Official 4BR Tier List V3 - Competitive Insight & Analysis

[Krysco]

People don't play Smash 4 because they have to, we play it because we choose to.

Not entirely wrong but if you want to play a Smash game at any competitive level, your options nowadays are mostly Melee and Sm4sh with 64 and PM still having people play them but being generally less popular. 2 of those options are rather input and tech heavy (Melee and PM) and it is far easier to find a scene for Sm4sh than it is for 64 (helps that there's more characters and stages).

For anyone who preferred Brawl, Sm4sh is the closest you're gonna get to it and I'm one of those people. With what tech the game did have (DACUS, glide tossing and other stupid ****), the game was basically just Brawl 2.0 at launch but without Snake, Squirtle, Ivysaur, Ice Climbers and Wolf and honestly, I feel it still is, just with patches and dlc thrown in now and the game feels lesser to me (compared to Brawl). Sure there's no Brawl MK running amok but overall, I enjoy playing Sm4sh less than I did Brawl and I can't ever be bothered to watch competitive Sm4sh unless it's someone like Dath or Hyper, players that use characters I personally enjoy. Watching MK dittos in Brawl sucked but that wasn't all there was thanks to ICies, Olimar, Diddy, Marth, Snake, Falco, Pikachu, Wario and ZSS. There's a bunch of viable characters in Sm4sh, more than Brawl even but they all have fewer options and are more boring to watch imo.

I don't HAVE to play Sm4sh but with how small of a scene 64 has along with it's fewer characters and stages and with Melee and PM being more input heavy than I'd like, Sm4sh is what I have to play if I want to comfortably play a Smash game competitively despite the issues I have with it.

 

[The-Technique]

Minor nitpick but the whistle still has super armor in S4

yeah, if you watch Shuton he converts a lot of Whistle parries into KOs

i think Japanese players in general are more ambitious and creative than here in the US, at least when it comes to characters that we used to be pessimistic towards like Olimar and Duck Hunt

 

[R3D3MON]

Is it possible to make love to a smashboards post?

I love this so much T_T

Btw...controversial thoughts

Spoiler

We had a chance to add a lot more creativity and self expression to the game through customs...but then people whined about 2-4 moves that they didn't want to develop counter play for, and here we are :,)

Tfw Bayonetta alone is better and more "unfair" or "jank" than any custom character but everyone runs to defend her existence immediately. And no, this doesn't mean I personally want to ban bayo lol

Good point there. Honestly I never understood the hate for customs. Oh look DK actually gets a functioning neutral, is that a bad thing??? Oh wow Palutena gains a nice movement option, platform cancel tricks, and several viable kill confirms, making her a nice threat. OMFG KILL CONFIRMS ARE BAD GOTTA BAN CUSTOMS IMMEDIATELY BECAUSE "JANK".

S4 community is so ****ing weird.

Funny enough, regarding the debate on tech in Smash 4 - I'm actually just listening to a couple of Smash 4 players saying how easy it is to beat low & mid level Melee players. Typically because they often have great tech skill, but 0 fundamentals.

I just thought that was relevant. Because I feel like tech skill is more often than not raising the skill floor, but doesn't necessarily make a game "more skillful," if that makes sense.

Congrats that's a point that has been beaten to death. And no it's not a relevant point.

What is it that suddenly attracted the ****posters in here?

"This isn't a youtube comment section/this isn't reddit"

That's exactly the point R3D3MON. This isn't those things. You chose to go into a smash 4 forum to discuss the current official tier list and metagame and started ****ting on the game, calling it trash and calling us casuals. All the smash games are very different, people like some better than others, that should be obvious to anyone. There's plenty of silly, stupid **** in all four of the games too, obviously including melee. You don't need to come in here and start flinging your **** on everyone for no reason, if you want to talk about melee go to the melee portion of the website.

People don't play Smash 4 because they have to, we play it because we choose to. Frankly, I find it ridiculous that you think competitive melee is that important to Nintendo or the smash franchise in general. It's a nearly 20 year long franchise that has been enjoyed by multiple millions of people. The competitive melee scene is what, a few hundred thousand people at most? This entire website and community could **** off and it would still be a successful, profitable franchise. Step out of your bubble.

