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Discussion thread for 4BR Tier List v2.0. If you wish to vote and have not done so, you may do so here. Please be sure to follow the guidelines.
This thread is meant for discussion on the v2.0 Tier List. Please discuss in a civilized manner, but feel free to raise questions, point out various observations, and so on.
I just posted a vote, which I'm too lazy to link. Some characters to talk about:
I put and and lower than their results, but still expect to be placing them higher than almost everyone else. These characters aren't sweeping majors, but they are popping up in top 8s at big tournaments all over the world.
I also put higher than his results, but expect everyone else to have put him even higher than that. Surprisingly few Mewtwo players have been earning wins outside of Abadango, just Blue and Mew^2 and the usual suspects. I do expect this to change (remember, I was I think the single most optimistic person about Mewtwo in the last tier vote!) but let's not get hasty and over-predict. Abadango also won a lot with Pac-Man, for god's sake.
I predicted was next after Mewtwo, and lo and behold he's also rising. I expect that to continue.
I have way above his results, but expect everyone to put him even higher as well. No one is winning with this character guys. People are playing him, but no one not named Ranai is winning. Even Pikachu has far better non-ESAM performance than Villager's situation.
is on the up and up. He suddenly started getting decent results from multiple players out of nowhere.
is far from a poor character, but why play him when Mario exists? Actually, there are a few great reasons, but the fact still remains that Mario is a superior top-tier character and no one bothers to play Doc. But frankly, if you think Doc is bottom-tier irrespective of Mario's existence, I'd recommend seeing a doctor yourself.
With Mario's frame data and extra power, Doc has the single best power-per-startup-frame across his moveset of the entire cast. He also has imo the best OoS game in the cast, and one of the best d-throw kill-confirms against a lot of fast-falling top-tiers.
That's mostly it. I'm pessimistic on and , and suspect their results are buoyed by an unusually dedicated player base that this style of character seems to cultivate in games.
My list is mostly opinion mixed with results I can't just ignore... like ... pretty sure this character sucks, but people keep losing to it. Same thing with but on a lesser scale.
My list is mostly opinion mixed with results I can't just ignore... like ... pretty sure this character sucks, but people keep losing to it. Same thing with but on a lesser scale.
I've noticed all ZSS mains think she's bad (bad as in not top 5). Never understood it much. I guess her issues vs short characters and her punishable grab are the culprits? Her frame data is soooooo good though x_x
Also yaaaaaaay new tier list voting. Mine is up now.
I've noticed all ZSS mains think she's bad (bad as in not top 5). Never understood it much. I guess her issues vs short characters and her punishable grab are the culprits? Her frame data is soooooo good though x_x
Also yaaaaaaay new tier list voting. Mine is up now.
Fair enough, I've personally never minded facing ZSS once I learned the mu (Fox and Cloud both beat ZSS imo), but I've always though ZSS had great tools and an excellent mu spread.
Also, side topic, but do we want to let out that work on a new tier list has started? Or are we keeping it under wraps for now?
I think that at this point there are no characters without some flaw and/or difficult matchups and that the top 10 characters should all be capable of winning a national or have already done so. Of course, it's still hard to rate this many characters in a game that doesn't get much time to settle after a new patch, so I'm open to discussing my placements.
To get started, quick thoughts on the top 15, which labelwise is top and high tier to me:
Consistent top threat and hard stop to many characters throughout all builds of the game. She has a few losing matchups (MK, Cloud, ZSS?), but nothing unwinnable. I can see her dropping off somewhat, but for now she seems like a conventional pick for #1 considering she wasn't nerfed recently, while all her opposition has been.
Insane frame data, punish game and potential. Running away helps, but that's about it. Time will tell whether he can take more tournaments or some clearly losing matchups emerge. Not sure why he's not more common.
Another character who hasn't been touched recently. Very frustrating to fight and I don't even think people are maximizing his timeout potential.
Still the best neutral in the game and the potential for long strings and crazy edge guards. She might drop more, but her best dedicated mains don't seem slowed down much by the recent nerf.
Mobile, great punish game, forces approaches and has a comeback factor. On the other hand he has an exploitable recovery, good weight for getting juggled and no kill setups from grabs. If he starts actually taking nationals I can see him rising to #1, but there is a degree of inconsistency that's hard to shake off.
I was debating putting him higher due to recent results and potential, but there aren't that many absolute top mains and he still has an exploitable recovery, low weight and no kills from grabs. That said, Fox is never a bad pick in Smash, lol.
