Official 4BR Tier List V4 - Competitive Insight & Analysis

[WiFi]

I understand where you're coming from, but do note that I covered, what, 25 characters or so? And that's for both Cosmos and Marth. That's not realistic for one person to do. I do believe that Corrin might be stronger than Marth. I mainly believe she's stronger than Marth because I believe that she does better than Marth in several important MUs. Now, of course, as several people have stated, MU charts can be unreliable. I believe that my post did a decent illustration

I will, of course, acknowledge that I could be wrong. I, like most people in this thread, have overrated certain characters in the past and underrated others. I might very well be overestimating Corrin and/or overestimating Marth, but then again, perhaps I'm right to hold her in such high regard (and, keep in mind, I still think Marth is top 15, so I wouldn't exactly say I hold him in low regards).

I suppose I could offer some concrete examples of matchups that I believe Corrin does better (at top levels of play) than Marth: Pikachu, Bowser, Donkey Kong, Rosalina, Mewtwo, Bayonetta, Meta Knight, Rosalina, and Sonic. For what it's worth, Corrin is better vs Ness too (poor guy). Marth seems to do better than Corrin in some notable matchups though, such as Fox, Cloud, and Samus.

Marth notably does much better in the Bayonetta matchup too, I've seen some nasty stuff that Marth can do against Bayonetta. Also, I feel that people forget that Marth is a very skill-oriented character, in the right hands, he can shine (*cough* tippers). Any bad matchup can be overcome by killing somebody at 40%. I do believe Corrin is better than Marth at this point, she doesn't rely as much as Marth does on getting tippers and she doesn't get destroyed by the heavies (*cough* counterpick characters) like Marth does.

 

[The_Bookworm]

The CQC game being worse than Ness - I don't know how, or where that comes from. Lucas jab (or is it dtilt, pretty sure its jab) hits behind him and sets up into a grab 50/50 or if continued on the final hit of jab tends to set up for a tech chase.
The grab being punishable on whiff to me is like, punishable on whiff IF YOU READ IT. The combined pressure of safe landing aerials (combined with a cheesy crouching jab), reasonably safe rising options, pokes like ftilt being safe on block... eh
It's good.

On the point of wherever he's overrated and the hidden potential argument is bogus/old and people are biased -
I think both characters are relatively similar in viability, I do think Lucas can go further because he does not have the same off stage issues as Ness does - issues which arguably make him unviable.

People hyping up the footstool combo stuff - same spiel with every character who finds a footstool set up - it's bull **** to rate a character based on that and not too many high-top level competitive players ever care about them (its just one very situational advantage state outcome which looks like it could deal MASSIVE DAMAGE, but so could you naturally, just extending your advantageous state through smart play).
I think Lucas having a consistent dthrow follow up, including at KO% on a majority of characters; even though its behind a 12frame grab with THE SAME END LAG compared to the fastest in the game vs the other tether grabs who are monstrously more compared to the fastest _wew, pause_ is a lot more important and relevant to their viability than footstool stuff.

I think it is down tilt that hits behind and has Lucas crouching. The only aerial that is safe to land if fair and that is it. A lot of Lucas's ground attacks is either burdened by short range in spite of his grab (like his jabs and down tilt) or having a noticeable amount of lag (such as forward tilt and dash attack). His grab while, while being the fastest tether grab in the game, is still somewhat slow (especially in terms of ending lag) and Lucas heavily relies on his grab to combo and KO (but thank goodness it is not as slow as in Brawl ). Btw, if Ness's offstage game is THAT bad to the point of unviableness, then why doesn't Cloud's bad offstage game (and even worse recovery if limit is not counted) makes him not top 5 in the game (other than the obvious). Lucas's recovery is better than Ness's, but it is still susecptable to gimps as well.

Another thing that I am asking is that if Lucas has all of those great tools, why isn't he taking top placements in tournaments ever since his release? His results has always been inferior to Ness's and his results are even worse than in 2016 in comparison. Lucas's matchups against characters ranked lower than him is worst than Ness's matchups, while Lucas's matchups against higher tiered characters isn't as polarizing as Ness's, he doesn't entirely do well against them either.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Why do you think Corrin does better than Marth in those MUs? I mean, you can just focus on the top 10ish in that list: Rosa, Sonic, Bayo, Mewtwo.

I do think it's rather obvious that Corrin does better than Marth in those MUs (except maybe Bayonetta, I think Corrin-Bayo is even but I could see Marth-Bayo also being even, haven't made up my mind on that yet, I'll research it a bit more I suppose). Of course, I am a Corrin enthusiast and have watched lots of Corrin matches, primarily by Cosmos, Ryuga, Frozen, and MkLeo. Perhaps it's not quite as obvious to other people as I think it is? Very well, I will attempt to do a write-up on these MUs. Focusing on 4 MUs or so is a lot less daunting than focusing on 25, at least.

Edit: Perhaps I came across as a bit arrogant when I called it "obvious". While it seems obvious to me, I still admit that there's room for doubt and that I could very well be wrong. I do think Corrin does better in these MUs, but I'm making an argument for it, I'm not stating an obvious fact.

Marth notably does much better in the Bayonetta matchup too, I've seen some nasty stuff that Marth can do against Bayonetta. Also, I feel that people forget that Marth is a very skill-oriented character, in the right hands, he can shine (*cough* tippers). Any bad matchup can be overcome by killing somebody at 40%. I do believe Corrin is better than Marth at this point, she doesn't rely as much as Marth does on getting tippers and she doesn't get destroyed by the heavies (*cough* counterpick characters) like Marth does.

I will address the Bayonetta matchup later. And yes, marth certainly can shine, he is a high tier character, after all. I don't think he has any MU worse than slight disadvantage, and he has a lot of even MUs and a good amount of slight advantageous MUs (especially against mid-tiers and low-tiers). He's a very solid character, and likely top 15.

 

[WiFi]

I do think it's rather obvious that Corrin does better than Marth in those MUs (except maybe Bayonetta, I think Corrin-Bayo is even but I could see Marth-Bayo also being even, haven't made up my mind on that yet, I'll research it a bit more I suppose). Of course, I am a Corrin enthusiast and have watched lots of Corrin matches, primarily by Cosmos, Ryuga, Frozen, and MkLeo. Perhaps it's not quite as obvious to other people as I think it is? Very well, I will attempt to do a write-up on these MUs. Focusing on 4 MUs or so is a lot less daunting than focusing on 25, at least.

Edit: Perhaps I came across as a bit arrogant when I called it "obvious". While it seems obvious to me, I still admit that there's room for doubt and that I could very well be wrong. I do think Corrin does better in these MUs, but I'm making an argument for it, I'm not stating an obvious fact.

I will address the Bayonetta matchup later. And yes, marth certainly can shine, he is a high tier character, after all. I don't think he has any MU worse than slight disadvantage, and he has a lot of even MUs and a good amount of slight advantageous MUs (especially against mid-tiers and low-tiers). He's a very solid character, and likely top 15.

First of all, thanks for not ignoring me, like most people do, and secondly, Marth actually does have a matchup worse than slight disadvantage. Bowser is without a doubt a solid disadvantage for Marth. While Bowser can't contest Marth's air game, which makes the matchup seem only slightly disadvantageous for Marth, if the Bowser stays on the ground, the matchup becomes a nightmare for the Marth player. Since Bowsers arms are intangible for many of his ground attacks, Marth can't get tippers as easily and Bowser will win almost every neutral exchange on the ground. Even if the Marth player gets a grab (which is highly unlikely against Bowser, the grab king), Bowser has his down B as a combo breaker and a kill move. Marth's kill throw is also invalidated by Bowser's weight. The Bowser matchup is so bad for Marth, because the way Bowser was designed as a character just counters Marth. Good thing Bowser players are rarer than DK players. Otherwise Marth would have a much harder time in the meta.