Surprised none of the mods have really done anything about this.

Woah calm down buddy.

EDIT: I'm just following NINTENDO GALAXY's footsteps

 

[TheMiSP]

Not entirely wrong but if you want to play a Smash game at any competitive level, your options nowadays are mostly Melee and Sm4sh with 64 and PM still having people play them but being generally less popular. 2 of those options are rather input and tech heavy (Melee and PM) and it is far easier to find a scene for Sm4sh than it is for 64 (helps that there's more characters and stages).

For anyone who preferred Brawl, Sm4sh is the closest you're gonna get to it and I'm one of those people. With what tech the game did have (DACUS, glide tossing and other stupid ****), the game was basically just Brawl 2.0 at launch but without Snake, Squirtle, Ivysaur, Ice Climbers and Wolf and honestly, I feel it still is, just with patches and dlc thrown in now and the game feels lesser to me (compared to Brawl). Sure there's no Brawl MK running amok but overall, I enjoy playing Sm4sh less than I did Brawl and I can't ever be bothered to watch competitive Sm4sh unless it's someone like Dath or Hyper, players that use characters I personally enjoy. Watching MK dittos in Brawl sucked but that wasn't all there was thanks to ICies, Olimar, Diddy, Marth, Snake, Falco, Pikachu, Wario and ZSS. There's a bunch of viable characters in Sm4sh, more than Brawl even but they all have fewer options and are more boring to watch imo.

I don't HAVE to play Sm4sh but with how small of a scene 64 has along with it's fewer characters and stages and with Melee and PM being more input heavy than I'd like, Sm4sh is what I have to play if I want to comfortably play a Smash game competitively despite the issues I have with it.

Yup, I really do like this reasoning here. I play both Melee and 4 so I like/hate both games' pros and cons equally. For 4, I'd really like some more options instead of having to guess at some point, but that's just me. Don't need to raise the inputs-per-minute rate per se, but some more universal tech would be nice.

 

[|RK|]

Congrats that's a point that has been beaten to death. And no it's not a relevant point.

It is relevant, considering you were just lamenting the lack of tech.

Additionally, mind toning down the snippiness and rudeness? You can make points without it.

 

[FeelMeUp]

This guy's been triple posting, going completely off topic, making conversation over inconsequential bs, and **** talking the game for multiple pages. Why are you all still responding to him?
Talk about topics that'll teach us something. I'd rather see Bayo whining over this garbage.

 

[|RK|]

This guy's been triple posting, going completely off topic, making conversation over inconsequential bs, and **** talking the game for multiple pages. Why are you all still responding to him?
Talk about topics that'll teach us something. I'd rather see Bayo whining over this garbage.

Touché. Actually, question about your expertise - is there a reason Sheiks (not named ZeRo) don't abuse needles? I get that the range nerf was a hit, but it still has large effective range.

It's to the point where - though I know it's one of the best projectiles in the game - I don't really see that being demonstrated as much. The way WaDi uses Mewtwo's Shadow Ball feels more like how I would expect Sheiks to use needles in neutral? Obviously vastly different projectiles, but.

 

[FeelMeUp]

Touché. Actually, question about your expertise - is there a reason Sheiks (not named ZeRo) don't abuse needles? I get that the range nerf was a hit, but it still has large effective range.

It's to the point where - though I know it's one of the best projectiles in the game - I don't really see that being demonstrated as much. The way WaDi uses Mewtwo's Shadow Ball feels more like how I would expect Sheiks to use needles in neutral? Obviously vastly different projectiles, but.

Sheik's aggressive punish game has developed to the point where even low/mid level Sheik players can get 50-70% off of winning neutral one time. Why needle someone for 2-7% and give them a chance to put me in a 50/50 situation that'll deal me 30-50% when I can go fight and put them on the ledge for 90? Needlecamping is good under very specific certain circumstances:
1) You're playing a matchup where you want the game to feel as uninteractive as possible()
2) You have the percent lead and know the opponent doesn't have a method to instantly bring all of the damage back
3) The opponent tilts easily or grows impatient and approaches in a suboptimal way
4) Needles send the opponent into tumble at the % they're at
5) You want to push their rage up to get yourself out of the % window for a specific setup(at 125% while you're at 60% and catch him fishing for grabs)
Otherwise, the needles don't give enough reward. Nowadays they're used for free damage when the opponent won't approach and gathering information while forcing then punishing their get-in options when they do.

