Official 4BR Tier List V3 - Competitive Insight & Analysis

[L9999]

What lies?

1) She has less range 2) She has less shield safety than Marth 3) She can't kill 3) Her MUs are worse than Marth's because the tipper. We went through these for months in the last thread.

 

[TDK]

What lies?

"Lucina is bottom 5 because no tipper"
"She has no tipper so +2 MU"
"If you're using Lucina you don't take this game seriously"

that kind of thing.

 

[FeelMeUp]

well, funny you mention that.
people have consistently been living to 150+ against Lucina players while that was rarely ever the case against Marth.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

How is it bandwagoning when Nairo, Mr E, and many others have tried Lucina before ZeRo picked her up? I actually like that Lucina is seeing more love this days, it feels satisfying after all the bull**** lies about her that were parroted for ages and all the poorly thought arguments against her viability.

For the record, most people in this thread bandwagon and oversimplify character usability, strengths, and weaknesses. Its hardly something exclusive to Lucina.

 

[Zelder]

I will start taking hostages if this somehow leads back to a Marth vs Lucina discussion.

I kind of have a similar sentiment about the big upswing in Lucina usage, I wouldn't say hate but let's just say Its making a Lucina seem a little more stale lol. Although it makes perfect sense she is a very intuitive and quick to pick up character who rewards players with great fundamentals. That's NOT to say she's easy to play, she isn't but she is a great secondary choice.

How is it bandwagoning when Nairo, Mr E, and many others have tried Lucina before ZeRo picked her up? I actually like that Lucina is seeing more love this days, it feels satisfying after all the bull**** lies about her that were parroted for ages and all the poorly thought arguments against her viability.

1) She has less range 2) She has less shield safety than Marth 3) She can't kill 3) Her MUs are worse than Marth's because the tipper. We went through these for months in the last thread.

"Lucina is bottom 5 because no tipper"
"She has no tipper so +2 MU"
"If you're using Lucina you don't take this game seriously"

that kind of thing.

well, funny you mention that.
people have consistently been living to 150+ against Lucina players while that was rarely ever the case against Marth.

I will start taking hostages if this somehow leads back to a Marth vs Lucina discussion.

...

i know what you're thinking, and yes: i can be commissioned for artwork today

 

[Nathan Richardson]

Ugh and even though it livened up the forum it's back into this same discussion, someone always wants to bring up this discussion every five pages......or however long it takes for them to forget we already had this discussion.

 

[Krysco]

1) She has less range 2) She has less shield safety than Marth 3) She can't kill 3) Her MUs are worse than Marth's because the tipper. We went through these for months in the last thread.

Isn't less shield safety not entirely wrong? If both characters were to say land an ftilt on an opponents shield at the tip, Marth would do more damage and keep them in shield slightly longer, right? On the other hand, anywhere but the tip and Lucina would keep them in shield longer. Assuming the damage is even great enough for there to be a difference.

Come to think of it, the less range thing is kinda true but also kinda not. Marth being able to hit opponents on BF platforms with jab and ftilt while Lucina can't or atleast not as easily. I do recall someone -I wanna say it was FamilyTeam- mentioning that Lucina has more range downwards though, mentioning that a Lucina can jab a crouching Kirby but Marth can't.

 

[mimgrim]

Isn't less shield safety not entirely wrong? If both characters were to say land an ftilt on an opponents shield at the tip, Marth would do more damage and keep them in shield slightly longer, right? On the other hand, anywhere but the tip and Lucina would keep them in shield longer. Assuming the damage is even great enough for there to be a difference.

Lucina's does the same damage to shields with her whole blade that Marth does with his tipper.

 

[L9999]

Come to think of it, the less range thing is kinda true but also kinda not. Marth being able to hit opponents on BF platforms with jab and ftilt while Lucina can't or at least not as easily. I do recall someone -I wanna say it was FamilyTeam- mentioning that Lucina has more range downwards though, mentioning that a Lucina can jab a crouching Kirby but Marth can't.

The deal with the range lie was the sword, and both have the same amount of disjoint. What you say its true, but it isn't a big deal.

 

[Thinkaman]

I'm with Zelder . This game has 58 bloody characters; even comparing Pit and Dark Pit is better than this merry-go-round.

Please don't talk about Pit vs Dark Pit.

