Official 4BR Tier List V4 - Competitive Insight & Analysis

[PJB]

I think that discussing the pros and cons of a bayo ban intelligently is certainly something worthwhile, as it is very unlikely that bayo does not continue to dominate discussion around our scene. My personal position is this:

By results alone, bayo is not worthy of a ban. She is less dominant than MK in brawl, and she does not win all or even most majors/tournaments, even when the highest (active) PGR ranked players mains her- Salem.

However, this is somewhat besides the point. We all share one goal as a community- to see sm4sh grow and thrive for years to come. With this is mind, I feel that we are at an important moment in our games lifetime. We essentially need to decide between the lesser of two evils:

1. Allow bayo to continue unbanned, and face the continued outcry of dislike against our games best character by both players and spectators alike.
2. Ban bayo, and face the outcry that we will assuredly receive from banning a character who at this point is NOT dominating the meta completely. Additionally, we would be alienating players like Salem who did not feel strongly about the game until a character that fit him was released.

At this point, I’m undecided on what we should do. It’s a difficult decision but an important one for sure.

TLDR- don’t hate on people for intelligently discussing a ban. We need to address this issue in one way or another, and to do that, we need to be able to talk about it

 

[Tizio Random]

I was reading last Reddit thread about the Bayo ban when I stepped in this interesting post regarding Brawl MK vote for ban: https://smashboards.com/threads/fourth-and-final-community-vote-about-meta-knight.242903/

What I find most interesting is that most of the arguments used for both characters are awfully similar :

• Metaknight/Bayonetta is the best character in the game by a significant margin.
• Metaknight/Bayonetta has a perfect recovery and an abnormally safe ledge game.
• Metaknight/Bayonetta has too many safe options.
• Meta Knight/Bayonetta breaks the counterpick system.
• Metaknight/Bayonetta detracts from the metagame. (!)
• Meta Knight/Bayonetta is a very serious detriment to the mid level of play. (!!!)

I'm also not sure 100% on a ban for the character, I'm very conflicted myself, but we should at least try having a civil discussion in a separated and pinned thread imho. I'll conclude this post saying that a character will never ever be universally agreed to be banned, especially in this age of information and internet, but if it will ever come a time where Bayo will be deemed ban-worthy by the great majority of the community it will be too late. Like we don't need to wait for a disease to spread all over the body before taking medicine, we don't need to wait for 6 Bayos in top 8 constantly winning, at that point a ban would do more harm than good.

 

[Frihetsanka]

Hypothetical scenario that's interesting to consider (but is unlikely to ever happen):

Let's assume that Bayonetta is banned and every Bayonetta player switches to Sonic. Sonic might, arguably, be even worse for viewers than Bayo is, especially if they are campy Sonics. If Bayonetta is banned to appease viewers, should we then consider a Sonic ban as well in order to appease viewers?

I don't think Bayonetta will be banned. There doesn't seem to be all that much support amongst top level players (even non-Bayonetta players), nor have any top level TOs expressed any desire to ban Bayonetta, as far as I know. At this point, some of the people complaining about Bayonetta are actively hurting the scene (such as Twitch chat) and many viewer's enjoyment of the game.

It would probably be a good idea to create a thread for Bayonetta and double Cloud ban discussion, since it's getting rather tedious to repeat the same discussion every time Bayonetta does well at a major (which is, granted, fairly often), especially since it removes focus from other discussions we could be having in this thread.

 

[NotLiquid]

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I kind of agree with this assessment. It's to the point where traditional neutral is becoming irrelevant, as long as your punishes are deadly.

This much should've been obvious when it was clear Pit was not getting passed the mid-tier, to be honest.

 

[Heracr055]

I was reading last Reddit thread about the Bayo ban when I stepped in this interesting post regarding Brawl MK vote for ban: https://smashboards.com/threads/fourth-and-final-community-vote-about-meta-knight.242903/

What I find most interesting is that most of the arguments used for both characters are awfully similar :

• Metaknight/Bayonetta is the best character in the game by a significant margin.
• Metaknight/Bayonetta has a perfect recovery and an abnormally safe ledge game.
• Metaknight/Bayonetta has too many safe options.
• Meta Knight/Bayonetta breaks the counterpick system.
• Metaknight/Bayonetta detracts from the metagame. (!)
• Meta Knight/Bayonetta is a very serious detriment to the mid level of play. (!!!)