You don't see us abusing needles as much as Mewtwo and Greninja players abuse their projectiles because we have actual approach options.

 

[Routa]

While he may have been a bit rude he has some good points. I mean even EL is rather rude, but that doesn't matter. This Melee-Brawl-Sm4sh discussion was nice breath of fresh air. It is interesting to hear what other people have to say even tho I might disagree with some of them.

 

[|RK|]

Sheik's aggressive punish game has developed to the point where even low/mid level Sheik players can get 50-70% off of winning neutral one time. Why needle someone for 2-7% and give them a chance to put me in a 50/50 situation that'll deal me 30-50% when I can go fight and put them on the ledge for 90? Needlecamping is good under very specific certain circumstances:
1) You're playing a matchup where you want the game to feel as uninteractive as possible()
2) You have the percent lead and know the opponent doesn't have a method to instantly bring all of the damage back
3) The opponent tilts easily or grows impatient and approaches in a suboptimal way
4) Needles send the opponent into tumble at the % they're at
5) You want to push their rage up to get yourself out of the % window for a specific setup(at 125% while you're at 60% and catch him fishing for grabs)
Otherwise, the needles don't give enough reward. Nowadays they're used for free damage when the opponent won't approach and gathering information while forcing then punishing their get-in options when they do.

You don't see us abusing needles as much as Mewtwo and Greninja players abuse their projectiles because we have actual approach options.

Fair enough, and good to know. So I'm not really far off in thinking Shadow Ball could be better. Because it sounds like Sheik would love Shadow Ball way more than Mewtwo would want needles.

While he may have been a bit rude he has some good points. I mean even EL is rather rude, but that doesn't matter. This Melee-Brawl-Sm4sh discussion was nice breath of fresh air. It is interesting to hear what other people have to say even tho I might disagree with some of them.

EL's rudeness is different. It's moreso he has a philosophy that he sticks to. And if you press him, he can actually explain his logic. It's not empty rhetoric, and I'll always give him props for that.

 

[The-Technique]

While he may have been a bit rude he has some good points. I mean even EL is rather rude, but that doesn't matter. This Melee-Brawl-Sm4sh discussion was nice breath of fresh air. It is interesting to hear what other people have to say even tho I might disagree with some of them.

i like emblem lord more because i can get behind the "git gud" mindset more than "hurr this game and ppl who play it suk". regarding the latter you can watch a twitch stream with smash 4 being played after a melee session and get that same feedback more or less

Touché. Actually, question about your expertise - is there a reason Sheiks (not named ZeRo) don't abuse needles? I get that the range nerf was a hit, but it still has large effective range.

It's to the point where - though I know it's one of the best projectiles in the game - I don't really see that being demonstrated as much. The way WaDi uses Mewtwo's Shadow Ball feels more like how I would expect Sheiks to use needles in neutral? Obviously vastly different projectiles, but.

in my experience, sheik needles only demand respect at percents where it sends you into tumble or confirms into kill options or edgeguards. at low percents, needles are more of a nuisance whereas sheik's grab and f-air are way scarier in neutral where she can combo you until you're offstage and trap you on the ledge

 

[Minordeth]

None of this discussion over the past two pages is new or interesting. Read Dave Sirlin if you want some in-depth game design philosophy with actual arguments.

This is the age old "does complexity equal depth" argument, and it's just as flawed now as it was back in the day.

Is Street Fighter 3 less deep than Marvel vs Capcom 2? Is Tekken less deep than Guilty Gear?

Most of the arguments in the affirmative have poor premises because they base the term "skill" on something narrow, and extrapolate out depth from something as vague as "options."

Does a game let me get to a deep level of Yomi/mind games? Is it competently made? Smash 4 has plenty of traps, set-ups, mind games, mix-ups, and whatever else. That people are still labbing this game and implementing new stuff means the game is still alive, so let's talk about that.

For instance, Dabuz is really pushing Luma jab traps. Watch Xeno house. Let's talk about it.