 

[Illuminose]

regarding zss:

sheik zss is quickly looking notably worse. we used to see it as fairly winnable, but now nairo has lost his last 4 sets against mr.r/void combined, and the sheiks tend to be in control the entire time. we used to say that zss could get her punishes and make it work, but the issue now is just that - zss can't get her punishes because sheik doesn't let them happen. sheik controls the flow of the game against zss, preventing her from getting anything started and consistently preventing her from getting grabs. you essentially have to bank on eventually getting the right punish and trying to make a lead out of it, but zss's punish game is not what it used to be on stages other than triplats. sheik has really turned from a slight annoyance for zss into a relatively dominating counterpick matchup.

the thing is that, in general, zss's main bad matchups (diddy, sheik, cloud, bayo) are not getting any better. sheik and cloud are both in fact getting worse as sheik and cloud players realize the correct options to prevent zss from starting anything up, making it difficult for her to win in those matchups. bayo is more in the range of 'slightly bad', but at this point diddy/sheik/cloud all have solid +2 matchups against zss. this isn't a good look and zss is not underrated whatsoever. people continue to ignore matchups and say ridiculous things like 'zss is top 5' when there's absolutely no way this lines up with her matchup spread, even being more optimistic. i'd say 11th? sonic, rosa, fox, marcina are definitely better, probably mario too, so that spot would make sense.

 

[FamilyTeam]

There's a bunch of reasons why discussing Marth vs. Lucina goes uncivil and we can already check out some of the reasons on this very page.
Yes, I am extremely happy to finally see 4 Lucinas in a Top 16. Shows that she can truly be very good and viable. It took a while and work, but we got there.
But seems like the smaller conflicts such as the ones on this thread are going to take ages to solve.
The discussion hasn't even started and you people are already complaining about it. None of you are helping it. Not in the slightest. It's been a while since the last discussion on this topic anyway!
The discussions about this character are already not productive and that is a shame in of itself, and doing this is not going to make it any more productive, much less frowning it upon!

It's a combination of the little things and the big things that make discussing this topic hard. Little things such as "people consistnetly live more than 150+ against Lucina" without showing any sort of solid proof or proper reasoning to that, especially when after ZeRo picked her up I thought "Oh hey, he gets some neat early kills with her!"
and honesty big things like "WAAAAH MARCINA DISCUSSION = BAD!" and insulting mains of either character or their arguments.

Let's be adults about this. All of you. This is simply just not how you discuss. You could say that about nearly every discussion here, but this one has reached an extreme.
Be reasonable. Try to make this thread about what it was actually supposed to be in the first place.

 

[DunnoBro]

It's more that ZSS's punishes aren't that strong anymore. Her ledgeplay is phenomenal, far more potent than sheik or diddy since she can kill you for standard/hang/rise all with dsmash at nearly any percent. And she's great at hunting down ledge jump even on reaction.

But her neutral and tools for getting you there are poor, and she doesn't really kill off grab anymore. No more consistently than Bayo does off witch twist (which is honestly sad)

I think ZSS will be falling off in favor of DLC. Like, there's no reason to even pick her up when Bayo is around. If you want a character who is just nair spam and touch of death, Bayo's what you want.

 

[Krysco]

Well if Marcina discussion is getting old again and Pit/DP discussion isn't wanted (what's there to talk about? Do you want arrows that force reactions or a more powerful side special?) then here's a possible start up for a discussion:

Near the end, 8bitman says he believes R.O.B. is either the best mid tier or worst high tier

 

[Luco]

Can we talk about The Great Gonzales chomping through John Numbers, Mr. E and WaDi at Royal Flush with solo Ness? Fantastic.

This weekend also was BAM. PK kids dun gud. I'll let Das Koopa do his thing though.

 

[FamilyTeam]

Straight up going and disencouraging Marcina discussion is not good. It doesn't go bad because it's inherently a bad subject - it goes bad because it's discussed badly. This is something that could be interesting if we handled it certain ways, yet how is it handled?
It's handled by saying it's bad and then pointing fingers whenever it happens and goes wrong. This is not appropriate behaviour from anyone here.
I don't like the Marcina discussions here either because they too don't tend to be productive on either side. Tell me: What benefit is there when all that happens is just people throwing baseless arguments around, whatever they are, and then asking themselves why these go wrong?
There are so many ways a lot of this can be done right, and this doesn't just go for this specific subject. People just notice it more for this one.

