shown repeatedly he doesn't take Japanese tournies as seriously as American tournaments.
2. Toboman is pretty good
3. Mewtwo dittos are D U M B

This one's simple, give both downb and flare blitz single-hit shield breaking capabilities like bowser bomb, now you can't simply shield charizard's moves because your own shield will shatter right on initial contact making shield spammers useless on charizard.
Giving him multiple options to break shields without changing the fundamentals of his moves makes the two specials A)Easy to use but also B) broken but not exactly cheap because there are ways to get around them without using shield (dodge rolling, spot-dodging and simply moving out of the way) the biggest weakness I always saw with charizard is how easy it is to simply shield all of his moves, this eliminates that.

Giving him a down throw up air confirm would make him top tier too IMO. Especially considering how fast he is and is his better disadvantage compared to DK and Bowser. Zard not getting a "ding dong" was a very calculated decision by the balance team.

 

[Lauqe]

1. Abadango has shown repeatedly he doesn't take Japanese tournies as seriously as American tournaments.
2. Toboman is pretty good
3. Mewtwo dittos are D U M B

Giving him a down throw up air confirm would make him top tier too IMO. Especially considering how fast he is and is his better disadvantage compared to DK and Bowser. Zard not getting a "ding dong" was a very calculated decision by the balance team.

Better Yet, give Charizard a Down B into Side B confirm. It kills even earlier and we desperately need a good Heavyweight in Top Tier to knock those skinny ******* down.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Giving him a down throw up air confirm would make him top tier too IMO. Especially considering how fast he is and is his better disadvantage compared to DK and Bowser. Zard not getting a "ding dong" was a very calculated decision by the balance team.

The problem with most of charizard's throws is there's no way to ombo into them once the percentage gets high enough. Being able to forward throw and then always be able to follow up with a forward aerial (or really any of zard's throws with fair) at 80% or higher would make zard a terrifying opponent to face because as soon as you hit those percentages you'd know you were screwed! Also....what's a 'ding dong'?