 

[DanGR]

I think the technical skill ceiling for practical techniques is actually ridiculously high in Sm4sh. It's just that few top players are willing to spend time to hone the skills that make it so high (mostly movement related) since the perceived impact they have on play is still small compared to other more efficient avenues of improvement. Either that or they tend to think it's just not impactful, outright. Idk. Either way, I think it's wrong for competitors to neglect heavy investment in movement practice because I do think it's efficient and impactful towards winning.

Anecdotally speaking, my play has certainly improved a good bit from good use of PP, pivots, and EDD transitions into other advanced movements. Utilizing these techniques well with Rosa when Luma is dead makes a world of a difference at evasion, for example.

Anyways, it's inevitable that we'll reach a certain point where practicing those skills will start to look like more enticing improvement opportunities for the pros. I think at that point we'll see a small burst in metagame development because it has been undervalued for so long. You'll see!

 

[FeelMeUp]

in my experience, sheik needles only demand respect at percents where it sends you into tumble or confirms into kill options or edgeguards. at low percents, needles are more of a nuisance whereas sheik's grab and f-air are way scarier in neutral where she can combo you until you're offstage and trap you on the ledge

Not exactly.
They demand respect and force approaches at all percents because she has the ability to cancel the charge without shielding and immediately go into dash, jump, or grab. This means that she can force you into 50/50s and mixup situations(i.e cancel charge into boost grab or rising fair) that are horribly slanted in her favour over and over again with little to no risk.
Mewtwo doesn't have this because he needs to shield. So it's not as simple as switching the character specials to see how each would change.

 

[The-Technique]

Not exactly.
They demand respect and force approaches at all percents because she has the ability to cancel the charge without shielding and immediately go into dash, jump, or grab. This means that she can force you into 50/50s and mixup situations(i.e cancel charge into boost grab or rising fair) that are horribly slanted in her favour over and over again with little to no risk.
Mewtwo doesn't have this because he needs to shield. So it's not as simple as switching the character specials to see how each would change.

what i mean is like, the needles themselves aren't that deadly of a projectile at low percents. at the start of every match i ignore the needles because its way worse to sit in shield anticipating a needle storm and instead have sheik run in for a grab and get slapped for half a minute

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

David Sirlon's website is a good read for I think for fighting game players. I think I quoted it in last year's thread. He has a free book online that everyone can read here for our genre. http://www.sirlin.net/ptw


I think another reason why customs failed is because Mii Fighters/Palutena and Custom Moves were lumped together under title even though they are different besides sharing the "custom moves" name. And since thry were lumped together, the whole idea as a whole fell through.

Not to mention the knee-jerk/scrub reactions to custom Villager, Small Mii Brawler Helicopter Kick that the then new community was afraid of and still leaves an unreal but lasting impact on thr community.

I remember seeing Eventhubs posting an article shortly after the Evo customs event where notable players and Mew2King said to ban custom Villager or just that special because he deemed it too strong; and I think the community just went along with it since he was a veteran melee, brawl, and project m player and did not question his opinion in the beginnings of Smash 4.

Link: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gg0MAI&usg=AFQjCNGSKyoBu67qjdmzoFMBeYorPn7Exg

Then there was the 2 stock tourney standard that the US strongly pushed along with trying to grow Smash 4 as an Esport.
I believe TO's and the small group that makes up the SoCal smash committee listened to the vocal players who complained in person at their events, in twitch chat, online, and not to mention the notable players within the committee itself and the others that they may have talked too.

The last that I recalled looking at the list of names, there were: commentators, TO's, and notable players. I think they might share a common bias since they originally came from the melee/brawl scene.
Then there was Wrath and other Sonic players who popularized timeouts and campy strategies which twitch chat and players called scrubby, boring, not exciting, unbeatable (I'm exaggerating now), time waster, tourney extender, ruined Smash 4 as a spectator sport, and etc.
Which is why I think that Duck Hunt, Customs, and 3 stocks were neglected.

I think they paid too mich attention to the vocal complaints thrown at them from every direction similar to maybe how Smash 4's balance patch team may have initially reacted to Little Mac's For Glory dominance on release.