I'm also not sure 100% on a ban for the character, I'm very conflicted myself, but we should at least try having a civil discussion in a separated and pinned thread imho. I'll conclude this post saying that a character will never ever be universally agreed to be banned, especially in this age of information and internet, but if it will ever come a time where Bayo will be deemed ban-worthy by the great majority of the community it will be too late. Like we don't need to wait for a disease to spread all over the body before taking medicine, we don't need to wait for 6 Bayos in top 8 constantly winning, at that point a ban would do more harm than good.

A couple of issues with this post:

1) Bayonetta isn't better than the rest of the cast by a significant margin. Best, yes, but not by THAT much.
2) The counterpick system isn't a rule built into our competitive system. It's merely a strategy.
3) Bayo can't ruin the meta if she IS the meta. Anyone suggesting otherwise has a distorted perception of what the meta is.
4) Mid level play needs to learn how to deal with Bayo to advance, plain and simple. From the various Discords I'm on, Bayo is really only an at big tourneys, where top Bayo players attend.

I also take issue with how all your points are presented as fact. Because that can skew the perception of Bayo so that it seems the logical to is to ban her. Which seems to be your conclusion by your "disease" argument.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

I was reading last Reddit thread about the Bayo ban when I stepped in this interesting post regarding Brawl MK vote for ban: https://smashboards.com/threads/fourth-and-final-community-vote-about-meta-knight.242903/

What I find most interesting is that most of the arguments used for both characters are awfully similar :

• Metaknight/Bayonetta is the best character in the game by a significant margin.
• Metaknight/Bayonetta has a perfect recovery and an abnormally safe ledge game.
• Metaknight/Bayonetta has too many safe options.
• Meta Knight/Bayonetta breaks the counterpick system.
• Metaknight/Bayonetta detracts from the metagame. (!)
• Meta Knight/Bayonetta is a very serious detriment to the mid level of play. (!!!)

I'm also not sure 100% on a ban for the character, I'm very conflicted myself, but we should at least try having a civil discussion in a separated and pinned thread imho. I'll conclude this post saying that a character will never ever be universally agreed to be banned, especially in this age of information and internet, but if it will ever come a time where Bayo will be deemed ban-worthy by the great majority of the community it will be too late. Like we don't need to wait for a disease to spread all over the body before taking medicine, we don't need to wait for 6 Bayos in top 8 constantly winning, at that point a ban would do more harm than good.

Only problem with this is that

Bayo is not the best character in the game by a significant margin, she share a tier with two other characters and the gal between their teir and the next tier isn't by much.

Bayonetta does not have a perfect recovery or super safe ledge game. Most characters can't challenge her recovery as well yes, and she likely will make it back from anywhere off stage but their are characters who can legitimately apply pressure as she's below the stage recovering (Hello Ness). Brawl MK'e recovery doesn't compare that much.

Bayonetta probably has about the same amount of safe and unsafe options that any top tier has. I'm not a expert of Bayo's hit advantage on hit or shield but a notable example of unsafe moves is her heel slide and ABK on whiff.

Bayonetta does not break the counter pick system as it's not even totally agreed on that she wins every MU in the game so that can't be a thing. Being that she is the best character in the game naturally she's going to have fewer counterpick options that's not a inherent trait of just broken characters.

I can agree somewhat with the other two points simply due to the ire she causes people even when she's getting bodied. I'm not going to lie and act like I'd miss Bayo if she's gone and that some of what she does is simply not okay (Fatality vs Salem, Fatality went for a knee after knocking Salem off stage with what would had been guaranteed if at the worse if he was slow by a few frames been air dodged through by any other character but Bat within activated, sent Salem below Fatality and to the ledge and Salem reversed edge guarded him for a stock. Fatality should not had been punished for what should had been a confirm like that) Stuff like that is not okay but unfortunately it's the situation we got to deal with. You can't ban based off a communities dislike for a character that isn't broken, it's a bad precedent to set. Even if it causes the game to die out as much as I don't like to say it.

 

[Tizio Random]

What I was trying to convey wasn't that Bayo is as good as Brawl Meta Knight. The fact that concerned me the most is that the pro-ban side of the argument for both characters are very similar to an extent that sincerely scares me. Many things used as points for MK are now used for Bayonetta such as the absurdly skewed risk:reward ratio, the impossible to contest recovery and metagame centralization especially at low/mid level play.