 

[PK Bash]

I think it is down tilt that hits behind and has Lucas crouching. The only aerial that is safe to land if fair and that is it. A lot of Lucas's ground attacks is either burdened by short range in spite of his grab (like his jabs and down tilt) or having a noticeable amount of lag (such as forward tilt and dash attack). His grab while, while being the fastest tether grab in the game, is still somewhat slow (especially in terms of ending lag) and Lucas heavily relies on his grab to combo and KO (but thank goodness it is not as slow as in Brawl ). Btw, if Ness's offstage game is THAT bad to the point of unviableness, then why doesn't Cloud's bad offstage game (and even worse recovery if limit is not counted) makes him not top 5 in the game (other than the obvious). Lucas's recovery is better than Ness's, but it is still susecptable to gimps as well.

Another thing that I am asking is that if Lucas has all of those great tools, why isn't he taking top placements in tournaments ever since his release? His results has always been inferior to Ness's and his results are even worse than in 2016 in comparison. Lucas's matchups against characters ranked lower than him is worst than Ness's matchups, while Lucas's matchups against higher tiered characters isn't as polarizing as Ness's, he doesn't entirely do well against them either.

Heya. Gonna respond to this in a sort of quickfire bullet-point style, because I like your attitude and there's a lot I want to say (I live for Mother character talk) but I tend to ramble a lot so I'm going to try and make sure this doesn't get too crazy:
-pretty sure jab hits behind (as well? I don't recall ever hitting with down tilt behind me but maybe it does)
-f.air is the only safe landing aerial he needs really, when he has a f2 jab, f3 down tilt (both with excellent hitboxes), and a really good ftilt. F-air puts the pressure on the shield as he comes down and the other grounded options he can do to follow up after f-air further help to alleviate the pressure secure Lucas' landing way more than Ness can secure his - that f-air faces forward in comparison to say, Ness bair is a godsend in this regard, because it means he can jab/dtilt without having to turn around
-Whilst ftilt has "noticeable" lag, I wouldn't call the move laggy by any stretch. The general point of ftilt is to safely poke at a shield and/or reset the spacing that Lucas operates best at, in these regards the move is extremely good and due to the function of the move, the lag on it isn't troublesome. If you mis-space it on block or something then yeah it sucks, but that's why you shift backwards slightly with it/use jabs/dtilt instead. Dash attack admittedly is just a bad move, which isn't dealbreaking, Lucas has different (and strong...ish) tools for the midrange.
-The fact that Lucas relies so much on his grab in S4 really upsets me to be honest. Probably the worst thing about him is being over-reliant on a tether grab (which is not good... you don't have to read this if you are prepared for it, and you really should be) to actually do anything at all outside of just poking around.

-100% agree that Ness' offstage life does not make him unviable. It's a core weakness of the character but there is juuuust about enough wriggle room with it to make it not awful. There are significantly worse recoveries in this game. The idea that Ness' recovery makes him unviable is because unlike Cloud, the rest of the character is supposed to be bad, but this is so blatantly untrue that I just don't know why people still believe this so feverently. I guess many people just don't have an interest in learning about this character in S4, which is a shame but I can understand why he's low-priority for a lot of people.

With regards to why Lucas hasn't been getting results since release, there are a few reasons:
-for a long time, he was actually pretty mediocre. Winning neutral was too much risk for not a whole lot of reward and he had no real trump cards or standout strengths to make him an attractive time investment for many. I feel this kind of holds true even now to be honest, but way back when, the risk-reward balance was quite unfavourable indeed.
-he was released with Ryu and Roy, two characters that were both really hyped at release and Lucas was just kind of... there as well? Not many people were willing to explore Lucas with Ryu and Roy doing the rounds except for his old Brawl players. And there weren't many of them either, because he was not too hot in that game.
-He got his important buffs the same patch Cloud came out, so again... nobody really cared
-And so we get to where we are now, with very few high-level players playing him and those that are being really obscure anyway. And there's still nothing "wow" about him to most people, he still doesn't have much to offer the player looking for the easy win (which is pretty much everyone except character loyalists, who ain't picking up Lucas for obvious reasons lol) or just anything interesting about him in general, being a slow, reactionary and non-classic character who can't play flashy or aggressive or "hype".

So maybe that answers why he has no results... nobody plays him except a small group of high-level players who don't go to anything. Kinda sucks.

Lucas' matchups can be very polarised imo and with the exception of a few of them, Lucas lives and dies by how well he can force the other character to approach. If he can't, he hasn't got a hope in hell. If he can, he might do alright but might still lose in theory. Some higher-tiered characters are def worse for Lucas than Ness imo, I really think Ness is noticeably better in matchups such as Sheik, for example.

Why people think Lucas is a sleeper threat has to do with just how well he can play Smash 4, at least in the neutral, and perceived greater consistency due to his neutral and a pretty decent disadvantage state. But like everything about him, neither his neutral or his disadvantage are particularly amazing, they're just decent. (His advantage state is actually pretty bad.) Then again, people give Lucas' recovery a lot more credit than it deserves imo so maybe opinions on that will start to turn when the collective realise just how easy it is to intercept for the majority of characters. His inconsistent advantage state is a serious problem.
I do think he is a better character than Ness... but I do appreciate someone else fighting Ness' corner to show that he is actually still quite a good character.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Heya. Gonna respond to this in a sort of quickfire bullet-point style, because I like your attitude and there's a lot I want to say (I live for Mother character talk) but I tend to ramble a lot so I'm going to try and make sure this doesn't get too crazy:
-pretty sure jab hits behind (as well? I don't recall ever hitting with down tilt behind me but maybe it does)
-f.air is the only safe landing aerial he needs really, when he has a f2 jab, f3 down tilt (both with excellent hitboxes), and a really good ftilt. F-air puts the pressure on the shield as he comes down and the other grounded options he can do to follow up after f-air further help to alleviate the pressure secure Lucas' landing way more than Ness can secure his - that f-air faces forward in comparison to say, Ness bair is a godsend in this regard, because it means he can jab/dtilt without having to turn around
-Whilst ftilt has "noticeable" lag, I wouldn't call the move laggy by any stretch. The general point of ftilt is to safely poke at a shield and/or reset the spacing that Lucas operates best at, in these regards the move is extremely good and due to the function of the move, the lag on it isn't troublesome. If you mis-space it on block or something then yeah it sucks, but that's why you shift backwards slightly with it/use jabs/dtilt instead. Dash attack admittedly is just a bad move, which isn't dealbreaking, Lucas has different (and strong...ish) tools for the midrange.
-The fact that Lucas relies so much on his grab in S4 really upsets me to be honest. Probably the worst thing about him is being over-reliant on a tether grab (which is not good... you don't have to read this if you are prepared for it, and you really should be) to actually do anything at all outside of just poking around.

-100% agree that Ness' offstage life does not make him unviable. It's a core weakness of the character but there is juuuust about enough wriggle room with it to make it not awful. There are significantly worse recoveries in this game. The idea that Ness' recovery makes him unviable is because unlike Cloud, the rest of the character is supposed to be bad, but this is so blatantly untrue that I just don't know why people still believe this so feverently. I guess many people just don't have an interest in learning about this character in S4, which is a shame but I can understand why he's low-priority for a lot of people.

With regards to why Lucas hasn't been getting results since release, there are a few reasons:
-for a long time, he was actually pretty mediocre. Winning neutral was too much risk for not a whole lot of reward and he had no real trump cards or standout strengths to make him an attractive time investment for many. I feel this kind of holds true even now to be honest, but way back when, the risk-reward balance was quite unfavourable indeed.
-he was released with Ryu and Roy, two characters that were both really hyped at release and Lucas was just kind of... there as well? Not many people were willing to explore Lucas with Ryu and Roy doing the rounds except for his old Brawl players. And there weren't many of them either, because he was not too hot in that game.
-He got his important buffs the same patch Cloud came out, so again... nobody really cared
-And so we get to where we are now, with very few high-level players playing him and those that are being really obscure anyway. And there's still nothing "wow" about him to most people, he still doesn't have much to offer the player looking for the easy win (which is pretty much everyone except character loyalists, who ain't picking up Lucas for obvious reasons lol) or just anything interesting about him in general, being a slow, reactionary and non-classic character who can't play flashy or aggressive or "hype".

So maybe that answers why he has no results... nobody plays him except a small group of high-level players who don't go to anything. Kinda sucks.

