Official 4BR Tier List V3 - Competitive Insight & Analysis

[Nu~]

^This

Sure Bayo ain’t “broken”, but I’m sick and tired of people trying to tell me that there’s nothing wrong here.

She genuinely feels like she’s engineered to make the opponent hate themselves.

 

[KakuCP9]

The way you make brawl MK sound less frustrating than Bayo is oddly sobering and slightly worrisome.The worst part is I can kinda agree with you.
Out of curiosity how far do think the gap between her and the other top are Shaya?

 

[TDK]

From my (limited) understanding of Brawl, if you guess wrong in disadvantage, you get hit once or twice and then return to neutral. Granted, it was brawl MK so that was a huge vice, but he doesn't seem to hit you that many times.

Guess wrong in disadvantage vs Bayo, and you can get taken to the top of the screen and die for a single mistake. Also, witch time.

MK was far far better but Bayo (and Cloud imo) are more frustrating to fight.

 

[Shaya]

The way you make brawl MK sound less frustrating than Bayo is oddly sobering and slightly worrisome.The worst part is I can kinda agree with you.
Out of curiosity how far do think the gap between her and the other top are Shaya?

If my distribution was feeling quite normal, she's the "top" tier of this game / one of two-three character's who are outliers in overall game balance (Jigglypuff, maybe Dedede/Cloud).
I can't really decide where Cloud fits into the grand scheme, he may share that zone with her, but she's still stepping outside the bounds that he already stretches pretttttttyy far (his options don't tend to be changing how the game works, just they're the best/near the best in many categories, that weighed against his recovery weakness makes it tough).

Everyone else is pretty ok.
Still, to properly quantify that gap is difficult. And something like non-interactivity doesn't exactly equate to overall "power level". But if we're looking to compare the gap in silly, then well, it's massive and really only specific moves like Diddy's fair [maybe not even, it's kinda overrated] and Rosa's jab (plus some other instances of single moves a character has) are comparable in silly to what she has in droves.

Spoiler: Can you imagine a world without Bayo/Cloud?

 

[The-Technique]

Guess wrong in disadvantage vs Bayo, and you can get taken to the top of the screen and die for a single mistake. Also, witch time.

To be fair your SDI has to be pretty much nonexistent to get killed off the top, especially at low or mid percents. Also a lot of Bayo's preferred combo setups are either telegraphed or unsafe such as Heelslide and grounded Witch Twist at center stage. Witch Time is dumb but it can still be punished like any other counter if you anticipate it.

Plus I just realized the discussion shifted back to Bayonetta woes...all because of a misinterpreted Twitter thread regarding Zero and Ally? Isn't clear by now that Zero was being facetious and Ally has been on a slump throughout the later half of this year?

Also I might be in the minority here but Cloud is so much more honest to fight compared to Bayo that I barely consider him top 5.

 

[BSP]

I can't really decide where Cloud fits into the grand scheme, he may share that zone with her, but she's still stepping outside the bounds that he already stretches pretttttttyy far (his options don't tend to be changing how the game works, just they're the best/near the best in many categories, that weighed against his recovery weakness makes it tough).

Top Clouds are great at not getting gimped, but Cloud can legitimately die every time he's knocked offstage without limit at nearly any %. That alone puts him so much farther into reality than Bayo imo, although both are very strong characters.

Also no safe grounded buttons, which is something that will become important as Emblem Lord has alluded to.

The way you make brawl MK sound less frustrating than Bayo is oddly sobering and slightly worrisome.The worst part is I can kinda agree with you.
Out of curiosity how far do think the gap between her and the other top are Shaya?

I've had the chance to play both Lee Martin back in brawl and Captain Zack in this game. Neither experience was positive (hopefully I can work on the latter XD).

For all of MK's crap, he didn't have witch time.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

If I had to assign power levels from 0-100 I would say Bayonetta is a 104 compared to Diddy/Cloud who would be like 97 or something. Bayonetta simply isn't designed like a smash character she has special rules, but it's not outrageous enough to where she's overly dominate or blatantly too strong we're as Cloud is just strong he still works like a smash character (I think a good comparison would be Melee Fox, simply strong characters that could stand to be toned down but nothing major) Does Bayo need to be brought more inline with everyone else? I absolutely think so but thankfully (not yet) she still has yet to shown me atleast to be game killing.

 

[Rizen]

You guys have a rosy recollection of Brawl. Half the cast gets grabbed once and either dies or is CGed across the stage and (shield) grabbing was very powerful. Brawl MK was like if SSB4 MK had (SSB4) Marth's reach transcendent, with Luigi's frame data and a better recovery than Bayo. No one could shut down characters like brawl MK.