Amazing neutral and fair alone still beats quite a few characters. I do feel he recently hasn't gone places and loses to several characters above him (mainly Rosalina) due to his recovery and specific kill setups.
ZSS lost a lot of her crazy kill potential and her results are dropping off. She already was arguably a tad overrated, but I do think she is still a good character. Another one where I think there are some consistency issues relatively to other top tiers.
The whole 'always an 8 out of 10' thing works out well for Mario. He's super consistent and finally the well-rounded character he should be in Smash. That said, I'm not sure where he will go from here, his results largely stem from ease of use and him rewarding good fundamentals IMO.
Mewtwo almost feels like a new character due to how much the buffs improved him, on top of already being awkward to fight. He has shown the potential to win a national and has a solid tool kit, but we need to see more of him.
Pikachu has only one top main, but on the whole I think his matchup spread is pretty good and he has the potential for better results due to mobility, offstage game and various kill setups.
The opposite from Pika, Ness has some clearly poor matchups (once again, Rosalina), but several mains who have pulled top 8 or better results since the start of the game. Walls out a lot of characters, his kill throw surprisingly never got touched and everything he does hurts.
Villager was until recently getting great results in the hands of Ranai, who seems to have quit/taken a break. I don't think he fares that well against characters like Rosalina, Mario and some of the newer DLC additions, but he's still a good character. No recent nerfs either.
As a Dutch player and TO I see a lot of Greninja action and in my eyes he's a solid high tier character that rewards reads and has many frame traps and setups. His neutral isn't the best though and he can get walled out.
Bayonetta is hard to rate due to how recent her nerfs are. She still has a good combo potential and Witch Time, but she dropped hard.
People are excited about Corrin and (s)he is fun to play, but results are staying behind and this is more of a pick based on potential and the range to keep many characters out.
I was the one who got all of the Japanese players to vote on the last tier list. I can update this post with spoiler tags once I know which Japanese players you would like to get a vote from and when.
well as it's in the discussion thread, I hate you for putting ZSS as top 4 Dabuz lol.
but hmm, i'm perhaps wondering whether we should be forcing a minimum amount of groupings. Perhaps my worrying about how results will pan out is unfounded.
P.S. It would still be great/best if the lists are accompanied by a text version. As someone (the vote tally person) is going to have to manually convert themselves otherwise.
ZSS has suuuuuch good results across 2 people (more than every top tier except Cloud, Sheik, and Diddy), and she is Lucario in disguise, I see her win so many games off getting a read with rage and killing at 20. Combine that with a good neutral and amazing escape from disadvantage, and I think she's one of those characters that is better in practice than on paper because people don't play perfect against her andn ever will
I think it's in general agreement that the Diddy match up is a solid counter to her, easily agreeable between every ZSS main and just about every other measure including results. While she's still one of the most powerful punishers in the game, I feel like she more closely sits near Rosa in viability/power level for the aforementioned reason. MK and Cloud are perhaps roadblocks to Rosa, but at the least Cloud wasn't shown to be impossible last weekend (or since Tweek in february/march?), and MK has dropped off significantly since the nerfs (but you and aba are destined to fight for all time, which is unfortunate but will be less of a consideration for most Rosa players at all levels).
It's also very likely we lose to Sheik (requiring high rage roofie kick to win almost every match/set; tbf it's near-unique in how susceptible she is to it) and Cloud (if it wasn't for M2K's awful DI I think his last meeting with Nairo would've gone to him).
While I don't main ZSS, I can't see her losing to Cloud when she carries him off the stage and always forces him out of limit.
Diddy and Sheik definitely beat her and are huge road blocks.
Rosa doesn't have the ability to get comebacks like ZSS and just close out games while also having a lot of even or losing matchups among top tiers, her real claim to being alright in the meta is having a winning matchup on Sheik and possibly Diddy, two of the most popular characters at top level
I've never agreed with you too much on tier list stuff usually Dabuz
, but expect a big "WTF" from me in person this weekend regarding your Marth placement </3
Just wanted to say that I respect your point for the upper-ZSS placement. I do think Rosa's come back potential also exists, but ZSS is more dynamic in being able to do so due to mobility.
Cloud match up is prickly, ideally I'd think even (maybe slight adv.), otherwise I think she would have one of the best cloud mus in the game.
And eh, Marth.
Marth is actually really good.
It's difficult to say how good. But he is so popular right now, and he's probably the easiest he's ever been in any smash game. His jab is truly gluing together his advantage and neutral state and we're getting better at flowing with it (he had no such cohesion before, truly a really ****-tier version of Brawl marth with little hope).