Lucas' matchups can be very polarised imo and with the exception of a few of them, Lucas lives and dies by how well he can force the other character to approach. If he can't, he hasn't got a hope in hell. If he can, he might do alright but might still lose in theory. Some higher-tiered characters are def worse for Lucas than Ness imo, I really think Ness is noticeably better in matchups such as Sheik, for example.

Why people think Lucas is a sleeper threat has to do with just how well he can play Smash 4, at least in the neutral, and perceived greater consistency due to his neutral and a pretty decent disadvantage state. But like everything about him, neither his neutral or his disadvantage are particularly amazing, they're just decent. (His advantage state is actually pretty bad.) Then again, people give Lucas' recovery a lot more credit than it deserves imo so maybe opinions on that will start to turn when the collective realise just how easy it is to intercept for the majority of characters. His inconsistent advantage state is a serious problem.
I do think he is a better character than Ness... but I do appreciate someone else fighting Ness' corner to show that he is actually still quite a good character.

Thanks for the reply. Btw, the way you described them in your reply, you make it sound like you think Ness is better (which I think so too). I do think Ness's current position is somewhat accurate, but I think Lucas is a mid tier character (at around Yoshi's position). He is merely average and carried heavily on theory that isn't backed up (similar to Yoshi). The nerfs from Brawl does come into play if you want a Lucas player to reach his highest peak: Taiheita's 17th placement in Super Smash Con 2016 (btw, his doubles play was actually insane :0). Lucas is potentially a better doubles character than Ness but it pretty close: Lucas's glaring approach and KO issues can be alleviated from the players teammate like Lucario (hence Taiheita's 1st placement in doubles at that same tournament), while Ness's recovery issues can be alleviated with the teammates support (though not to the same extent as Cloud).

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

I love how in the Komorikiri vs Captain Zack set the commentators called Roy's f-tilt and up-tilt smash attacks when he won 2 different games with them.

Do you guys think players should watch top 8's more? I used to watch tournies from start to finish but now I do not do that anymore. I usually just watch pools or look through vods for someone using my main. I guess I got tired of the same old top 8.

After thinking about a comment made awhile about the lack of players who analyze top players matches, I started watching them again today.

The only thing I can think I can learn from watching those sets is micro-spacing and mindgames with counter mindgames (adapting).

Just curious.

-

Edit: Had no clue there was a Lucas conversation going until I saw a quoted post on this page and was like "where was this quoted from?", had to recheck the last page to find it.

Don't know if you guys already covered this or but I went to Kurogane Hammer and subtracted the First Active Frame number from the last active frame of the hitbox of characters standing grab that I consider a tether grab (since that was the only grab of Lucas's that got buffed) to try and find out who has the lowest endlag on their tether.

This was my result:

27 Lucas
23 Bowser Jr
45 Link
31 Olimar
37 Pac-man
45 Samus
44 Toon Link
40 Villager
32 Yoshi
44 Zero Suit Samus
17 Greninja

Edit 2: I'll add start-up frames once I catch up on the posts on this page.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Btw, if Ness's offstage game is THAT bad to the point of unviableness, then why doesn't Cloud's bad offstage game (and even worse recovery if limit is not counted) makes him not top 5 in the game (other than the obvious).

I want to make a small parenthesis here.
IMO, people don't harass Cloud's recovery enough.
We usually don't abuse the window he can't tech at all, not aim to hit the apex of his Climhazzard, and most importantly, not pressure him offstage when he has Limit so we generally allow him to grab the ledge without spending it: After playing the character myself, I used to spend it a lot near the ledge, I went and looked for videos on how top players use it, and the answer is, they don't because they are generally allowed to just drift to the ledge.
Dabuz got very good at this kind of pressure tho.

 

[Laken64]

After thinking about a comment made awhile about the lack of players who analyze top players matches, I started watching them again today.

The only thing I can think I can learn from watching those sets is micro-spacing and mindgames with counter mindgames (adapting).

I usually watch NinjaLink's analysis when he streams them, he goes over top 8 and other sets. Mostly what he goes over in particular is frame data and how safe it something on block and how top players continually get away with things they shouldn't (ex: Salem Nairplanes)

I think it's a good example in showing that even though the top players are top players for a reason, they even have habits that can be detrimental but people eat it up anyways soley because they are a top player.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

All caught up now.

Hey, Bash what do you mean by a non-classic character?

Here is part 2 of the list. This time it covers the first frame their grabs come out:

12 Lucas
12 Bowser Jr
12 Link
10 Olimar
12 Pac-man
16 Samus
12 Toon Link
15 Villager
14 Yoshi
16 Zero Suit Samus
11 Greninja

Welp, looks like I have been spreading misinformation myself. Not good. It's a good thing I finally decided to do my research misread of taking Lucas's Discord word for it.

-

Edit: I think Lucas's advantage state is a double-edged sword (talking about constant PK Fire use, Z-air spacing, PK Freeze bait to Jab combo). Rinse, repeat, and mix it up.

It works but because it works, it kind-of stunts a Lucas player's growth unless they get their zone of control shattered and are forced to play a different game; or they themselves decide to make the improvement.

 

[Onua]

I want to make a small parenthesis here.
IMO, people don't harass Cloud's recovery enough.
We usually don't abuse the window he can't tech at all, not aim to hit the apex of his Climhazzard, and most importantly, not pressure him offstage when he has Limit so we generally allow him to grab the ledge without spending it: After playing the character myself, I used to spend it a lot near the ledge, I went and looked for videos on how top players use it, and the answer is, they don't because they are generally allowed to just drift to the ledge.
Dabuz got very good at this kind of pressure tho.

I've been saying this for a while, I know M2K made a video on it forever ago. People still don't abuse Clouds weaknesses as much as they could. When put offstage without limit you can always just go for a trade and you'll always win said trade since cloud will probably die. When he has limit people are too afraid to hit him and let him drift back.
I think the big thing is that people are just afraid to do it, Im pretty sure every character in the game has some tool to deal with cloud offstage, even the bad chars, but people seem too afraid of cloud to just do it.

 

[Rizen]

Don't know if you guys already covered this or but I went to Kurogane Hammer and subtracted the First Active Frame number from the last active frame of the hitbox of characters standing grab that I consider a tether grab (since that was the only grab of Lucas's that got buffed) to try and find out who has the lowest endlag on their tether.

This was my result:

27 Lucas
23 Bowser Jr
45 Link
31 Olimar
37 Pac-man
45 Samus
44 Toon Link
40 Villager
32 Yoshi
44 Zero Suit Samus
17 Greninja

Edit 2: I'll add start-up frames once I catch up on the posts on this page.

Something to point out is this data is isolated to standing grabs and doesn't take the full duration of the moves into account. It looks like Link is on par with TL, ZSS and Samus but if you look at the FAF of these characters' grabs there's a big difference:
Standing, dash, pivot grab
Link 62,66,67
TL 62,72,72
ZSS 69,72,80
Samus 70,68,84
Pac Man 76,76,76
Also note that Link and TL's grabs both start the same frame and are considerably faster than Samus/ZSS. Link's the best true tether character, even though TL's chain is shorter.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Something to point out is this data is isolated to standing grabs and doesn't take the full duration of the moves into account. It looks like Link is on par with TL, ZSS and Samus but if you look at the FAF of these characters' grabs there's a big difference:
Standing, dash, pivot grab
Link 62,66,67
TL 62,72,72
ZSS 69,72,80
Samus 70,68,84
Pac Man 76,76,76
Also note that Link and TL's grabs both start the same frame and are considerably faster than Samus/ZSS. Link's the best true tether character, even though TL's chain is shorter.

And then there is Pac-Man's grab. XD
I do think that Link has both the best tether grab and tether attack (especially the latter) in the game.

 

[Rizen]

And then there is Pac-Man's grab. XD

Probably the worst grab in the game; poor yellow b******.

 

[Nemesis561]

And then there is Pac-Man's grab. XD
I do think that Link has both the best tether grab and tether attack (especially the latter) in the game.

Can you explain why Link has the best zair? (tether attack). I usually don’t see links use it as much as some other characters (ZSS, lucas, Samus) so why is that?

 

[Deleted member]

I am going to discuss some low tier characters and how people prescribe them. Click the character for the sources ( All SmashWiki ).