 

[my_T]

where are the uploads for Royal Flush?

 

[DunnoBro]

Anti-Marcina is just a meme to me. I don't mind it.

I'll find other ways to ****post. Don't worry.

 

[TDK]

While she's very strong and top 10 for sure, I can't see ZSS being top 5. Her Neutral is really not great, and it relies more on the fear of the boost kick to force you to do what she wants. Her Punish game (Outside of on the ledge, her down smash is phenomenal) is also slowly getting worse as people are getting better at avoiding or DIing up air strings. Her Matchups are also getting noticeably worse as her inability to keep up with Neutral monsters is starting to show more and more, which is emphasized the most in the Sheik matchup, but her Diddy, Cloud, and Bayo matchups are all faltering a little as well.

 

[Rizen]

For the record I was, possibly, the first person to suggest Marth and Lucina be tier placed together way back in the v1 competitive thread. There really isn't any disagreement between informed players aside from a little placement nitpicking. I wouldn't mind the discussion if something actually got discussed. It's always "this result sure shows all these unnamed ignorant people who say outrageous things about Lucina they're wrong". The last post with real information about Lunina's meta was @Emblem Lord talking about Lucina's Nair>Fsmash several months ago. :/

 

[L9999]

Can we talk about The Great Gonzales chomping through John Numbers, Mr. E and WaDi at Royal Flush with solo Ness? Fantastic.

This weekend also was BAM. PK kids dun gud. I'll let Das Koopa do his thing though.

Thankfully those matches were recorded, as most Ness upsets don't get recorded. (Atelier upset.....) I watched the Mr E match and boy, it is a bad MU, but Gonzalez shows how dumb B-Throw and PKT2 are, and that Ness has an effective advantage state. Also Down Smash, that thing is clutch and deleted WaDi. I don't know what you think, but Gonzalez could see some mixups on his recovery.

where are the uploads for Royal Flush?

Youtube.

 

[Djmarcus44]

In order to hopefully minimize the number of hostages Zelder takes, I will mention some more recent advancements in Mii Gunner's metagame. We have found out how to space flame pillar at the ledge easily, and this makes Gunner's punish game more explosive and deadly by creating more opportunities for Gunner to flame pillar ledge trap opponents and kill confirm them with a charge blast. In addition, the video below shows that fair to charge blast is actually a kill confirm.

This is a video that shows some of the combos Gunner gets from fair. It also shows some hitboxes for Gunner that doesn't match their animations. Although it is wrong about Gunner having no throw combos, and it underestimates the safety of close range fair, the video does show that fair to charge blast is a kill confirm.

 

[The-Technique]

Well if Marcina discussion is getting old again and Pit/DP discussion isn't wanted (what's there to talk about? Do you want arrows that force reactions or a more powerful side special?) then here's a possible start up for a discussion:

Near the end, 8bitman says he believes R.O.B. is either the best mid tier or worst high tier

I believe it. ROB is a pretty obnoxious character to deal with when they know what they're doing.

 

[TDK]

Mega Smash Mondays 97 (100 Entrants) (SoCal)

1st: Zenyou
2nd: Falln
3rd: Rich Brown
4th: Elegant
5th: Razo
5th: Nicko
7th: IC
7th: K9Sbruce

People Short Hopping at Mario while in Kill % is one of my pet peeves of spectating this game.

 

[Yonder]

Mega Smash Mondays 97 (100 Entrants) (SoCal)

1st: Zenyou
2nd: Falln
3rd: Rich Brown
4th: Elegant
5th: Razo
5th: Nicko
7th: IC
7th: K9Sbruce

People Short Hopping at Mario while in Kill % is one of my pet peeves of spectating this game.

Elegant loses to Zenyou( Mario) yet again...

Granted idk if they fought in this tournament, and losing to either Rosa and/or Mewtwo makes sense for Luigi, I'm surprised he struggles so much against a 50:50/55:45 Luigi MU. It's getting harder and harder to say Luigi has the slight advantage vs Mario and Diddy these days when top level play doesn't support it in the slightest. I think it'll descend to even when all's said and done because Luigi still has his standout traits vs the two (faster damage rack+combo break Mario, traction damages bananas + deadly as heck with a banana)

 

[ARGHETH]

Elegant loses to Zenyou( Mario) yet again...