The range of his aerials are significantly more than they were in Brawl; at the start they were standardized ranges (in Brawl/Melee, nair/bair were more disjointed than fair or uair by a considerable margin), and although people kept ******** otherwise it was more range than he had in Brawl; but were significantly less safe on shield (in fact almost completely useless against shield). Now they're bigger, more damage so more pushback and are tougher to deal with than they were in Brawl because of it (power shielding Marth's aerials in this game almost do nothing unless it's point blank, I think that's stupid).
There isn't a tippity-top level player maining Marth yet, although the Marths that were around since the beginning have gone from rare stints to consistently appearing at major tournaments towards the top - none of them have had much success against top level players yet; so I believe it's a matter of waiting for them to break out or a top level player taking him on board seriously; and just like we saw with MK, Leo could be that person for Marth in the near future.
He's back to his "tons of options" state. Hard to consider what mus he truly loses in (Sonic I'd say is one of the most difficult, Diddy perhaps too). He walls out most of the cast without much thought. He's now safe enough to trap and bait things which can be tipper fsmashed, which is basically a more powerful version of Limit Cross Slash that can only be used on the ground (I wonder how I refer to LCS by itself? : p)
He has 5 aerials that kill. And all deceptively early - this is practically unique within the cast, and definitely is when you consider the start up values of them.
Marth's come along way, and if he was as strong as he is now at the start of the game, I kinda doubt that people wouldn't see him as top 10 or very close to.
Oh and despite how much min/max arguments Lucina could muster, she is a less safe, less option rich version of Marth, she doesn't have the variety of KO options, she doesn't have weak hits for combos. Anyone who thinks they're side-by-side is a bit silly in my book, as that's really showing the lack of understanding of how balanced this game is - for a character to have so much less and only be 1 spot behind? Yuck.
Equally as silly is putting her in low/bottom tier if you think Marth is towards high. I believe roughly a tier of difference is adequate.
I am into theorycraft as much as the next guy, and I'll throw some tier placements here and there that go against common results, but guys... Look deep into your hearts and ask yourself "is Ryu really top5 in the game?" TBH the answer should be no. He actually has some pretty brutal matchups, and the fact running away from him is so powerful isn't something to just brush off. I just don't think there is much to justify him being so high up there.
Well Trela has won some fairly stacked tournaments, so there is definitely reason to think he is high tier/close to top tier, but when it comes to large national/international tournaments, the results are NEVER there.
Trela actually has some tournament wins and, while Cloud has more high level representation, he was largely absent in the CEO top 16. I think the real conclusion here is that no character has had the chance to be consistent yet and even some of the best characters are too dependent on a few top players (or just one) to base everything on their performance.
How can you justify ryu over diddy? Over mario? Over sheik? These are characters with a ton of representation in many regions, winning there, and also winning on the international level. We heavily overrated ryu in the first tier list and I fear we're going to do it again. I don't even think the theory craft even supports him being so high... The character has some glaring flaws and brutal matchups :/.
What do you think Ryu's 'brutal' matchups are? I don't think there's anyone left without a losing matchup, but if his theoretical spread is worse than I'm thinking, I could be persuaded. I will probably move Diddy up, though my opinion on him changes a lot.
From what I think and what I've heard, he has a very tough time against sonic, sheik, pikachu, Toonlink, megaman and villager (all more than slightly disadvantageous). Beyond that he slightly loses to bayo, cloud and DK. Some say he loses to rosa and ZSS as well.
I guess depending on what you read you'll hear differently, but these all sound reasonable imo.
I'll have my thoughts and list posted after I come back from vacation coming up soon for a week with no internet outside of my phone.
I'll be working on making it when I got alone time. One of my concerns is a lot of people putting Little Mac in bottom 10 when his results are far better than what he is being listed as.
From what I think and what I've heard, he has a very tough time against sonic, sheik, pikachu, Toonlink, megaman and villager (all more than slightly disadvantageous). Beyond that he slightly loses to bayo, cloud and DK. Some say he loses to rosa and ZSS as well.
I guess depending on what you read you'll hear differently, but these all sound reasonable imo.
The difference between Ryu and almost every other character is that even in his "Bad" matchups, a lot of times he can just land a hit and you're dying thanks to a Rage True Shoryken combo.
I mean sure... You can justify it all you want but it still looks absurd to rate ryu so high when both his results and potential matchup spread is ass.
From what I think and what I've heard, he has a very tough time against sonic, sheik, pikachu, Toonlink, megaman and villager (all more than slightly disadvantageous). Beyond that he slightly loses to bayo, cloud and DK. Some say he loses to rosa and ZSS as well.