3) Bayo can't ruin the meta if she IS the meta. Anyone suggesting otherwise has a distorted perception of what the meta is.

So you're saying... Bayo is the meta so she's not centralizing or ruining the meta... sorry but this seems like circular reasoning to me. So Mega Kangaskhan didn't ruin Gen 6 Singles meta because he was the meta, then.

Again, I would prefer to take this discussion elsewhere, seeing that it's not just 1/2 people in the community that advocate for a ban or at least want to take a discussion surrounding the "Bayo drama". we shouldn't forget doubles Cloud tho

 

[Illusion.]

.

I can't tag you, so I've been having to wait for you to post so that I can quote you...

Anyways, since we're on the subject again, do you happen to have the results of your Bayonetta survey ready? Or is the survey still ongoing?

 

[Yonder]

Only problem with this is that

Bayo is not the best character in the game by a significant margin, she share a tier with two other characters and the gal between their teir and the next tier isn't by much.

Bayonetta does not have a perfect recovery or super safe ledge game. Most characters can't challenge her recovery as well yes, and she likely will make it back from anywhere off stage but their are characters who can legitimately apply pressure as she's below the stage recovering (Hello Ness). Brawl MK'e recovery doesn't compare that much.

Bayonetta probably has about the same amount of safe and unsafe options that any top tier has. I'm not a expert of Bayo's hit advantage on hit or shield but a notable example of unsafe moves is her heel slide and ABK on whiff.

Bayonetta does not break the counter pick system as it's not even totally agreed on that she wins every MU in the game so that can't be a thing. Being that she is the best character in the game naturally she's going to have fewer counterpick options that's not a inherent trait of just broken characters.

I can agree somewhat with the other two points simply due to the ire she causes people even when she's getting bodied. I'm not going to lie and act like I'd miss Bayo if she's gone and that some of what she does is simply not okay (Fatality vs Salem, Fatality went for a knee after knocking Salem off stage with what would had been guaranteed if at the worse if he was slow by a few frames been air dodged through by any other character but Bat within activated, sent Salem below Fatality and to the ledge and Salem reversed edge guarded him for a stock. Fatality should not had been punished for what should had been a confirm like that) Stuff like that is not okay but unfortunately it's the situation we got to deal with. You can't ban based off a communities dislike for a character that isn't broken, it's a bad precedent to set. Even if it causes the game to die out as much as I don't like to say it.

Would you rather let the patient die or sever their infected limb, the poison slowly coursing through their body? Bayonetta at the moment is that poison for viewership.

Viewership is the most important background aspect of competitive smash. You need viewers to watch streams, for sponsers to find events that enters competitive smasher's pockets. If the game isn't being viewed anymore, sponsers leave, events die. Every smash player loses. Whoever was great at Brawl had Mk partially to blame because no one pulled the trigger to ban before it was too late (well, they reversed it for reasons I'll never know) granted, the game engine and balance still between the cast hurt too so it's harder to say.

Point is, after reading multiple Reddit convos about Bayo's tools and her impact on the meta leans me slightly to pro ban. Why wait until it's all top 8 Bayos? 3/8 in the top 8 is pretty bad in a game of 56ish.

At least, as someone else suggested, implement a soft ban at local level first and slowly build up if reception is good. Can't just slam the ban hammer in one swift blow. Gradually weave the ban tapestry into the rulesets from locals to majors. Gives time for other Bayo players to work on another new main too. And if the reception is bad then it can be reversed without too much hassle. If viewership goes up? That's extremely important. I don't know if I I afflict that number because I shut the stream down when I see mirror bayo lol.



Oh, doubles cloud is actually much worse, even down to the results. All his weaknesses are patch in doubles (bad recovery, no grab combos). He's flawless. I think no question a ban on doubles Clouds needs to happen (to one cloud only per team) but who cares about doubles...



Bans are ok people. We don't need to be Smogon about it, but sometimes, it's necessary to save a game.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

We don't need to be Smogon about it

Speaking of which, would you say Bayonetta is any similar story to Aegislash, except with only the latter getting banned?

 

[Deleted member]

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I kind of agree with this assessment. It's to the point where traditional neutral is becoming irrelevant, as long as your punishes are deadly.