Granted idk if they fought in this tournament, and losing to either Rosa and/or Mewtwo makes sense for Luigi, I'm surprised he struggles so much against a 50:50/55:45 Luigi MU. It's getting harder and harder to say Luigi has the slight advantage vs Mario and Diddy these days when top level play doesn't support it in the slightest. I think it'll descend to even when all's said and done because Luigi still has his standout traits vs the two (faster damage rack+combo break Mario, traction damages bananas + deadly as heck with a banana)

Nah, he lost to falln and Rich Brown.

 

[Pudgetalks]

Battle Arena Melbourne 9 Results
Entrants: 244
Bracket Link: https://smash.gg/tournament/battle-arena-melbourne-9/events

1st: Extra

2nd: Ghost

3rd: Luco

4th: Aha

5th: Boozer

5th: Waveguider

7th: Swithi

7th: Jezmo

 

[NairWizard]

Elegant's losses to Zenyou are interesting and brings up an interesting point of discussion.

I actually counterpick Luigi with Mario in tournament.

"What? Why would you do that?"

Because I'm comfortable in the matchup!
I play a competent Marth and a competent Cloud, and I'm sure both beat Luigi on paper, but I hate the matchup and I don't know it well at all, so I'd rather go Mario any day. I know the Mario vs. Luigi matchup like the back of my hand. I know when to camp, how to gimp Luigi, how to string hits together, all the little intricacies like Rage % at which Luigi can kill me. I wouldn't even go Cloud in this MU if I mained Cloud, simply because my MU knowledge is so much less extensive there.

This is something that I think that a lot of people don't value enough. It doesn't matter if your character actually wins or loses a matchup. All that matters is your comfort level. Do you feel like you know the matchup well enough to win it, even if it's a 40:60 loss? Then you should play it. Simple.

 

[Nobie]

Battle Arena Melbourne 9 Results
Entrants: 244
Bracket Link: https://smash.gg/tournament/battle-arena-melbourne-9/events

1st: Extra

2nd: Ghost

3rd: Luco

4th: Aha

5th: Boozer

5th: Waveguider

7th: Swithi

7th: Jezmo

Between this and Regi's victory, i wonder if there's a small G&W revival in the works. I still feel like the character is often underrated, and that his neutral isn't as bad as is claimed. Something about the ability to maneuver in the air + disjoints + up smash says to me that he can take a bite out of a lot of characters.

I'm going to use the Marcina discussion to springboard into a more general topic, which is player preference for one's character based on the kinds of decisions that one has to make.

When you hear the reasons ZeRo picks Lucina, it isn't that different from why he uses Diddy. Both characters as used by him are good at getting reliable kills once you hit a certain percent. Even if Lucina kills 20~40% later than Marth, ZeRo is confident he can tack on 20~40% more damage anyway. He's a player who wants to prioritize decision-making ("did I hit you or not?") vs. over precise spacing ("how did I hit you?"), though spacing is still important.

Here's a somewhat similar relationship: Ding Dong/Koo Pah/Checkmate/Beep Boop/etc vs. Mewtwo up throw. In the former cases, you can get pretty early kills, but you have to take a lot into account. It's not just about you having X amount of rage and the opponent being at Y damage, you then have to think about a range at which your Hoo Hah no longer works. Got 90% on you? You're still golden. 91%? Get boned.

In contrast, Mewtwo doesn't get the absurdly early KOs of a Ding Dong, but his is just a plain more reliable vertical kill throw than any other. You know that if you hit a certain percent on your opponent, they're dead no matter how much rage you have. And you don't need to worry about having TOO MUCH rage.

But the opponent knows this too! Everyone plays carefully against a Mewtwo grab at high percents because they KNOW for a fact that it'll end their stock, and it's not hard to know when it'll start killing. Against the Hoo Hah family, a lot of it is like an arcane science where the mains know the percents because they've labbed them out extensively. You'd have to put in as much effort as DKWill in figuring out Ding Dong percents, and I think most top players don't. They have a rough idea of "I must worry about Ding Dong" but they don't know the nitty-gritty. DKWIll actually mentioned on a stream that Toon Link is a bad matchup because he can bomb himself to get out of Ding Dong percents!