Back to smash 4. Bayo makes you have to rethink game plans that work to varying degrees vs every other character. That's a pain and she has a fantastic reward to risk ratio but her 'power level' is still a lot closer to the rest of the cast than Brawl MK and top tiers were to lower characters. Diddy is basically a really good traditional smash character. Cloud is the ultimate swordsman character, take all the best traits of other sword characters and mash them into one to get Cloud. They all have their own top of the line things going on.

 

[The-Technique]

Cloud is the ultimate swordsman character, take all the best traits of other sword characters and mash them into one to get Cloud.

I wouldn't even go that far. Take Marth for example, he's got absolutely an bonkers good jab 1 and all around amazing tilts, complimented by his #1 walk speed. Cloud can only dream of having a ground game that good. I could go into depth on other characters, but basically what I want to say is that Cloud isn't one of the best because he's a "better" version of other sword characters, he plays and functions differently than everyone such that he's more desirable in the current meta

Also I failed to comment on this before, but there are a lot of characters that can challenge Bayonetta on the ledge, such that Captain Zack made a "tier list" a few months back detailing which characters do so the most effectively.

https://twitter.com/CaptainZack_/status/858906026145460224

 

[Rizen]

I wouldn't even go that far. Take Marth for example, he's got absolutely an bonkers good jab 1 and all around amazing tilts, complimented by his #1 walk speed. Cloud can only dream of having a ground game that good. I could go into depth on other characters, but basically what I want to say is that Cloud isn't one of the best because he's a "better" version of other sword characters, he plays and functions differently than everyone such that he's more desirable in the current meta

Also I failed to comment on this before, but there are a lot of characters that can challenge Bayonetta on the ledge, such that Captain Zack made a "tier list" a few months back detailing which characters do so the most effectively.

https://twitter.com/CaptainZack_/status/858906026145460224

That's a good point; Cloud's ground game lacks safety. Fortunately for him he doesn't have to rely on it.

One of Link's few saving graces in Brawl was he could stop planking/sharking. That carried over to ssb4.

 

[Shaya]

You guys have a rosy recollection of Brawl. Half the cast gets grabbed once and either dies or is CGed across the stage and (shield) grabbing was very powerful. Brawl MK was like if SSB4 MK had (SSB4) Marth's reach transcendent, with Luigi's frame data and a better recovery than Bayo. No one could shut down characters like brawl MK.

Back to smash 4. Bayo makes you have to rethink game plans that work to varying degrees vs every other character. That's a pain and she has a fantastic reward to risk ratio but her 'power level' is still a lot closer to the rest of the cast than Brawl MK and top tiers were to lower characters. Diddy is basically a really good traditional smash character. Cloud is the ultimate swordsman character, take all the best traits of other sword characters and mash them into one to get Cloud. They all have their own top of the line things going on.

You're not wrong about rosy tinted lenses, but MK was in a game of only 10ish "competitive" characters, so half the cast experiencing hell after being grabbed is probably underselling it, relative context is difficult in these cross game conversations.
I would maybe nitpick at better recovery; they're both extremely awesome/nearly infallible (MK technically had limited resources though that weren't refunded). Several characters could still make an MK player work hard; but because of MK's gimping proficiency he was never out of the game - stuff like cging to the ledge (there were DI mix ups at least) at early percent was just one of his many win conditions. He was a monster character. But this is (at least personally) still trying to be about what it feels like fighting them, not just distinctively how strong they were.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Am I reading that Bayonetta is "relatively" better than Brawl Meta Knight and the power gap between her and other Sm4sh characters is bigger than MK and other Brawl characters?

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Every time Bayo is brought up MK is brought up, but what if we don't compare characters to their previous versions counterparts and just compare them to this game by itself? I know it's crazy to simply compare a single game in a series with several sequels but instead of looking at a bunch of the other games and compare it to this one let's just judge the characters on the game by itself.
No comparisons to Brawl, Melee, 64, or any of the others, just Sm4sh by itself.

 

[Shaya]

Am I reading that Bayonetta is "relatively" better than Brawl Meta Knight and the power gap between her and other Sm4sh characters is bigger than MK and other Brawl characters?