I guess depending on what you read you'll hear differently, but these all sound reasonable imo.
I completely agree, while a case of potential can be made, truth is Ryu has barely done anything outside of a couple of tournaments. I'd also like to add Diddy Kong as a character who has an advantage over Ryu, and I'm pretty sure that most of the time this match-up happens in top level play, Diddy comes out ahead. As brutal as his punishes are, some characters can just camp Ryu out constantly. At the moment I don't think theorycrafting alone can justify Ryu being top 5, let alone the best character in the game.
I'll post my tier list in a few min (made one a few days ago, but I'll revisit it) and looking at others I'm pretty sure I have a lot of controversial opinions. I'll try to use this post later to explain some of my points of view but feel free to ask why I rate some characters in a certain way.
Ok, so I have this huge post typed up down below and as I'm typing this a question keeps coming up in my head. Is the tier list supposed to be more of a time stamp in our current metagame or should it include some level of theorycrafting like "I think X character has potential that has yet to be seen so I'm going to put them higher on my tier list" or some mixture of both? Is this more so open to our interpretation of what a tier list should be? I'll leave the rest of my post that I was typing up here:
For Ryu, I agree that has has too many losing MUs to say he's top 3, or even top 5 right now in today's meta. I do think he has potential to be top 5 (although I can't see him going much higher), but I can't say that with the results he has right now. I play both Diddy and Villager at a high level and IMO he loses both of the MUs (both probably 55:45, nothing terrible). I would also say he at least loses to Sonic, Toon Link, Mega Man, Pikachu, and Rosalina and maybe more
Does anyone have any insightful data and or/opinions of guest miis XXXX? I've basically never seen them in competitive play. I would imagine that 2222 Mii Brawler would still be at least decent, but I have no clue about the others. As far as default miis go, I have little doubt that guest 1111 brawler is the worst character in the game, not too sure about mii gunner but I wouldn't imagine she's not too far from that spot either. Personally I think default Mii Swordfighter is probably the best of the default miis from personal experience with them and seeing Trela's results with the character when he used to play him. Although it's been a while, I don't think much has changed in the default mii's metagame to make me think otherwise.
As a high level Diddy player IMO I think at the moment Diddy is 3rd at best, 6th at worst. His MU is overall very good, but I don't see it being better than some of the high ranked characters.
For reference this was my latest MU spread of the character: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ck2GjxnUkAA9XSN.jpg:large
I think the biggest reason I wouldn't put Diddy in the top 3 is there is one MU I think he gets hard countered by: Sonic. I may be a little bias because this is probably my worst MU, but I actually think the MU is worse than I have listed (I don't think the generator gave me the option to add more tiers, or maybe it did but I just couldn't figure it out). I feel like the more optimized Sonic gets (and by optimized I mean mostly playing very campy) the more this will become clear. Most of the high level Diddys agree that this MU is a losing MU, though I don't think most of them would put it worse than a 6:4.
Which also brings me to another character I think might be a little underrated is Sonic. I feel like he has an overall amazing MU spread. I think he has 4 problem MUs: ZSS, Mega Man, Rosalina, and Cloud. Most of the high level Sonics and Clouds I've talked to have said that the MU isn't that bad and close to even. Although results say otherwise as M2K has beaten Manny, 6WX, and SGK in the Cloud MU. Though M2K did also lose to SGK (they went 1-1 at the same tournament). Ally also beat Wrath with Cloud after losing his winners set and then a runback game 1. Again, though, Ally's Cloud also lost to 6WX recently (he switched after being down with Mario).
Going to Mega Man, I've heard 6WX put the MU as, I think it was 7:3. Personally, I don't think the MU is that bad from what I know of just going off of theorycrafting and also seeing and talking to Scatt about the MU (since he's in my state, we've talked a lot). The last time Wrath played against Scatt he actually won 2-0. And honestly there aren't really a lot of Mega Mans out here to prevent Sonic's from going far in bracket.
For Rosalina, I don't really have much insight on that MU and I don't really have the confidence to say much about it.
ZSS is the one MU that I hear Sonics say pretty unanimously is his worst MU. I think how high Sonic is on the tier list pretty much depends on how bad of a MU this is. Whether or not ZSS just invalidates Sonic when played correctly. I saw Wrath play against Nairo and although it was 3-0, every game was pretty close. As far as results go, I think the ONLY time a sonic has beaten a high level zss is Kai beating Nick Riddle about a month ago, but that's it.