The result is two different ways to play with grabs, and two different ways of having to account for the opponent's countermeasures.

 

[FamilyTeam]

The argumentos ZeRo uses to justify using Lucina over Marth are things people who've chosen her over him patches ago, such as myself, have always said. We might not get that many kills sub 50 (it's not like Marth is consistently doing that every other match anyway) but what we like is the consistent high-damage Blade, with enough knockback to combo at low percents and go still kill earlier than most later with moves like Nair, Bair, Uair, sometimes Fair, Up Smash, FSmash, DB, Jab>DS/Utilt, and maybe more I can't remember right now because it's 6AM.
When it comes to kill percents, last year when I got random blind matches from Mr. E, Pug and Leo and Mr.E's Lucina, Koga and some person from the BSD who uses Lucina pretty regularly whose name escapes me now, basically what I found was average Marth killed at 111% and Lucina 116%. That alone won't really tell the whole story of course. Marth was more extreme (he got one SB kill at 47% which really helped him, but also some kills past 180%) while Lucina didn't have the low extreme but not the high extreme either (iirc earliest was about 80 and latest about 150).
You can make either of them seem like they kill early or late with the right matches. I will conduct this test again later now that ZeRo plays Lucina.

 

[PK Bash]

Can we talk about The Great Gonzales chomping through John Numbers, Mr. E and WaDi at Royal Flush with solo Ness? Fantastic.

This weekend also was BAM. PK kids dun gud. I'll let Das Koopa do his thing though.

Poppt and yourself were both phenomenal. Top stuff!
I haven't watched all of TGG's matches and the only one I've watched twice so far is vs John Numbers, but I feel something important was his ability to pick up on his opponent's most comfortable positions and also on them being scared. Putting the two together seemed to be important certainly vs John Numbers and I'd say WaDi too though I need to watch it again. He was exceptionally good at covering rolls. Numbers' rolls were what were really costing him imo.

I've only watched the set vs Mr E once but just based on first impressions, I think overaggression was key to his loss here. Gonzales kept punishing aerials and mis-swings of Dancing Blade etc. I can't help but think if Mr E used more jabs, ftilt and general restraint he might have done better? He seemed to assume that Ness couldn't operate around the sword at all and underestimated Ness' dash grab range, dash-to-shield game and things like that. At least imo. I can't really judge his play because I'm free, lol.
Massive props to The Great Gonzales for not being phased by rank or matchup or even previous encounters. He did so well. Between BAM and Royal Flush, this has probably been one of the better weekends for Ness in the last 12 months. He did pretty well at Civil War too. Nice to see him picking up a bit of steam again.

where are the uploads for Royal Flush?

I've found some on VGBootcamp VODs and some on Master Hand Gaming on Youtube.

 

[DunnoBro]

Not sure who, but I recall someone noting Cloud's disadvantage as "Worst" among the top tiers.

I'd like to revisit that theory with a big fat "Not even Close"

Cloud has an exploitable recovery. So do Fox, Diddy, and Rosa. These three also retain the option to recover high relatively safely and generate advantage. So does cloud with rising dair/uair. His air speed easily rivals flipkick/illusion (which they have to use their jump to properly space usually anyhow) or using his limit specials for anti-edgeguarding. Overall, he doesn't actually have notably less options when recovering than them.

Not being able to sweetspot is really just a trade-off for firefox/barrel start-up, or no hitbox.

Furthermore, unlike them, Cloud is HEAVY AS HELL. And has gigantic no-zones located directly below, above, and behind him. You can't safely string this character unless it's horizontal (sheik being the primary example)

So you pretty much HAVE to throw him offstage. There's no mix-ups, you're often at more risk than him trying to combo him onstage.

That's nothing new though, Ness, Luigi, Lucas, Ryu, and Villager share this "Don't bother, abuse their poor recovery/ledge return instead" dynamic.

Except, Cloud doesn't HAVE a poor ledge return. Literally every option he has is potent as hell.

Standard > Dsmash/Dtilt/Jab
Roll > Ftilt/Utilt
Ledge Jump > Dair
Ledge rising > Uair/Cross Slash

Furthermore, with his incredible airspeed, despite his fast falling nature, he isn't particularly easy to combo even in limit unless it's a purely vertical combo.