That doesn't sound right to me, so probably not. Me: Why someone could/would complain about Bayo when they played Brawl - also it was made to sound hypocritical - there's a lot about her that isn't like MK and vice versa.
On "is bigger than MK and other brawl characters", in a cast size of mid-30s where only 10ish saw competition compared to what we have in smash 4? Noooo. Relative to the rest of the top tiers? Maybe, but there are more characters feasibly going even with her than Brawl MK did, and you would hope so too.
What I'm implying with "relatively" is that we have a pretty balanced game - a lot of characters are capable of having success unlike Brawl. MK won against everyone, many essentially unwinnable, but nearly everyone got beaten horrendously by a dozen or more characters. This isn't really the same situation in Smash4, but we do have a character who arguably sits outside the bounds a bit, and when everyone else is huddled in a healthy group, they stick out _more_ relatively.
Maybe a venn diagram or scatter plot would be a lot easier to help my point. Oh well.
Also let me clarify 'silly' - what their moves do for their game plans / potency in their use cases. Just one is enough to make a top tier. Having multiple may not matter as much if another character could just use the same one to similar affect, right? (similar 'power level' in a lot of cases). More options tends to mean better characters; some players and characters are able to overcome options that they don't have natural answers to (traditionally power shieldings been the holy grail for flipping a situation). You as a player having answers to multiple potential 'silly' options your character lacks natural answers for consistently is dire. That makes it very difficult, stressful and potentially frustrating to overcome. In theory anyone would be competent at dealing with every single bogus option in a vacuum, but not pragmatically when they all come together in a dynamic game plan with very few figurative holes.

 

[TDK]

JP Tournament dump:

Waseda Festival 2017 (128 Entrants) (Japan)

1st: Yakara
2nd: Eim
3rd: Choco
4th: Takera
5th: Gackt
5th: Repo
7th: Kisha
7th: Rain

25th: Earth

Kurobura 7 (64 Entrants) (Japan)

1st: Nagakawa Natsuki
2nd: Shanrai
3rd: Ke-Ya
4th: Kuzan (Also goes by Matcha, or MatchaN)

9th: Arika (It's not much, but it's kind of unprecedented for a Puff in Japan at all)

Hirosuma 8 (61 Entrants) (Japan)

1st: Hiro
2nd: DIO
3rd: Kome
4th: Agehasama

7th: Pikazono

Tohoku University Festival 2017 (60 Entrants) (Japan)

1st: Maguro
2nd: Tsujisato
3rd: Some
4th: Rokkon

 

[Krysco]

The whole Bayo compared to MK discussion was started by a mention of a tweet from Ally where he said, jokingly or not (I have no idea as I haven't seen the tweet) that Bayo makes Sm4sh not fun for him. Fun is entirely subjective and I even mentioned that unless Brawl MK was ledge stalling my Wolf, I much preferred going against MK than I do Bayo.

Bayo has bullet artes to force approaches, an amazing recovery that isn't quite as reliant on double jumps, can't be ledgehogged and has a wall cling/wall jump and doesn't enter helpless, has long lasting aerials to make edgeguarding or trapping landings easy, has a f1 air dodge that's amazing in most situations, requires murdering of the left thumb to even attempt avoiding death or massive damage from her combos which can start from a large pool of moves including a f4 OoS option and has a f5 counter that works just as effectively on the weakest jab to the strongest smash attack or special that can lead to the previous mentioned death or massive damage.

Brawl MK is by far the better character with his long, unclankable reach, fast startup and endlag, still amazing recovery, insane edgeguarding and power and ability to stall on the ledge. But all of that, for me personally was more fun to go up against than what Bayo has. More fun to fight against =/= less powerful.

You also can't just look at the tools Bayo and Brawl MK had but the tools every other character in the game provided. I felt more capable of handling MK with Brawl Pika and Wolf and the options they had (like QAC anywhere on stage, stronger edgeguarding, DACUS and Wolf Flash cancelling) compared to Bayo and the options Mewtwo, Roy and Robin provide me.

 

[Laken64]

25th: Earth

Is it just me or has Earth been in a slump since the beginning of this season? He used to get top 16 consistently and a decent amount of top 8s last season and the year before. At this point if you somehow haven't believed it before, is dead, his 2nd best rep Kuro has moved on to (who still has the honesty of Pit Kappa) and Earth is slipping regionally from the high position he used to have in Japan. That being said I wonder where the Pits will end up on the next tier list and who will pass over them. I expect Earth to make a full switch to if he wants to place higher again.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Is it just me or has Earth been in a slump since the beginning of this season? He used to get top 16 consistently and a decent amount of top 8s last season and the year before. At this point if you somehow haven't believed it before, is dead, his 2nd best rep Kuro has moved on to (who still has the honesty of Pit Kappa) and Earth is slipping regionally from the high position he used to have in Japan. That being said I wonder where the Pits will end up on the next tier list and who will pass over them. I expect Earth to make a full switch to if he wants to place higher again.

Lower placements could also be a mentality issue.