That is, until videos started popping up showing how to defeat Little Mac, but I think those videos came a bit too late since by around the time I saw them pop up, Little Mac's Jolt Haymaker aerial range was nerfed.

I also think that the whoever's decision it was to believe or maybe think from a casual gamer prospective that a flat stage with no items would provide an even advantage to entire cast (learned that one from TvTropes today).

Maybe it might have stemmed from the belief that a portiom of casual players defaulted to final destination in melee/brawl when they felt like playing serious as far as skill is concerned without items or other players in a 1v1 setting. I have also heard a suggestion that maybe Smash 4 got final destination stages in part to data collected from brawl's online play where allegedly a favorable amount of players preferred playing on final destination than any other stage.

EDIT: I also think reactions to Sonic timeout and camping are scrubby according to Tv Tropes definition.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gglMAA&usg=AFQjCNEQeliDkPTGGYjPeRjrbWw_I-PLkQ

 

[Minordeth]

I didn't see this get posted, so apologies if it did, but Mr. R posted his Sheik MU chart:

My honest opinion on Sheiks match ups

Dont @ me pic.twitter.com/VVX4pr625K

— BKROG | Ramin (@Mr_RSmash) September 28, 2017

ETA since no one's posted:
Quite a few commenters were incredulous that both Bayo and Puff were +1, but Mr. R did a good job of breaking down how their tools interact. Of note, Blank disagrees that Rosa is a possible -1, and firmly places it at a possible +1.

I'm inclined to agree, because most people seem mystified by Luma, and it's hard to tell if Mr. R is basing his perception of tool interaction on more than his experience with another player with a stellar neutral who also plays Rosa.

 

[Lord Dio]

Fun fact, komorikiri is a large part of why miis and customs were banned in sumabato, he absolutely murdered people with mii brawler.

 

[|RK|]

I didn't see this get posted, so apologies if it did, but Mr. R posted his Sheik MU chart:

My honest opinion on Sheiks match ups

Dont @ me pic.twitter.com/VVX4pr625K

— BKROG | Ramin (@Mr_RSmash) September 28, 2017

ETA since no one's posted:
Quite a few commenters were incredulous that both Bayo and Puff were +1, but Mr. R did a good job of breaking down how their tools interact. Of note, Blank disagrees that Rosa is a possible -1, and firmly places it at a possible +1.

I'm inclined to agree, because most people seem mystified by Luma, and it's hard to tell if Mr. R is basing his perception of tool interaction on more than his experience with another player with a stellar neutral who also plays Rosa.

I know ZeRo spoke on it a bit as well, saying the MU is terrible for Sheik, and that Mr. R shouldn't bother with it. Mr. R eventually started using his Cloud for the MU, which is more successful so far.

---

Regarding custom moves - any second look at them would need to limit them heavily. Custom DK never had Ding Dong at his disposal. The combination of consistent, early kills coupled with a good neutral & solid disadvantage (and heavy weight) might be just a little much. But, who knows?

I don't necessarily want to discuss something that's pretty solidly meta-irrelevant right now... But it's something that always makes me curious. Many people cited over centralization as the reason customs were needed before... So considering how much people complain about DLC, you'd imagine customs would fall under consideration again.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

I agree that they could use a second chance.

2gg's stance on Mii Fighters, as far as not switching moves midset, I think has moved on to Marvel vs Capcom Infinite, since the first weekly tourney they held for that game did not allow players to switch their infinity stones midset.
So that got me thinking that a small region bias where the heart of FGC Esports is located, is making their rules become the norm.

Edit: What I meant to say was that I think that that region is heavily against any type of customizable/player choice feature that is outside of the standard barebone FGC rules.