Note: I'm not bringing this up for a "Cloud is broken" discussion. But since playing Cloud that discussion really started to sit poorly with me.

 

[Bowserboy3]

I am also big on the Marth and Lucina discussion. I don't really see the point of not discussing them, or certain things that involve them because its not going to help them grow.

I won't stop on this topic too long though, but I will leave my opinion again; in a spoiler because I want to talk about something else too and I don't want to leave a big wall of text, but I suggest you give it a read:

Spoiler: Marth and Lucina comparisons (spoiler: they're pretty much identical)

I really don't think there is a major difference between Marth or Lucina at this point. I don't get the "Marth is probably better than Lucina", or even the pondering thoughts of ZeRo thinking Lucina could be better than Marth.

Why is this? Sure, they have their differences, but their differences have extremely minor effect on their overall MU spread, which is what is the most important thing to compare when comparing their overall viability. Effectively, their MU's are the same. Marth doesn't beat Mario because he can tipper Mario and he can be KO'd at 50% for example; it's his range and frame data, and ability to wall him out effectively that make this MU so hard. Lucina can do this too. Yes, Lucina could get a nice read and KO at 90% when Marth may do the same and not KO. Yes, Marth could get an even harder read and KO at 50%, but that's not the point.. There may be a small few where Marth might have a tiny bit easier time on paper than Lucina, and vice versa, but their MU's are all swayed in the same way because of their vital points; their range and frame data.

Comparing them and arguing who is better is pointless anyway IMO, but comparing them by their KO potential and "consistency" is even more ridiculous. Strictly speaking, neither character will have trouble KO'ing past around 165%, which is average Up Throw kill range. While Lucina might be able to get a read and KO at 90% with her Fsmash when Marth cannot do so consistent enough, Marth balances this out by him being able to KO off of winning/confirming in neutral; Marth lands a Jab at the ledge at 95% - that's a free tipper Ftilt that can KO. This will not with Lucina unless she has copious amounts of rage at around 130%. This is just but one example; his ability to KO off of his Dancing Blade (which has specific setups in which to land the tipper of the 4th hit, and also which he can set up into with his Jab) is another easy example.

They are pretty much identical in every other aspect in the game, and it's just up to the player to pick one of the two depending on what floats their boat. You might want to play Marth because you like the idea of being able to KO at extremely early percentages, or because you can KO pretty easily off of playing the neutral game, but you sacrifice, lets call it "leg room"; you have to be pretty much perfect for getting the most optimum punish, which is quite taxing sometimes. If you don't like that last thought, then Lucina is the better choice for you; while you won't be KO'ing at ludicrous percentages or KO'ing off of simply playing the neutral game, you have much more room to work with for getting the most optimum punish, and while the percents you can KO start a lot lower than Marth's for each move side by side, it's still very good overall, and you don't have to worry quite as much about spacing it perfectly as Marth would.

Their overall KO percents are pretty similar regardless anyway; if Marth doesn't land a KO at 45% with a tipper Fsmash, he'll likely be killing at around 100-110% anyway due to Jab 1 confirms or Dancing Blade, and if Lucina doesn't get that all important Fsmash or Usmash read at 75%, she'll still be KO'ing around the same range anyway (if not a tiiiiiny bit later) thanks to tools such as her Bair. Both of them can struggle to KO if they don't land those important moves properly; for Marth, if he doesn't tipper, and for Lucina, simply because anything outside of her smashes and Bair aren't super reliable anyway/don't KO reliably until Up Throw KO's. And on the topic of Up Throw, this tool puts a cap on when their troubles end; neither character should have much trouble sealing that stock at around 165%.

I personally choose to play Marth (admittedly, because he's my favourite FE character). I am a very patient player, and like playing the neutral game with him. As such, I like the feel of being rewarded for winning the neutral; I like landing Jab 1 at 100% and confirming it into a KO then and there. I like punishing a ledge getup at 80% and KO'ing with Dancing Blade. I like to play safe; I don't like the idea of going around using my laggy tools in the hope I may KO the opponent super early. This is why when I play Lucina, I do notice I KO on average a little bit later, as most of my KO's come from edgeguards off stage at higher percents.

My friend on the other hand plays Lucina (again, admittedly because he loves her). He doesn't like the idea being able to punish a rare mistake that could KO and not KO'ing because he spaced it wrong.