: Some say Pac-Man is a bottom five character ( ESAM and Mr. R ), or some say he has great potential to rise into mid tier because of Sinji. The way I see it, Sinji is the one who mostly carries Pac-Man to where he is today. People assume that Pac-Man relies way too much on the fruit but the way I see it, not true.


: As Nemesis561 said in the Weekly Character thread, this character is probably the least discussed in the entire game. The bottom tiers are actually quite popular discussing because how bad they are / and how popular they are with the disrespect stomp, rest and so on. Anyways, People like to push him off the curtain and some people think he is a bottom four ( Dabuz ) or even bottom three character ( Nairo and ZeRo ). I think the reason why they think they are that low is because he gets very little hype and minimal representation compared to even low tiers and his ground game being very bad ( which basically means you have to use clown car dash multiple times which makes you look kind of predictable ). Bowser Junior might drop slightly in the future but who knows.


: This character definitely lost his star like Yoshi. He went from being 33rd in the first tier list to 50th ( bottom six )! I think the problem is that his results are better than some low tiers, but it his overall flaws. I hear people say that he is underrated a lot, but he clearly is not showing his strengths enough even though I said his results were better than some low tiers, and his flaws hurt him a lot ( That match up with Sonic oh my goodness ). Good thing he has a good match up against a very common character, Captain Falcon. I hear people saying he has potential ( which is highly debatable ), but right now it looks kind of bleak for him.


: Pretty interesting to see her in bottom five. Wii Fit Trainer has some horrible match-ups against very common characters ( Cloud, Mario, Mewtwo, Olimar and Duck Hunt ). Check John Numbers and RIN, they agree those match ups are bad for her. Speaking of John Numbers, he is a pretty important player for Wii Fit Trainer, though there are some other ones. ( RIN, Wii Twerk Trainer and Waveguider ). I think what sets her up in bottom five is her extremely small player base and her terrible match ups against the high and top tiers compared to the low tiers. Either way, it is hard to say she has potential because she is quite lacking for a character. An interesting thing to note is that @Nobie said that she is the only character who hardcore prefers defense over offense. Interesting character either way.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Can you explain why Link has the best zair? (tether attack). I usually don’t see links use it as much as some other characters (ZSS, lucas, Samus) so why is that?

I think it has to do with Link's jumpsquat but I am not sure...

I am going to discuss some low tier characters and how people prescribe them. Click the character for the sources ( All SmashWiki ).

: Some say Pac-Man is a bottom five character ( ESAM and Mr. R ), or some say he has great potential to rise into mid tier because of Sinji. The way I see it, Sinji is the one who mostly carries Pac-Man to where he is today. People assume that Pac-Man relies way too much on the fruit but the way I see it, not true.


: As Nemesis561 said in the Weekly Character thread, this character is probably the least discussed in the entire game. The bottom tiers are actually quite popular discussing because how bad they are / and how popular they are with the disrespect stomp, rest and so on. Anyways, People like to push him off the curtain and some people think he is a bottom four ( Dabuz ) or even bottom three character ( Nairo and ZeRo ). I think the reason why they think they are that low is because he gets very little hype and minimal representation compared to even low tiers and his ground game being very bad ( which basically means you have to use clown car dash multiple times which makes you look kind of predictable ). Bowser Junior might drop slightly in the future but who knows.


: This character definitely lost his star like Yoshi. He went from being 33rd in the first tier list to 50th ( bottom six )! I think the problem is that his results are better than some low tiers, but it his overall flaws. I hear people say that he is underrated a lot, but he clearly is not showing his strengths enough even though I said his results were better than some low tiers, and his flaws hurt him a lot ( That match up with Sonic oh my goodness ). Good thing he has a good match up against a very common character, Captain Falcon. I hear people saying he has potential ( which is highly debatable ), but right now it looks kind of bleak for him.


: Pretty interesting to see her in bottom five. Wii Fit Trainer has some horrible match-ups against very common characters ( Cloud, Mario, Mewtwo, Olimar and Duck Hunt ). Check John Numbers and RIN, they agree those match ups are bad for her. Speaking of John Numbers, he is a pretty important player for Wii Fit Trainer, though there are some other ones. ( RIN, Wii Twerk Trainer and Waveguider ). I think what sets her up in bottom five is her extremely small player base and her terrible match ups against the high and top tiers compared to the low tiers. Either way, it is hard to say she has potential because she is quite lacking for a character. An interesting thing to note is that @Nobie said that she is the only character who hardcore prefers defense over offense. Interesting character either way.

I think both Pac Man and Bowser Jr.'s positions are well deserved for the time being, although poor Bowser Jr. may drop a little bit if what you said about how people view him is true.
I personally consider Wii Fit Trainer to a little better than Kirby and Dr. Mario but it is just my opinion.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

Link's z-air is super long and I think it is a multi-hit like Samus.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Link's z-air is super long and I think it is a multi-hit like Samus.

Yes, but I think Link's jumpquat is the reason why it isn't used as much.

 

[TDK]

Both forms of Samus have a frame 4 jump squat and Tink's is either 4 or 5. Link also has better rising buttons in nair and fair than either ZSS or Tink and Samus's fair is pretty unreliable. So if Link's going airborne he has better options than Zair and it's not as fast as the other zair characters. At least, that's my thoughts on it. It's great for recovering to the ledge though.

 

[Lukingordex]

While i don't think Pac Man is a super amazing character or anything, i don't think he's so bad to deserve being in the same tier as characters like bowser jr. or kirby

 

[The-Technique]

I'm beginning to think that Pac Man is in the same camp as characters like Wario, not particularly amazing but not in the bottom 10 area that players view them as

 

[Shaya]

I think it is down tilt that hits behind and has Lucas crouching. The only aerial that is safe to land if fair and that is it. A lot of Lucas's ground attacks is either burdened by short range in spite of his grab (like his jabs and down tilt) or having a noticeable amount of lag (such as forward tilt and dash attack). His grab while, while being the fastest tether grab in the game, is still somewhat slow (especially in terms of ending lag) and Lucas heavily relies on his grab to combo and KO (but thank goodness it is not as slow as in Brawl ).

He also has zair. In fact Lucas has one of the lowest landing lag/highest shield safety on landing aerials across the cast.
In terms of ending lag, Lucas' standing grab is 27 frames after grab box ends. The standard grab in the game are frame 6 -7 out and actionable at frame 30; roughly 25 frames of end lag. Dash grabs often approach 30 frames of end lag, and Lucas' is 35.

Btw, if Ness's offstage game is THAT bad to the point of unviableness, then why doesn't Cloud's bad offstage game (and even worse recovery if limit is not counted) makes him not top 5 in the game (other than the obvious). Lucas's recovery is better than Ness's, but it is still susecptable to gimps as well.

Another thing that I am asking is that if Lucas has all of those great tools, why isn't he taking top placements in tournaments ever since his release? His results has always been inferior to Ness's and his results are even worse than in 2016 in comparison. Lucas's matchups against characters ranked lower than him is worst than Ness's matchups, while Lucas's matchups against higher tiered characters isn't as polarizing as Ness's, he doesn't entirely do well against them either.

Being a good' character but also being 'unviable' tends to have a common theme/correlation - particularly horrendous match ups.
Bayo, Corrin and Rosa; the former two being extremely popular at all levels, decimate Ness' recovery with relative simplicity - in the latter's case almost every attempted run by a Ness in the entire history of this game at a top tournament has been snuffed out by 'SURPRISE' Dabuz/Falln/etc appearing in a pre top 8 or top 16 set. The result of these encounters has always been the same throughout this game's entire history.
In general, it's exploitable by a lot of top tiers; ZSS down b auto footstool kills Ness the moment he has to up-b from below the ledge - just fortunately the neutral isn't as bad as the other 3 characters; well maybe comparable to Bayo? (I'm not sure why Ness is so unlucky with this, while ZSS can auto 2-frame with down-b footstool on a lot of characters, the timing for Ness is the simplest i've experienced [she does it without much risk coz she footstool jumps away from him instead of being hit by his PKT2/projecting self). Marth and Sheik also can tend to snuff it out with a bit more precision (although recovering to avoid Marth's counter isn't hard for Ness).