 

[blackghost]

This community has made it very clear that they do not value player expression or having a multitude of options. the argument for removing custom moves was always a short sighted argument
"we need the meta to settle."
"I don't want to deal with these moves."\
"i dont want to learn how to deal with these moves."
It was the easy response to change and this community choose to stick its head in the sand and ignore it. Now here we are couple of years later and some people are grumbling about limited options and such and my first question always is where were you when we decided as a community to remove literally 66 percent of each characters' options?
I love how even in a site that wants (or believes) it is rational people still run to custom dk as a defense against custom moves. DK would be good but he would not dominate. he still would get crushed in the same situations he does now and he would lose his reversal.
As for the mii argument changing thier size to small is what makes them crazy not changing thier moves. The small miis airspeed allows them to do very stupid things.
NINTENDO Galaxy i don't have words for 2gg but east cast marvel is already well behind against west coast its only hurting itself. and thats what we have seen when small regions have rules that aren't in unison with the community at karge it restricts thier players ability to compe out of region. Just remeber how spain and certain regions (maybe one local) event in michigan were talked abut when they banned a character

 

[R3D3MON]

Regarding custom moves - any second look at them would need to limit them heavily. Custom DK never had Ding Dong at his disposal. The combination of consistent, early kills coupled with a good neutral & solid disadvantage (and heavy weight) might be just a little much. But, who knows?

So we should ban Bayonetta right?

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

This community has made it very clear that they do not value player expression or having a multitude of options. the argument for removing custom moves was always a short sighted argument
"we need the meta to settle."
"I don't want to deal with these moves."\
"i dont want to learn how to deal with these moves."
It was the easy response to change and this community choose to stick its head in the sand and ignore it

I agree with all of this. You said it short, sweet, and straight to the point. Way better than I have attempted several times.

I do remember hearing all 3 of your points years ago. I forgot the real reasons were that simple and crazy and everything else that is usually talked about in regards to custom moves was just a ton of false alarms the community talked about so much they believed their stories and it was a successful cover up/obstacle to distract the community from the main issue at large.

As for Evo 2015, I was watching the stream and saw the complaints that arose afterwards and am now shocked that what I considered to be an easy fix 2 years ago, turn into what it is today.

Talks of balance, character expression, and the "half of the cast is viable" phrase that gets thrown around rubs me the wrong way; since many people in the community want to avoid the customs topic like it will pull the carpet from right beneath them and ruin the very foundation they stand on (which is will and had done before).

Talks about customs are seen as beating a dead horse, and they have already tried to throw the custom community a bone to shut them up to mixed results.

 

[|RK|]

So we should ban Bayonetta right?

I worded my post specifically to avoid this response.

Bayonetta's kill confirms aren't nearly as consistent as DK's. If you're grabbed within a certain window, you die, period.

DK is heavier, and has intangible limbs. In addition, wind boxes allow him to negate platform camping to a degree & safely gimp opponents. I have no doubt Custom DK would be very powerful these days.

But again - who knows?

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Custom DK never had Ding Dong at his disposal

Well, this wouldn't be true anymore.

 

[R3D3MON]

I worded my post specifically to avoid this response.

Bayonetta's kill confirms aren't nearly as consistent as DK's. If you're grabbed within a certain window, you die, period.

DK is heavier, and has intangible limbs. In addition, wind boxes allow him to negate platform camping to a degree & safely gimp opponents. I have no doubt Custom DK would be very powerful these days.

But again - who knows?

But clearly you are already expressing the conviction that certain customs should be "banned" instead of letting players develop them and letting other players develop appropriate counterplay for them. See how you are already limiting players' options from the get-go?

 

[|RK|]

Well, this wouldn't be true anymore.

That's what I'm saying. Wind Kong was a powerful threat with the various wind boxes alone. After we decided not to do customs anymore, then Ding Dong was added.

Hm. I wonder if Bowser has any good customs that make Shell Shock scarier.

EDIT: Oh, right - Dash Slash.

 

[verbatim]

pretty sure custom DK didn't make top 96 at evo.

Regardless in the current metagame windkong would probably be a pretty strong counter to Cloud and Bayonetta. You can't witch time Kong Cyclone and DK now outranges both of them.

 

[R3D3MON]

That's what I'm saying. Wind Kong was a powerful threat with the various wind boxes alone. After we decided not to do customs anymore, then Ding Dong was added.

Hm. I wonder if Bowser has any good customs that make Shell Shock scarier.