---

Anyway, I noticed some talk in the mix. I also think ZSS often gets criminally underrated at times. I often see people lump her as a high tier character and am like, "why?".

While I think top 5 may be a stretch (even if you still consider Nairo and Marss performances), I personally feel she's well into the top 10; possibly around 7th/8th, but undoubtedly top tier.

She's almost like Marth in a sense; she may be a little inconsistent/open for punishment at times, but a character that has multiple confirms to end your stock sub 50% is top tier by my book; Nair to Flip Kick, Dsmash to Flip Kick, Dthrow Uair shinanigans, Rage stuff in general etc. It's not like she has to rely on just this niche to back her up either, as her combo game alone is fantastic. These tools are only complimented by her having over the top movement and recovery options too. Pretty much everything about her screams top tier to me.

She's an absolute monster with Rage; aside from Boost Kick not connecting properly and KO'ing off of the multi hits at 30%, my personal favourite is considering how safe her Bair is anyway and then seeing it KO at 75% or even lower thanks to Rage. That and the "sour" (I mean, it'd damn strong, isn't not really sour at all) hit of her Flip Kick attack KO'ing lucidrously early; even if you miss the spike, KO's happen at 50% commonly with Rage.

Of late, Choco has shown pretty well all the reasons why ZSS is still a top tier character; there are 3 sets that I actually learned a lot of ZSS stuff in the past week (which helped me place 2nd at my weekly with her last week just by analysing the sets), from that latest Japanese major thing (the name escapes me). Just watch the sets; dow many times were stocks ripped out of the opponents clutches thanks to ZSS KO'ing super early? A huge chunk that's for sure.

Also count how many times she benefits from rage/gets a stock because of it. Again, a lot.

Said sets

Choco V Edge : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItZHSFCEehs
Choco V Nietono: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXQCcJh6GeQ
Choco V 9B: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CPOGBfu-pc

I use ZSS along with three other characters, and I have always considered ZSS my weakest of the bunch, but as of the past week, I have started feeling much more positive about the character. Granted, I have always been very positive about her; it's always been me being rubbish. Choco seems to play ZSS in a more patient, calculated style play than Nairo. I seem to have adapted to this style of play a bit better.

Nairo is a master at his own playstyle. I don't think his playstyle is the optimal playstyle for beginners, or even mid level players, as it's damn hard to get right. Heck, it might not even be the most optimal playstyle period, which is probably why ZSS seems so inconsistent in lower levels or online, as they try to copy Nairo too much. This doesn't take away from the fact that Nario is still the best ZSS in the world one bit, but I feel people try to make "plays" with ZSS too much and get punished for it. We aren't all Nairo.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Ugh and even though it livened up the forum it's back into this same discussion, someone always wants to bring up this discussion every five pages......or however long it takes for them to forget we already had this discussion.

Lucina was placed 8 spots lower than Marth on both the last 4BR Tier List and the last Smashboards Community Tier List. I imagine if Dark Pit were placed 8 spots lower than Pit people would object as well. If Lucina ends up right next to Marth in the next tier list, then I imagine we'll see much less Marth vs Lucina discussion.

I think Marth vs Lucina discussions are generally fine, and I imagine the reason she's brought up recently is because she's starting to get some great results. I also think the "Let's not have this discussion again" is actually worse than the actual discussion. Better to just discuss it for a bit and then move on to another subject.

Also, isn't it interesting that this could actually happen this year: https://smashboards.com/threads/4br...ive-impressions.429826/page-528#post-21321019

Both ZeRo and Nairo are strong contesters for winning EVO, and maybe even Mr. E will manage to pull it off (Tsu and Fataility almost did).

What I hope will happen: In a few months most people will agree that Lucina should be right next to Marth. Then we likely wouldn't see nearly as much discussion.

Not sure who, but I recall someone noting Cloud's disadvantage as "Worst" among the top tiers.

That downair alone makes him decent at landing in many MUs.