It's not comparable to Lucas' who has astronomically more mix ups with his recovery - air dodge zair to wrap it all up.
It's not so comparable to Cloud either, who will die if his recovery is intercepted, but has more variability in how he can recover if someones moving towards him - he also doesn't have the neutral shortfalls Ness has.
Honestly, the only recovery not susceptible to gimps is Bayonetta, with Sheik pretty close but if you succeed in catching out one of her tools she doesn't get back for free.

Also to nitpick, Cloud's offstage game in advantage is very good.

Lucas has received two major buff patches since release - the shield hitlag patch turned a majority of his moveset from being hilariously unsafe to, some of the safest. His grab lag buff and I believe he got some landing lag reductions in the same patch too, also were quite significant.
People are turned off by the learning curve of a neutral like Lucas' when a similarly iffie one like Zero Suit gives you more bang for your buck. However thanks to the grab buffs alongside the faster start up, and more relevant rising aerial options, his neutral can be a lot less risky and he can thrive in attrition match ups because of it.

At the end of the day, they're both middle maybe upper middle characters. Success in this area is usually confined to local or regional level. Lucas mains do fine.

-Whilst ftilt has "noticeable" lag, I wouldn't call the move laggy by any stretch. The general point of ftilt is to safely poke at a shield and/or reset the spacing that Lucas operates best at, in these regards the move is extremely good and due to the function of the move, the lag on it isn't troublesome.

The move is like, less than -10 on block (on the sweetspot), it's like... one of the safest forward tilts in the game.

-The fact that Lucas relies so much on his grab in S4 really upsets me to be honest. Probably the worst thing about him is being over-reliant on a tether grab (which is not good... you don't have to read this if you are prepared for it, and you really should be) to actually do anything at all outside of just poking around.

Shock and horrow: being prepared for something IS reading it. Unless of course you're thinking a grab with 7 frames of activity on non-reactable start up can't be used in a smart fashion either, in which case, being prepared for bad grabs isn't difficult. In times of desperation where Lucas is put into attrition, how we see them fall and lose tends to be from grab, but it's not taking into consideration the 'loss' which was already there - this character isn't good at approaching, but is very difficult for most characters to approach/get in on. A lucas game tends to already be won or lost by who makes the first conversion a lot of the time. How much this can be rectified by liberal grabbing is match up dependent.
For example, Lucas vs Diddy - people believe it's horrendously in Diddy's favour (or at least used to), but this is one of the match ups I've studied/worked on with our local Lucas (top 3 in our scene) and one of focus for a certain someone I used to work as a coach for.
Diddy is more likely to get the ball rolling than Lucas is, but Diddy cannot approach this character, nor has the comeback factor to deal with a deficit. If Lucas isn't zealous with jumps then for Diddy this is a 'nothing will ever happen match up' played properly. Fortunately for Diddy, any time Lucas jumps preemptively in neutral it is a free banana pull.

-100% agree that Ness' offstage life does not make him unviable. It's a core weakness of the character but there is juuuust about enough wriggle room with it to make it not awful. There are significantly worse recoveries in this game. The idea that Ness' recovery makes him unviable is because unlike Cloud, the rest of the character is supposed to be bad, but this is so blatantly untrue that I just don't know why people still believe this so feverently. I guess many people just don't have an interest in learning about this character in S4, which is a shame but I can understand why he's low-priority for a lot of people.

Sure a lot of people can say the recovery is awful and makes him unviable without a real understanding of how, but I'm not a lot of people. It's the top tier match ups that exploit Ness' recovery horrendously, and that's what determines someones viability - having the wiggle room (something I know exactly what you mean for) apparent in 80-90% of match ups is fine, and agreeable. If people say Ness gets destroyed off stage by everyone, they're wrong.

Why people think Lucas is a sleeper threat has to do with just how well he can play Smash 4, at least in the neutral, and perceived greater consistency due to his neutral and a pretty decent disadvantage state. But like everything about him, neither his neutral or his disadvantage are particularly amazing, they're just decent. (His advantage state is actually pretty bad.) Then again, people give Lucas' recovery a lot more credit than it deserves imo so maybe opinions on that will start to turn when the collective realise just how easy it is to intercept for the majority of characters. His inconsistent advantage state is a serious problem.
I do think he is a better character than Ness... but I do appreciate someone else fighting Ness' corner to show that he is actually still quite a good character.

Air dodge zair is so good though !_! Catching him in between that tends to be difficult under pressure. His Up-B at least has the mix up of yoloing deep on stage (like Rosa) which while is mega laggy and should generally be a punish, at least he's not off stage anymore (it usually wouldn't mean he's suddenly off stage again).

Again, I think they're roughly similar viability, but I believe Lucas is more likely to break through barriers than Ness. The difference between 0.1% and 1% perhaps.

 

[FeelMeUp]

People are afraid to challenge Cloud's recovery not because of the potential for getting hit, but because you are put on the ledge vs the most terrifying ledgetrapper in the game if you mess up.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

Who is the Lucas main you are referring too?

-

Edit:
I have refrained from using airdodge zair on-stage because I have only thought about using it in neutral and I did not want to experience airdodge endlag.

Thinking about it though, I can see that it can be used as a light punish for airdodging an attack which may in return get you punished at low percents; but at high percents it may be able to send the opponent away a fair enough distance to not get punished immediately.

It might even give Lucas an unexpected stage-spike or gimp when used offstage versus an opponent who tries to edge-guard (how did I forget about this again, jotting it down in my notes).

As for banana pull, Lucas is able to full hop and z-air the banana to punish it. This sounds like a lame and silly interaction that would look out of place in practice but the option is there.

 

[WiFi]

I thought Diddy was better at ledgetrapping, or was that just Zero? DIddy's banana at the ledge covers all options except for airdodging, which is easily read.

 

[Shaya]

Who is the Lucas main you are referring too?

Luco

I thought Diddy was better at ledgetrapping, or was that just Zero? DIddy's banana at the ledge covers all options except for airdodging, which is easily read.

Death by a thousand cuts.
Vs ... well... death by invincible start up 4-in-1 strikes, or one elevating strike and doesn't require a banana/an item in hand (and the banana throw can be baited semi-safely by several characters and then you're primarily dealing with fair). Being reset by Cloud nair, walloped with bair or suddenly juggle world with up air is... very easy.

No one is as good as edge guarding with Diddy as ZeRo though.
The ledge is a precarious situation to be in, and most of the cast should optimally be keeping you there / taking your stock, just some characters it's a lot easier to do it with. And then bayo exists too.

The real sneaky most terrifying ledge trapper in the game is Zero Suit though!!!111!
If Zero Suit can tether snap to the ledge at the time they do/before hand, then she frame traps for stocks.

 

[Deleted member]

People are afraid to challenge Cloud's recovery not because of the potential for getting hit, but because you are put on the ledge vs the most terrifying ledgetrapper in the game if you mess up.

This is exactly right.
The best ones who can easily gimp Cloud more than the others are Sheik and Pikachu. ( Sheik can use needle storm or her fast moves like down b or forward air. Pikacu can spam thunder and thunder jolt as well as his airs to annoy Cloud mains so they do not recover ).
Can Pikachu escape Cloud's ledge trap mechanic with quick attack?
I heard someone make a post about Cloud a while back and how he does not lose the match up.

It always irks me that people decide matchups for Cloud and make their judgement 75% based on Cloud's recovery. Give me a break here.

I haven't played any high level Sheiks yet (thanks for having variety, Anther's!) but from what I can tell this is what we have against this illusive ninja:

+ Needles and grounded Blade Beam go past each other, resulting in a trade. If Needles are full, at a distance both take 6-8% and reset to neutral. If Needles are not full, there's still end lag so Sheik would still eat that beam. And I hope you're not using Blade Beam at close range :/
+ She falls fast, so if we catch her with an uptilt, dtilt, upair or maybe nair, we can juggle her as long as we're wary of the RPS possibilities Sheik can use to escape (Jump, Airdodge, Attack)
+ Up-B out of shield is a great option to counter pressure, and while it can be baited some platforms make landing a bit easier. Nair out of shield might help against opponents that are behind us, though getting that initial hitbox can be tricky.
+ Limit Break improves our mobility and helps loads with controlling the pace of the match since Sheik has to play defensively in the face of the following threats: A projectile that kills in red percents; a crazy fast Cross Slash that can kill at 90; and a frame 7 Climhazzard that can kill at 140%, potentially lower with rage or being midair, that is possible to use out of shield.
+ If we get Sheik offstage and we have Limit ready, get ready for this: We can edgeguard her. Crazy, right? She can't use Bouncing Fish if we're in any respectable position, unless she's using it for a wall jump which should leave her quite vulnerable anyways for good ol' Cross Slash or even Finishing Touch if you're feeling ballsy. Her options are to recover low or sweetspot the edge with Vanish. A low recovery allows you to setup a trump, but with the trump option you can also bait out a buffered ledge roll or jump which of course is a punish if you read it, and Cloud punishes hard.