I have to agree with ZeRo here. That is why Diddy Kong has became less relevant as the Smash series went on. When he was finally nerfed, he was down a little in top tier. Then he got popular and rose to being the best, but I think Diddy will very slightly cool down a little. He is still bonkers in theory, but I am sure there are undiscovered ways of beating Diddy Kong. I think Diddy Kong will always remain a top four character, but never top two. Can someone think of any characters that use follow-ups more ( Bayo ) or prefer neutral more ( Diddy Kong )?

 

[ARISTOS]

At least, as someone else suggested, implement a soft ban at local level first and slowly build up if reception is good. Can't just slam the ban hammer in one swift blow. Gradually weave the ban tapestry into the rulesets from locals to majors. Gives time for other Bayo players to work on another new main too. And if the reception is bad then it can be reversed without too much hassle. If viewership goes up? That's extremely important. I don't know if I I afflict that number because I shut the stream down when I see mirror bayo lol.

You can't expect locals to carry out bans- they want their tournaments to mean something, and often if you aren't following the national ruleset your tournament doesn't count for PR/etc. It has to be a wide decision.

Oh, doubles cloud is actually much worse, even down to the results. All his weaknesses are patch in doubles (bad recovery, no grab combos). He's flawless. I think no question a ban on doubles Clouds needs to happen (to one cloud only per team) but who cares about doubles...

I agree but no one gives a flying **** about doubles lmao

Bans are ok people. We don't need to be Smogon about it, but sometimes, it's necessary to save a game.

Smogon makes good ban decisions tho

Speaking of which, would you say Bayonetta is any similar story to Aegislash, except with only the latter getting banned?

Nah Aegislash was meta-warping and kept away a lot of decent Pokemon. Both Aegi and Bayo have toxic points (King Shield guessing games=Witch Time guessing games) but Bayo hasn't proven to be as warping.

IMO Bayo is a lot closer to Gen 6 Mega Sableye- just an overwhelming force of negativity in the metagame that made the game a lot worse to play.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

I'm suprised that we are not talking about Rosalina since she won the tourney.

-

Here are some posts I found today from two threads after I went digging through erico9001's post looking for his old comments on Shulk from the early 4br threads (I did not find them).

I'm putting these here because they share some of my current thoughts on what is going on right now and I wanted to see if I can try to post anything positive about the Bayonetta discussion.

The first set of posts are from a 2014 thread made by Dark Pch. If you would like to read the full posts, you can click the arrow next to the users name in the quoted posts.

I put them under a spoiler tag.

Spoiler: Quoted posts from 2014

The part I bolded is what players have done with Diddy Kong, Cloud, and Bayonetta.

This is what people need to do. This is what people seriously need to do. The game is still new, you see people running to these characters and doing stuff for the win. Take the damm time to actually look at it all and figure out stuff with your characters. Adapt. You complaining about them does NOTHING. It is not make people stop using them. It is not gonna make people not do what they do with Rosalina to get you to not complain. Hit the lab and do work. Then beat them and then have them complain about your character. Alot of people right now are not doing that. So these players using these characters are getting wins for free. or have a good shot of getting defeated but dont. if you are not use to how to deal with an option, and refuse to hit the lab, you have no right to be complaining. Cause you refuse to put in that work and take the time to learn.

This is how you get better as a player. You don't complain about a character. You don't complain how the game is compared to others smash games. I feel like comparing one smash game to the other is a waste of time and does nothing at all. This is not THAT smash game. This is THIS smash game. So put your focus on that. You can do 4 things.

- Man (or woman) up and get to work to finding out many things you can with your character and match up.

- Do what a lot do and when all fails, just used the same character you keep losing to so you can win matches and feel good about yourself as a player

- Don't play the game competitive.

- Get good with that character you are losing too to understand how they work. Learn more about their strengths and weakness. Then come up with ways to deal with it with your main. test stuff out and see what works.

Accept the game you play. Accept what you will go through. Take loses as notes to what to expect and how to fix it. Don't be afraid to try many things. Now is not the time for you to be winning anything. it's the time for you to hit the lab and learn. To get it right, you have to get it wrong first. Remember that.

I agree. Simply just agree.

There's a saying I came up with after listening to so many complaints about so many things both in the Smash Community and outside of it in our daily lives, so it applies to all aspects:

"There are people who complain, and there are those who do."

I thought the below quote was a good example of a player in a losing matchup that just gives up.