 

[FamilyTeam]

Generally when I KO with Lucina, it's not extraordinarily late or early. If I were to guess
- 25% of my KOs are Bair edgeguards (from 70 to 120)
- 25% are some kind of whiff punish (90 to 150)
- 15% are ledge trapping (from 50 to 120)
- 15% come from intercepting aerial approaches with Up Tilt (120 to 150)
- 10% are up throw (after 130)
- the last 9% come from some setup (DB1>Nair1>FSmash, Jab FSmash, Jab Up Tilt, Jab DB, Jab DS, whatever)
- 1% is Shield Breaker kills but I don't even count those for whatever reason... (30 to 40)

If I were to rate my most used kill moves then it'd probably be FSmash in 1st, Bair in 2nd. DB in 3rd, Up Smash in 4th and Up Tilt in 5th.
Nowadays I very rarely have people live against me over 140. At that point I generally have enough Rage myself to bait them into dying to Up Throw or Up Tilt. You jump too much to try to avoid Up Throw and you get Up Tilted much sooner than later. You stay on the ground and shield more to avoid that Up Tilt and you get Up Throw or maybe shield break.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Can we talk about The Great Gonzales chomping through John Numbers, Mr. E and WaDi at Royal Flush with solo Ness? Fantastic.

You forgot Pink Fresh. Plus he had a very close set with CaptainZack.

 

[|RK|]

ZSS... I'm gonna go with the crowd and say she's not as strong as she was. As people have said after the patch - she still has that high risk/high reward game, but that boost kick nerf (among other things) really hurt. I usually see ZSS get one chance to hit that early ladder. But if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. To make a comparison to another touch of death character - Bayonetta usually gets at least a few chances to get her staircase going. If it doesn't work, she can try again even around 90% or higher. ZSS doesn't really have that luxury.

Even her amazing ledge options only end a stock every now and again. And we'll usually see her potential in highlights, but I genuinely think that ZSS players are just *that* good. When they're on, she looks top 5 easy, but I think it's mostly them outplaying their opponents.

I think that ZSS actually has one of the weaker "X-Factors" in the game, despite being the original postergirl for the concept. I think top tier "X-Factors" are consistent "MU busters." That is to say, they can make their plays even in bad MUs, and make them look good. I genuinely don't think Bayonetta is as positive on the cast as ppl think right now, but her punishes make her seem like it. Ryu is another good example - he consistently wins against characters he shouldn't. And there are others, too. But ZSS doesn't seem to have that anymore, with three top tier characters showing the ability to make her win condition much harder to reach.

She has incredible mobility, of course, and awesome disadvantage... But maybe I've been spoiled by Bayo, because even ZSS's amazing disadvantage doesn't really compare. If there's anything to grow in ZSS's meta from a layman's perspective, it's figuring out how to more consistently get punishes in a safer way (I don't think the reward justifies the risk anymore) and/or figuring out something to do with that mobility. Because right now it seems way more "dazzle" than practical.*


*By this, I mean it's a player vs player weapon in most cases. It's something that can be used as a bait/setup/etc., but a good player is looking for your intention THROUGH the flash. Similar things can be said of projectile-based characters, etc. These things are USEFUL, but usually hide a secondary intention. If that makes sense.

 

[DunnoBro]

ZSS is completely outclassed by Bayo at nearly every point. They're probably the two most similar characters in the game excluding clones, from neutral, to advantage, to disadvantage. If I recall correctly, Bayo was even modeled onto ZSS.

Their neutral largely relies on nairs and risky but rewarding burst options. (Zss Grab vs Heel Slide) And occasional long distance pokes (Jolt vs Bullet arts/climax)
Their disadvantage hinges on their divekicks and escape options mixed with their ledge options. (Probably the best 2 in the game)
And their advantage relies on touch of death, edge/ledgeguards, and then fishing for bairs/grabs at high percent.

ZSS however is overall more tame(unless you're a big, slow hurtbox), and suffers from many losing matchups vs top tiers. Only really doing well vs Rosa and Sonic, which are iirc the least common top tiers.

She might be justifiable as a top tier still, but unless the DK Craze picks up, I don't really see much reason to use her over Bayo.

(And on that note, Bowser is better than DK at nearly everything so not sure why people are picking him up)

 

[ARISTOS]

(And on that note, Bowser is better than DK at nearly everything so not sure why people are picking him up)

Cause popular players are playing DK, that's all it is

 

[|RK|]

Bowser & DK have some solid differences. DK's bair, for example, is a HUGE selling point. His edgeguarding is a little better than Bowser's as a result.