Dash slash (3rd custom side-b)

 

[Hippieslayer]

No custom chars were ever bannable because they were OP. Not cyclone-kong, not all moves mini size mii fighter and not explosive balloons n trip sapling villager, not even spindash hammer or whatever it was called sonic. The only custom move that might've been worth banning was villagers explosive balloon, and that for pragmatic reasons. It was just too lame to show on stream and would've hurt the community, correct counter play was being patient resulting in very boring games. The rest would've been fine. Sheik and Diddy were far more overpowered without customs back then than any character was with customs.

It was a moronic decision to ban customs, and it was made because people were lazy, stupid and shortsighted, far more prone to rely on base instincts and mob mentality than rational decision making. It temporarily made the game more enjoyable and easy to get into back then but limitied its potential growth and lessened the amount of viable characters permanently. And now, some years later that's pretty obvious.

There were never any good arguments for banning customs, and there were many plain horrible ones. The principles that govern competitive gaming were thrown out the window and scrubby idiocy was omnipresent.

One of the most horrendous of all the crap arguments against customs was that since customs didn't get patched they weren't intended for competitive play. As if though the intentions of the developers mattered on their own. Another was that DLC characters didn't have customs moves and that thus it would be unfair. Those make me boil inside just thinking about them. May the people who saw fit to discharge such vile nonsense suffer their firstborns to be blind in order that the moral balance of the cosmos be restored.

I suggest that everyone who was against customs being legal and are part of the brawl backroom are now thrown out head first into the mud as they deserve to be for failing to recognize the basic principles of competitive gaming.

 

[Nu~]

No custom chars were ever bannable because they were OP. Not cyclone-kong, not all moves mini size mii fighter and not explosive balloons n trip sapling villager, not even spindash hammer or whatever it was called sonic. The only custom move that might've been worth banning was villagers explosive balloon, and that for pragmatic reasons. It was just too lame to show on stream and would've hurt the community, correct counter play was being patient resulting in very boring games. The rest would've been fine. Sheik and Diddy were far more overpowered without customs back then than any character was with customs.

It was a moronic decision to ban customs, and it was made because people were lazy, stupid and shortsighted, far more prone to rely on base instincts and mob mentality than rational decision making. It temporarily made the game more enjoyable and easy to get into back then but limitied its potential growth and lessened the amount of viable characters permanently. And now, some years later that's pretty obvious.

There were never any good arguments for banning customs, and there were many plain horrible ones. The principles that govern competitive gaming were thrown out the window and scrubby idiocy was omnipresent.

One of the most horrendous of all the crap arguments against customs was that since customs didn't get patched they weren't intended for competitive play. As if though the intentions of the developers mattered on their own. Another was that DLC characters didn't have customs moves and that thus it would be unfair. Those make me boil inside just thinking about them. May the people who saw fit to discharge such vile nonsense suffer their firstborns to be blind in order that moral balance be restored in the cosmos.

I suggest that everyone who was against customs being legal and are part of the brawl backroom are now thrown out head first into the mud as they deserve to be for failing to recognize the basic principles of competitive gaming.

The patch team even nerfed explosive balloons twice over the last two patches lol. Smaller hitboxes and a fuel mechanic.

 

[|RK|]

The patch team even nerfed explosive balloons twice over the last two patches lol. Smaller hitboxes and a fuel mechanic.

Yup. I was going to add that customs have been patched over time, even

 

[ARISTOS]

The argument for customs got badly derailed by balance arguments, when that should have never been the focus. The focus should have always been on increasing character options. Those who argued that customs would balance the game made a very bad argument.

The only real issue was logistical, but if we pushed I'm sure it could be solved by now.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Hrmm, for me custom moves were only an option for zard's side B, then I ran into the problem of 'damned if you do damned if you don't', with dragon rush I kept my lateral recovery and gained a move that can be used quickly but was also easily interrupted by the weakest moves, blast burn was much more powerful, able to break shields, had ridiculous power, and wasn't easily interrupted, however it's lack of range and moronically slow speed meant it couldn't be used as a horizontal recovery. I typically didn't even bother with custom moves and instead went with a no-frills approach buffing zards stats instead.

 

[Rizen]

Red topics: "Ruleset Preference Discussion", just saying.

imo 's flare blitz is a good move; it's just restricted to being a punish/recovery by the distance and recoil. It's great for burning through weak projectile spam and punishing landings. You can't think of it the same way as mobility bursts like bouncing fish.