* A particular option I love to do is run right off the edge and "KYO Edgehog", which is inhabiting the edge with your automatic Cross Slash and stage spiking. Its hitboxes are active for a total of 6 frames, spanned through frames 10-11, 15, 23, 29, and 41. If any of Sheik's two frames of invulnerability gets caught by one of these hits, and you are positioned low enough, that's a stage spike. It's possible to be so close to the stage that the move becomes untechable, which is easier if you land a hit before the launching hitbox. You can land safely on stage right afterwards, though if you whiff stage control shifts about 40:60 in Sheik's favor as I'd measure by Smash Theory. Still a fun option if you fancy playing with some jank ¯\_(ツ)_/¯​

+ At the point of the neutral where both players are at high percent, I believe Cloud is actually more in favor than Sheik unless Cloud is at the percentage where her fair would kill. As long as both players have to respect each others' distance, Cloud gets Limit Charge, and Sheik has to respect Cloud's distance since his upair kills and his nair can outrange her.

= Our weight makes us combo food, so Sheik can take advantage of us better at low percents. She's going to struggle a lot with killing, however.
= Sheik might have superior frame data, but it's not an easy task to infiltrate the defensive abilities Cloud has while he charges up. That said, we NEED platforms. A good Sheik will take us to FD or Lylat (for those damn edges *~*) since there's more favor in breaking zones than making zones due to the flat and straightforward layout.

I'll write up all of the disadvantages later since I've tired out being such an optimist with all the good stuff we have going for us Even though that recovery can be a problem it's not that bad as long as you know what you're doing. MU's a 50:50 by me.

Well this is from a different form but interesting editing. I personally think Sheik still wins the match up against Cloud slightly but thoughts?

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

Editied above post.

Edit: I don't think Zero Suit Samus's tether trump to b-air is exclusive to her. To me, I get the impression that it is the easiest because it is seen so much but even I have doubts against that.

For my character you have to time and position b-air vs different characters of the cast since not all characters appear in the same spot when releasing the ledge. So I think Zero Suit Samus's players may have to make that adjustment too or her b-air and double jump are able to get around that light learning curve.

 

[WiFi]

This is exactly right.
The best ones who can easily gimp Cloud more than the others are Sheik and Pikachu. ( Sheik can use needle storm or her fast moves like down b or forward air. Pikacu can spam thunder and thunder jolt as well as his airs to annoy Cloud mains so they do not recover ).
Can Pikachu escape Cloud's ledge trap mechanic with quick attack?
I heard someone make a post about Cloud a while back and how he does not lose the match up.

Well this is from a different form but interesting idea. I personally think Sheik still wins the match up against Cloud slightly but thoughts?

Sheik definitely wins against Cloud, but not by much, because Limit is a very strong comeback factor, as you probably know. Sheik just out-frame datas and gimps Cloud very easy. Its much more apparent in higher levels of play. (Not saying your not a high-level player, just pointing out a fact. Also, literally everybody who is on or knows of this site is better than the millions of casual players. I went to a friendly tournament for casuals in my area at a Comic-con and destroyed everybody. Only lost one set. ).

 

[Rizen]

I'm pretty sure every character with a tether can tether trump; I know Link can.

Link's Zair-
Like everything Link has, it's spacing dependent. Zair outranges Marcina's everything and is safe on shield, the downsides are the claw is the only, small hit bubble and at 2nd hit range it doesn't combo. So little critters and mobile air attackers like Wario can run under it or weave around it. VS tall characters with disjoint Zair is great; it and grab allow Link to pressure beyond sword's reach without unsafe projectiles. Zair protects when you're planting bombs. It, and all zairs, has 8 frames of landing lag, which is the lowest in the game, i think.

So it's not that Link's Fair/bair and Nair are better, although both are amazing landing options, it's a matter of spacing farther than they reach.

 

[Shaya]

You thought I was talking about just trump bair?

Nah the whole idea is they input a ledge get up option and die for it no matter what they do.
Because ZSS can ledge drop jump and reach roll ons with stuff like landing nair into imagination, flip jump kick it, flip jump ground it, etc etc
Can bair, inverse flip kick, regular flip kick, flip jump ground, up air, dair, nair (back hit is good here!) a lot of ledge get ups or the landings of ledge jumps.
All with potential zilch start up 'lag' other than your reaction speed if you don't properly ledge snap (cancel the tether -> jump -> ^ above ^), and not much time extra time if you do ledge snap - of course if you do that and they don't put in an option, they DIE, followed by a complaint about how they definitely buffered something there.
You just need to know how to avoid get up attack gimps on various characters (mario, lucario?) and then its exactly like ledge get up, but laggier! Meaning more time for imagination -> how about wall jump dj into a landing fair1 into a run off fair into imagination?
I'm getting better at it, I believe equin0x on ZSS-Discord brought up/researched the concept sometime like mid last year? But through use realised baiting a ledge option without grabbing the ledge gives you even more time to kill them, it's riskier (but flip jump grants invincibility) and more finicky with most of the non-FJ options though.
It's beautiful though.

Why does everyone else with a tether suck? Because they don't have imagination lack comparable imagination mobility specs to ZSS, nor have a move like flip jump which is really silly when used from below the ledge during any form of an opponent's lag.
Perhaps the Links can do some silly lotsa-optioned-coverage stuff with bombs.

</firsthyperboleoftheyear>
Ledge jumping is the safest choice against most things going on here - but it's not immune; ZSS can attempt up air (unavoidable if read, but not reactable otherwise) into landing or potentially get on stage before you would (crawl, power shield, the classic). Ledge dropping yourself is potentially okay too, but that can be inverse flip jump kicked or footstooled (thanks invincibility). Intercepting ZSS before you have to grab the ledge will snuff her out from trying.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Off-topic:

@ShinyLegendary <—— this guy been liking my old ooooooold posts, like back in 2016, and had me go back towards memory lane. @meleebrawler @Man Li Gi, @Trifroze, @Lancestaff, @Ffamran, @TTTTTsd, @Amadeus9, @Wintropy, sheeesh my memory’s trash, uhhhhh @Djent, @~ Gheb ~, @Fatmanice?

Smashboards need to archive those old threads into some book or novel, like,” The History of Smash 4; As Expressed through the posts of many members.” Or something.

I even got a post from old Shaya where he was talking about Marth and how great brawl’s defensive game was:

“They gave Marth a relatively safe, fast start up, follow up or 50/50s able jab over giving him a combo throw.
Closest thing to that among the heavies is DK's jab or Ryu's entire move set (lol).
Tools like those which can be used as anti airs/pokes with low scaling knockback that give consistent damage but at the same time consistent options to an opponent to avoid the deadliest follow ups.

Meanwhile all such moves that could fit the bill animation wise are usually sending horizontally and may give you a follow up at 0% and may trip/force a tech slightly later and then nothing.

And I feel quite bad for Trifroze here as just about everything he has said is agreeable; having characters that are completely polarized towards one move is awful, and if it's with grab it's not only awful it's incredibly daunting to compete against because of the sheer universal strength of shield and grab in this game, if beating someone who only needs to shield and dash grab wasn't so obscenely difficult (unless you have insane grab follow ups yourself; a consistent theme of smash4) these characters wouldn't be seen as problematic.

We have this tendency to think anything silly is fine until a top level player shows up and wins with it, or the they themselves actually have to experience it in tournament (or otherwise) frequently enough because as tough as it is for a heavy to win neutral, it's just as tough for 90% of the cast to deal with shield unless they have skewed/above average grab reward or their opponent has very very skewed attack reward and mobility (Fox is a good example). Game play stagnates when characters don't have a reason to take risk because two out of three main [RPS] options do all the work for them.