At the moment this is my tier list, if anyone wants to discuss anything I just typed out or anything on my tier list feel free to reply. Also, I don't really think there is a need for bottom tier outside of default Mii Brawler. I was going to hold off on my vote since things still might change. Anyway, this is my current tier list. It is ordered and Miis are assumed to be guest 1111 miis
I'll drop it in the voting thread after I've gone over it a few times.
Overall, I feel like Smash4 is a surprisingly well-balanced game. As a person who has worked on balance for a large cast of characters, its extremely difficult to do things as well as Nintendo has done. It took patching, but I'm pretty impressed with the current overall state of the game, overall.
Some things to think over still;
Sheik - Still a terror because of her completely-stifling neutral, but I feel like she may have dropped to the point of deserving to be one tier lower. A perfectly executed Sheik still seems like a top tier character, but she has to maintain that perfect execution for a much longer time now, and making even some small mistakes can cost her pretty big against characters with good rage-KO options. Still a huge threat in the grand scheme of things at the moment, though, so leaving her at the top for now.
ZSS - Not sure if she belongs in A or A+. Damage output is down, but she still has random spikes in KO power, as mentioned already in this thread. Attempted grabs leaving her so vulnerable gives her a chink in otherwise extremely-solid neutral that some weaker characters can exploit.
Ryu - Very strong, both overall character wise and KO potential. Safe shoryu hit confirms absolutely decimate stocks, especially with rage. Decent pokes, great damage on aerials / strings, random spike setups, focus attack...the character has a lot going for him. We haven't seen a lot of rep for him at the top level, though, so IMO its hard to say how he fares on the world level. Trela is a rare example, but he's inconsistent; wins a fairly stacked tournament in socal, but then doesn't make it out of pools at CEO...
I might put another break in the tiers in the middle of my current A-. MK/Lucario/Greninja/Ness are fairly clearly better than Lucas/Marth/Pacman. Or maybe I'll just get a good ordering down for the entire list, and have it ordered within tiers as well.
Won't say too much here as i'm on the gamepad with limited usage, but Player-1
you asked about XXXX gunner, tbh I think pretty highly of them, back when the US was running custom miis a little more commonly we actually saw their results, Mik! used to go quite far with them. Basically grenades are nuts, even with gunner being not a problem I understand why that move was nerfed, it was a hurtbox (i'm pretty sure) that burst on shields, attacks, anything... that could be B-reversed three times, two of which allowed you to wavebounce burst momentum, that you could have two of them out at the same time, it could be used to cover the ledge coming back on AND could be used to ledge-guard effectively and limit so many options for free. Finally if the grenade didn't burst immediately then it true combo'd into whatever you wanted including grabs and Usmash, one of Gunner's few actual kill moves, which admittedly still does have linking issues but eh.
The nerf just meant it doesn't beat attacks which is frustrating but most of its usage still remains.
Basically I think grenades are the only real option Gunner mains should carry as their neutral B and it takes the character 2 tiers up alone by its virtue as a get out of jail free card in so many different situations. Everything else on that character is okay I guess, although I think gunner Fair is better than Villager's because of that wavebounce mobility mmmm.
Uhh, when I get access to a proper computer i'll start creating my own list. <3
I actually might be the only Brawler back here at the moment, but I might as well chime in to answer Player-1
It's generally agreed among Brawlers that XXXX is somewhere in the upper mid tiers, saved by strong specials and decent normals, but outclassed in specific areas by other characters. With the specials he turns into a hybrid of Mario and ZSS with the most common sets (2122 or 2132). He also has absolutely abysmal matchups with the likes Luigi, Marth, and Ryu, the latter two honestly stopping him in his tracks entirely.
Basically, Brawler's CQC is pretty solid but he's just more or less outclassed in a handful of areas by, say, Mario. That being said, Brawler's Nair on Medium size is one of the absolute best of it's kind, able to lead into kill moves at higher % and get out of things and bob and weave at lower percents.
Of course, the absolute saving grace of Brawler are the Down/Up Specials. Down 2 is Feint Jump, basically ZSS's Boost Flip Kick (One of her customs) except much easier to control. Up 2 is just Helicopter Kick (which, on the right read kills at 50% from the grab at ledge, and on most grounded stages at about 110%). Not as ridiculous as Small Brawler, but it packs a punch. I can't speak on Piston Punch (Up 3), as it's not my preferred special, but from what talks I've had with Up 3 users like Z2G and my own personal labbing it's a bit crazy, especially on TC and Dreamland.
and 