Zard feels like he was designed to work with rage. Several super armor moves, a self damaging attack, big floaty frame, etc but he lives forever with a long recovery and weight. Zard is one of the scarier rage characters. He doesn't need to worry much about losing combos because his throw kills by its self and doesn't have many confirms. Zard's non-confirm attacks aren't bad for killing and he has a lot of them.

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Red topics: "Ruleset Preference Discussion", just saying.

imo 's flare blitz is a good move; it's just restricted to being a punish/recovery by the distance and recoil. It's great for burning through weak projectile spam and punishing landings. You can't think of it the same way as mobility bursts like bouncing fish.

Zard feels like he was designed to work with rage. Several super armor moves, a self damaging attack, big floaty frame, etc but he lives forever with a long recovery and weight. Zard is one of the scarier rage characters. He doesn't need to worry much about losing combos because his throw kills by its self and doesn't have many confirms. Zard's non-confirm attacks aren't bad for killing and he has a lot of them.

That may be but flare blitz has no room for error, you bounce into a shield? You get jablocked, someone hits flare blitz in just the right way to interrupt it? Jablock. Flare blitz is so easy to punish due to jablock it's scary.

 

[|RK|]

Hrmm, for me custom moves were only an option for zard's side B, then I ran into the problem of 'damned if you do damned if you don't', with dragon rush I kept my lateral recovery and gained a move that can be used quickly but was also easily interrupted by the weakest moves, blast burn was much more powerful, able to break shields, had ridiculous power, and wasn't easily interrupted, however it's lack of range and moronically slow speed meant it couldn't be used as a horizontal recovery. I typically didn't even bother with custom moves and instead went with a no-frills approach buffing zards stats instead.

In general, stat modifications were still banned. Only the custom moves were allowed.

That said, I heard many good things about Dragon Rush...

That said, Rizen brings up a good point.

So, regarding the existing meta... One idea I pushed is that Smash 4's inconsistency comes from lack of defensive options.

But upon reading novriltataki's response to that, I'm reconsidering a bit. What makes it so much easier to outplay top players in Smash 4 compared to Melee?

Honestly, did removing the tech skill barrier really expose that much? And I'm trying to be careful with my choice of words here, because I'm not implying greater tech skill = greater depth.

But when I watch Melee, I notice that lower level players can never move as quickly as the upper level players. This is also evident in Smash 4, but that gap is so much less obvious IMO.

And so it's like - being able to do more things with your character on top of fundamentals tends to separate the top players from the rest. But with little to no tech skill barrier, it almost entirely comes down to fundamentals.

Does Smash 4 suffer from a lack of willingness to "perfect" one's character, maybe? Do attitudes like this exist in Melee? And finally - would character mastery be sufficient to create a skill gap like this?

So for example - if Ally optimized his punishes in the way Armada always does. If ZeRo did... idk. Rising Barrels? Ledge trump dair? So on and so forth.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

It was just too lame to show on stream and would've hurt the community, correct counter play was being patient resulting in very boring games.

So is playing to win bad?

Honestly, did removing the tech skill barrier really expose that much?

Yes.

Edit: Is there going to be a thread for GTX? The stream has been live for a few hours as of now.

http://www.twitch.tv/endgametv1

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Ignore this mess up.

 

[Hippieslayer]

So is playing to win bad?

Why the snide rhetorical question implying I hold a position I gave no indication of holding?

Practice your reading comprehension before you make kneejerk replies; here's the rehash you obviously need: I didn't say that I personally would want explosive balloons banned in a theoretical customs legal meta, I said that explosive balloons may have to be banned because other people couldn't handle them to such a degree that it may be detrimental to the smash 4 scene as a whole: A pragmatic reason for banning explosive balloons.


Final elaboration to clarify the underpinnings of my reasoning further: If something is so lame it makes people not bother with a game at all, then banning that something would be worth it even if it wasn't OP for the sake of saving the game. In the case of explosive balloons and even cyclone-kong, I could've accepted a ban, if it had saved the rest of the customs, it wouldn't have been fair, and it wouldn't have been rational, but in a stupid world run by stupid people you sometimes have to make sacrifices for the greater good.