While we're talking about this notion, I've had this on my mind brewing recently, especially after Trela's success at 2g fresh saga where afterwards he has made it quite obvious he believes Ryu is absurdly over rewarded and that "input difficulty" is a joke for letting him be that strong (love this guy so much). With most top tiers losing the grab rewards (and them remaining competitive with the rest of the cast for the most part), Ryu must legitimately have the scariest shield in the game with his exceptionally low cool downs, start up and obscene damage output and weight. And although it isn't grab, him being close range to you is essentially already an advantageous situation for him (that no one is safe against), and I can't help but wonder... why?
He abuses the defensive options of Smash (because SF chars aren't designed to have an omnipotent shield) better than everyone else because there's close to no risk in his moveset, and there's almost no one who gets more out of grabbing him then he gets out of hitting you ... with anything.

DK/Bowser/etc wouldn't need their grab rewards as they were if they had tilts with half the start up and half the cooldown like Ryu has (obviously half or less damage too). But who wants multiple Ryus running about ? I have not-fond memories of Bowser in PM in which essentially every move he had was very early start up super armor and nothing was low enough knockback to crouch cancel grab him, equating to your character either having a chance to deal damage without challenging him or zero chance at all.
People don't seem to want another Luigi either (who infamously has that shield advantage fire ball and had the insane reward for grabs).

The issue to me comes down to shield being too good in Smash Bros, particularly the 4th edition on the Wiiu & 3DS -
Remember when angling shield was an important skill to avoid being poked in Brawl?
Grab armor ironically making the risk of engaging someone shielding safer because shield drop Ryu down/up tilt into your stock's gone wouldn't be beating every universal option this game has like it does now? (I hope Trela's domination of at least two major top level players; VoID and Larry recently, can be adapted to, but it's looking mighty difficult).
And while shield is this good, whoever can avoid direct confrontation the most due to weighted risk/reward will be at a significant advantage over others, and the only thing that makes heavies more note-worthy here is that the length of time they can hold on to their stock while still making the same play over and over again. But heck, we saw this weekend that a good ol fashion Sonic spin dash cancel camping is just as, if not significantly more bull **** then what DK/Bowser can do. [Sheik being able to slow down the pace of a game and continually go for dthrow 50/50s is what we tend to agree upon as what made her most problematic as a character]

Can Smash have defense and offense balanced in such a way so that the continually shifting poster-child for problems aren't always the character's who can rely on defense the most? While at the same time not being "hard core" like Melee? (although once tech barriers are overcome still tends towards extremely defensive play?)
People complain about Diddy's down tilt but for it to combo like it does,it requires to space towards the tip of it, and with away DI doesn't tend to combo into anything at kill percent (not until aerials start killing towards like 180%). Banana is giving strong guaranteed follow ups but limits Diddy's options at the same time too.

I don't mind defensive play, I think defensive play is great, but not when it only comes down to single option reliance at every stage of a game. Brawl despite it's flaws in balance and the 2 frame cool down spot dodges had a rich defensive game that people still love and fondly remember, and the degree at which players were punished for being sloppy with them is almost as extreme as Nairo's ZSS catching you on platforms with bad DI.

Anyway... probably a lot more incoherent a rant than I would hope.

But either way, have no real problems with DK (he doesn't have good oos/frontal options and hence heavily telegraphs his grab), maybe Bowser's risk/reward is a little cheesy but let's wait and see. I have serious issues contemplating what's actually stopping Trela from winning CEO or EVO right now. ZSS, Cloud, Megaman maybe?
Venom vs ZeRo has me doubt Diddy, ZeRo required too many risky reads to get through his shield and Diddy can't out button him without max range aerials - he had to edge guard Ryu to win, that doesn't bode well for Diddy whatsoever. He still probably does better than Sheik, Fox, Mario / every other character we think is good.
Can't discredit Sheik's chances either, Ramin's style is different to VoIDs and that could be able to push Ryu into awkward edge guard situations more often, which seems to be the only way this character can actually die without killing you with safe link into buffered true shoryu first at half or 1/3rd of the percent you've put him to.”

@Nu~ remember your name was pacman9? I do!!!

@ShinyLegendary I don’t know why you went back in time like that, but that was cool. Thanks for that.

On-Topic: Nuhten.

Who still plays smash 4?

 

[FeelMeUp]

Most of what Shaya said still sticks but the general perception towards those certain characters and character tools has soured over time.
Been a long time since one of us considered Ryu a good character. Or since people had big fundamental issues with moves like Marth Jab and Ryu Utilt(this one less so, however, as it's still ridiculous to deal with).

 

[Deleted member]

Off-topic:

@ShinyLegendary <—— this guy been liking my old ooooooold posts, like back in 2016, and had me go back towards memory lane. @meleebrawler @Man Li Gi, @Trifroze, @Lancestaff, @Ffamran, @TTTTTsd, @Amadeus9, @Wintropy, sheeesh my memory’s trash, uhhhhh @Djent, @~ Gheb ~, @Fatmanice?

Smashboards need to archive those old threads into some book or novel, like,” The History of Smash 4; As Expressed through the posts of many members.” Or something.

I even got a post from old Shaya where he was talking about Marth and how great brawl’s defensive game was:

“They gave Marth a relatively safe, fast start up, follow up or 50/50s able jab over giving him a combo throw.
Closest thing to that among the heavies is DK's jab or Ryu's entire move set (lol).
Tools like those which can be used as anti airs/pokes with low scaling knockback that give consistent damage but at the same time consistent options to an opponent to avoid the deadliest follow ups.

Meanwhile all such moves that could fit the bill animation wise are usually sending horizontally and may give you a follow up at 0% and may trip/force a tech slightly later and then nothing.

And I feel quite bad for Trifroze here as just about everything he has said is agreeable; having characters that are completely polarized towards one move is awful, and if it's with grab it's not only awful it's incredibly daunting to compete against because of the sheer universal strength of shield and grab in this game, if beating someone who only needs to shield and dash grab wasn't so obscenely difficult (unless you have insane grab follow ups yourself; a consistent theme of smash4) these characters wouldn't be seen as problematic.

We have this tendency to think anything silly is fine until a top level player shows up and wins with it, or the they themselves actually have to experience it in tournament (or otherwise) frequently enough because as tough as it is for a heavy to win neutral, it's just as tough for 90% of the cast to deal with shield unless they have skewed/above average grab reward or their opponent has very very skewed attack reward and mobility (Fox is a good example). Game play stagnates when characters don't have a reason to take risk because two out of three main [RPS] options do all the work for them.

While we're talking about this notion, I've had this on my mind brewing recently, especially after Trela's success at 2g fresh saga where afterwards he has made it quite obvious he believes Ryu is absurdly over rewarded and that "input difficulty" is a joke for letting him be that strong (love this guy so much). With most top tiers losing the grab rewards (and them remaining competitive with the rest of the cast for the most part), Ryu must legitimately have the scariest shield in the game with his exceptionally low cool downs, start up and obscene damage output and weight. And although it isn't grab, him being close range to you is essentially already an advantageous situation for him (that no one is safe against), and I can't help but wonder... why?
He abuses the defensive options of Smash (because SF chars aren't designed to have an omnipotent shield) better than everyone else because there's close to no risk in his moveset, and there's almost no one who gets more out of grabbing him then he gets out of hitting you ... with anything.

DK/Bowser/etc wouldn't need their grab rewards as they were if they had tilts with half the start up and half the cooldown like Ryu has (obviously half or less damage too). But who wants multiple Ryus running about ? I have not-fond memories of Bowser in PM in which essentially every move he had was very early start up super armor and nothing was low enough knockback to crouch cancel grab him, equating to your character either having a chance to deal damage without challenging him or zero chance at all.
People don't seem to want another Luigi either (who infamously has that shield advantage fire ball and had the insane reward for grabs).