 

[Nu~]

Ignore this

 

[Ziodyne 21]

he whole Bayo compared to MK discussion was started by a mention of a tweet from Ally where he said, jokingly or not (I have no idea as I haven't seen the tweet) that Bayo makes Sm4sh not fun for him.

Well maybe it becuase yea the Bayo MU for Mario is looking as bad and rough as the Sonic MU honestly.


Mario has the same problem. If Bayo gets the percent lead she has no reason at all to approach Mario in any unsafe way. Bayo can just camp Mario put with all her various airiels and tools. Although with Bayo it more of Mario lacking the reach to contest with the huge, movimg wall of hitboxes Bayo can put on rather than not being able to keep up with Sonics mobility


The MU is looking less and less good for Mario over time. The saving grace is Mario has the potential some pretty gnarly combos on Bayo himself if he can grab her.

Ally complaining about Bayo is nothing new. He also was tweeting Bayo complaints at LTC when there were 4 or 5 Bayo's in top 8

 

[ぱみゅ]

Leo Saga has started.

Lima > Locus
Luthie > Cosmos
Razo > Manny
Captain L > Mistake
DSS > Shuton

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Also Elegant 2-0 Mr.R

 

[ぱみゅ]

Houston (a name I've never heard before) > Konga

 

[ShadowGuy1]

Either cosmos or Mistake will not make top 48. New blood be sweating

 

[ぱみゅ]

SS > Manny, drowning him in Pools

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Raito 2-1 Ned

 

[ShadowGuy1]

SS > Manny, drowning him in Pools

It was MastaMario according to ESAM

And cosmos is out...lost game 1, destroyed Mistake game 2, then lost game 3. Rip

 

[Locke 06]

Houston (a name I've never heard before) > Konga

Houston's a Mexican Wii Fit apparently.

 

[Yonder]

Been scanning brackets, looks like Elegant and Kirahara are doing very well, both haven't dropped a game yet. I notice Elegant performs significantly bettter at S tier events.


Captain L is also doing good from my region.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

Well we knew good players would end up drowing in pools due to how crazy stacked MKLeo saga ended up. Manny and Cosmos wont be the last.

 

[ぱみゅ]

AAAAAAAAnd, Shuton is out in pools too, lost to K9.

 

[Deleted member]

Is strong enough to get her own tier yet? Yes or no? I would like to hear all of your opinions!

 

[ShadowGuy1]

KEN lost to Lima...Bayo be making me a salty man today. Lima still played well though. KEN needs to work on the Bayo MU

 

[Ark of Silence101]

Houston's a Mexican Wii Fit apparently.

Peach main with a Wii Fit secondary, he is from my region.

 

[Ziodyne 21]

KEN lost to Lima...Bayo be making me a salty man today. Lima still played well though. KEN needs to work on the Bayo MU

Actullay, KEN does have a very strong record vs Bayo mains back in Japan, It just seems that Lima has been doing pretty well recently coming off his 2nd place in Canada Cup

It honestly is looking like the MU may be slightly losing for Sonic..

 

[ShadowGuy1]

Actullay, KEN does have a very strong record vs Bayo mains back in Japan, It just seems that Lima has been doing pretty well recently coming off his 2nd place in Canada Cup

It honestly is looking like the MU may be slightly losing for Sonic..

KEN also lost to Tweek’s Bayo at Fire Emblem Saga. Maybe the American Bayos know more about the matchup

 

[ぱみゅ]

Kameme apparently beat falln and is now up to face ZeRo.
This will be a good one.

 

[TDK]

>Comes home to find that not only has T lost to Zinoto, but he has to face his demon, KEN, in LR1

 

[Minordeth]

Phew. Aba smoked Esam 2-0. I expected it to be a lot closer given that Esam knows how Mewtwo works, but Aba would just not get caught by anything, and Esam couldn’t get anything started. Pikachu is going to lose versus Mewtwo in a shot-for-shot, and that’s basically how Aba played it.

 

[|RK|]

Salem is such a smart player, and Hikaru's SDI is what every other top player should have (but don't).

Hikaru never died early - only ever at "fair" percents. Salem was simply not able to kill him before roughly 120% ish. He also adapted super well - adjusting the drift of up b since he knew Salem would attempt another Witch Time. He also was able to tech out of Witch Time at one point and it's just... If other top players had that SDI... But real world.

On the other hand, Salem. After losing game 2, it seemed like (I could be wrong) his strategy shifted to "keep Hikaru offstage as much as possible." He only had so few mix-ups to return, so he was able to continuously pressure and push him in that direction. Any attempts to return to stage or land would get read and caught.

But it's like... I don't feel like anything truly "unfair" happened in this set. Salem played very intelligently, as did Hikaru. I enjoyed it despite g3 being a bodybag.