The issue to me comes down to shield being too good in Smash Bros, particularly the 4th edition on the Wiiu & 3DS -
Remember when angling shield was an important skill to avoid being poked in Brawl?
Grab armor ironically making the risk of engaging someone shielding safer because shield drop Ryu down/up tilt into your stock's gone wouldn't be beating every universal option this game has like it does now? (I hope Trela's domination of at least two major top level players; VoID and Larry recently, can be adapted to, but it's looking mighty difficult).
And while shield is this good, whoever can avoid direct confrontation the most due to weighted risk/reward will be at a significant advantage over others, and the only thing that makes heavies more note-worthy here is that the length of time they can hold on to their stock while still making the same play over and over again. But heck, we saw this weekend that a good ol fashion Sonic spin dash cancel camping is just as, if not significantly more bull **** then what DK/Bowser can do. [Sheik being able to slow down the pace of a game and continually go for dthrow 50/50s is what we tend to agree upon as what made her most problematic as a character]

Can Smash have defense and offense balanced in such a way so that the continually shifting poster-child for problems aren't always the character's who can rely on defense the most? While at the same time not being "hard core" like Melee? (although once tech barriers are overcome still tends towards extremely defensive play?)
People complain about Diddy's down tilt but for it to combo like it does,it requires to space towards the tip of it, and with away DI doesn't tend to combo into anything at kill percent (not until aerials start killing towards like 180%). Banana is giving strong guaranteed follow ups but limits Diddy's options at the same time too.

I don't mind defensive play, I think defensive play is great, but not when it only comes down to single option reliance at every stage of a game. Brawl despite it's flaws in balance and the 2 frame cool down spot dodges had a rich defensive game that people still love and fondly remember, and the degree at which players were punished for being sloppy with them is almost as extreme as Nairo's ZSS catching you on platforms with bad DI.

Anyway... probably a lot more incoherent a rant than I would hope.

But either way, have no real problems with DK (he doesn't have good oos/frontal options and hence heavily telegraphs his grab), maybe Bowser's risk/reward is a little cheesy but let's wait and see. I have serious issues contemplating what's actually stopping Trela from winning CEO or EVO right now. ZSS, Cloud, Megaman maybe?
Venom vs ZeRo has me doubt Diddy, ZeRo required too many risky reads to get through his shield and Diddy can't out button him without max range aerials - he had to edge guard Ryu to win, that doesn't bode well for Diddy whatsoever. He still probably does better than Sheik, Fox, Mario / every other character we think is good.
Can't discredit Sheik's chances either, Ramin's style is different to VoIDs and that could be able to push Ryu into awkward edge guard situations more often, which seems to be the only way this character can actually die without killing you with safe link into buffered true shoryu first at half or 1/3rd of the percent you've put him to.”

@Nu~ remember your name was pacman9? I do!!!

@ShinyLegendary I don’t know why you went back in time like that, but that was cool. Thanks for that.

On-Topic: Nuhten.

Who still plays smash 4?

Off-topic:
You are welcome. I took an old trip to the V1 Smashboards Competitive Analysis thread and I have to say, it seemed like a wild meta that always wanted to learn something new and busted. When Bayonetta was released, everyone was joking about how she was so busted and others argued not. The reason why I went back in time is because the way I see it, I feel like there is less to learn in the Smash 4 meta and the thread we are here has been generally less active than the V1 Analysis Group. You all remember @Radical Larry ? ( He overestimated Link way too much by giving him a 90:10 match up against King Dedede ). This thread is definitely less wild today than in the V1 Competitive Analysis thread ( which is a good thing for the moderators and most of us ), but less sharp. I guess it is because as I said earlier that we are expecting a Smash for Switch game soon and with ZeRo retiring, I feel like the Smash 4 meta is slowly hitting it's peak. There is still more to talk about ( I like talking about Greninja ), but there was a lot more events and things happening like the tier lists being more controversial and new patches and techniques being found. When Bayonneta was announced the thread went bonkers. However, things might be interesting with Nairo, MkLeo and Salem competing for best. Either way, keep up the good work everyone.

 

[Shaya]

Wew.
OLD STUFF POSTED EMBARRASSMENT.

People definitely learned the Ryu match up. Trela is still/was a God; when he wants to be (I'm a Trela fan, no bias ever). Ryu can still do things and has room to grow, but mobility scaling/walling him and the development of playing around his blind spots diminished his intensity a bit. Ryu is obviously a lot more difficult a character at top level then what seemed implied. Bayo and Cloud meta advancement and prevalence rose even further.

I probably wrote that post in like 10 minutes, these days they take forever #_#

 

[FeelMeUp]

Sucks that he doesn't have the competitive drive anymore(which was pushed even further away by him being mostly inactive when was more optimized), because I'm 100% certain he could be top 10-15 dual maining .
Trela's a bona fide genius.

Most other Ryu mains I go up against in bracket are just throwing overtuned tools at you in neutral and trying to funnel your options into their laundrylist of low/medium risk > high reward ones.
But when I play and hang out with him, I feel like I'm playing an actual prodigy.
One that sees ALL of Ryu's options as tools for winning. Not just the few really good ones that do a ton of damage or have massive amounts of shield safety. The guy is a conditioning monster that can make you feel like a dumbass for even the smallest of choices in neutral.

His inability to sometimes abuse the little stupid things Ryu has is the main thing holding him back gameplay wise, but this very element of his playstyle is one that fundamentally separates him from other mains of the character.
I've always had this theory that Ryu tends to push his players mindnumbing stupidity due to the Melee Marth effect(e.g. grind out punish game but be lost everywhere else), but Trela seems to be the only one virtually impervious to it.

If you guys are interested in watching more Trela, check out this channel for the local he frequented by the name of WAG.
Has quite a few good sets like him losing to Jumbo, current #10 on Texas PR, and him beating Javi so badly that Javi elects to go Ness/Doc instead.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2cD-rI-WsIOVDwTEVvergQ

 

[Shaya]

In short, I think the reason Komo went Roy to fight Bayonetta is a combination of the character's grab game, the fact that his effective "sweet(ish) spots" come into play more and more as the game progresses, and that Komo's experiences with his other mains translate over to Roy well. If any Roys would like to tell me how on/off the mark I am, feel free.

Roy punishes or combos into his sweetspots, and the way his sword is designed allows such things to be 'easier'. And there's a good reason why -
If you look at that set, asides from grabs, any sword swinging in neutral that hit generally were tippers, getting his sweet spots through a neutral exchange was quite unlikely. Hence he should have an easier time getting them with reads.
Some sort of logic like that.

Marth has a harder time getting tippers (that ko) for punishes and reads, but more of his neutral hits are pretty rewarding (Roy can feasibly combo into his sweetspots of fsmash, dsmash and upsmash [has no sour hitbox so YEEE], while Marth cannot without 'reads' although they are quite difficult [plz no jab fsmash], design intentions are beautiful).

The other thing here is MOBILITY.
Roy has a 20 frame SHFF. Komo used this a looooot. As Bayo doesn't have top tier mobility specs, this contrast can be taken advantage of based on what you're potent at. In contrast to Cloud, faster bair otg/oos is very strong and a tactic that can be relied upon, ftilt also; Zac would be very used to comboing Cloud but likely a lot less so for Roy - him being able to recover almost every time goes to show what high recoveries after baiting something can keep Roy from dying like Falcon would. . Being able to use mobility and shield against Bayo very liberally is a pretty good thing.
Marth's more able to whiff punish + has more control in neutral compared to Roy (who seems to have to stay grounded shielding a lot until something opens up for him; so like everyone almost has to).

 

[InfinitySoul]

I've been saying this for a while, I know M2K made a video on it forever ago. People still don't abuse Clouds weaknesses as much as they could. When put offstage without limit you can always just go for a trade and you'll always win said trade since cloud will probably die. When he has limit people are too afraid to hit him and let him drift back.
I think the big thing is that people are just afraid to do it, Im pretty sure every character in the game has some tool to deal with cloud offstage, even the bad chars, but people seem too afraid of cloud to just do it.

I have posted my doubts on m2k's anti cloud strategy before, but the only times I have seen players follow his advice they got suicide upB'd. So is it a strategy that only works at low % or if one stock in the lead ?

 

[Das Koopa]

https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/7qsu9w/orionrank_2017_top_100_9081/

Second part of OrionRank is up