You will feel much better about yourself than someone who mains Pichu and never figures out how to push Pichu to beat Fox nor plays Fox and just plays Pichu as a perennial loser and bemoans their state.

Bolded the part I like.

Characters Like Peach, ROB, Mario Sheik, and a few others give lil mac problems. Just because you can't figure out a solid way to deal with what he does or your character has a bad match up vs him, does not mean that he is a stupid character.

Bolded the part I liked.

I am not confirming that the game is bad. if you are gonna sit here all day and cry about the game or character, then pick that character up so you can win like the rest and then have no reason to shed tears. That's the point. This is aimed for people who wanna play competitive yet complain about every lil thing when it gets hard. Cause you choose to complain when things get hard does not mean the game is flawed.

This one, I do not fully understand. My takeaway from this is that good players use good characters? I took a minute thinking on the part I highlighted. I came to the conclusion that the player in question decided to play or pick up a character that other players struggled with. This is but one scenario, but I understand what DarkPch means now.

And to also burst your bubble here, those who play the game far less and still win a lot, play close attention to the characters they are using. Also play close attention to the characters people are crying about. And now think about the point of this thread with the problems that occur.

Bolded the part I liked.

So no, its not some new game syndrome. Its people experiencing something for the first time, lose to it, then wanna complaning. Then call the game/character unbalanced and etc. All these smash games it has happened. And you don't get better games through complaining. You just come off as a spoiled player.

The game he is referring to below is Under Night In Birth. The post originally contained a picture of the game's box art.

Again, I bolded the part that I liked. There are typos in it. I read the typo section as: "are you willing to put up with the hard stuff it will put you through?".

AS I stated before. Fighting games are gonna have characters like that. There is no escape from that. Characters will have bad things about them. And some will have good. That's just how it is. The closest thing to a balanced fighter is:

So you should really expect this by now with fighters. The question you need to ask yourself when you play a fighter is are you willing to put up with and the hard stuff it will through at you. If you don't want to deal with it, then you don't have to. You can just play to play or just don't bother playing the game at all.

A good player with a bad character will beat a bad player with an "OP" character almost every time.
Even if your opponent is using a character you consider "OP", who cares, it will make the victory all the more sweet when you win.
If the power truly is in the character and not the player, then that player won't get any better and will stagnate, while a good player will get stronger.

When it comes to claims of OP, there are way more false positives than there are legitimate concerns.

This is from a 2015 thread.

The problem isn't that the barrier to entry is too high, it's that it's too low. Honestly, Smash 4 is being plagued by scrub mentality from people who aren't good enough to deal with jank. ADHD is an innovator with the villager strat. Dabuzz is an innovator with the Rosalina stall. These are people that are changing the meta, and the community is just yelling at them for using "cheap strats" to win. That's the entire freaking point. The Smash 4 community is filled with casual players who've never played a tournament in their lives yelling at people for doing things that win tournaments. If anything good comes up, everyone's immediate reaction is to ban it. Donkey Kong has a good move with customs? BAN DONKEY KONG! Villager has a difficult, safe strategy? BAN CUSTOMS! Rosalina takes every match to time? BAN DABUZZ!

Stop ****ing banning everything and work on improving the metagame around those strategies. Jesus.

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

the only thing that will kill smash 4 is smash 5, even if smash 5 result to be a less competitive game, people will move on because the new smash will have developer support and more people will be playing the game because the installbase of the switch its already large that the wii u and its more easy to set up tourments with a switch. Besides Banning bayonetta would no save smash 4, this game problems is more around the comunity that the game, and is a problem that is carried since brawl and project M,its telling that every "problem" that surge since the begining smash 4 is a "cancer" that will kill the game eventually, its was ho-haa, it was Halberd and isle delfino,it was ness, it was luigi, it was sonic, its was customs, its was 3 stocks, it was duck hunt, it was sheik, it was cloud, now is Bayonneta regardless if the character is banned or not, people will eventually find another issue in the game that will kill the game i the future.

 

[Heracr055]

Bayo is no gen 6 Mega Khan. Gen 5 Ferro is a more apt comparison imo.

 

[WiFi]

Bayo is no gen 6 Mega Khan. Gen 5 Ferro is a more apt comparison imo.

At least its not as bad as Marshadow is right now, that thing is only beatable by Primal Groudon, and only one build of Primal Groudon too. Bayo loses to Cloud and probably Marth, those are two counters. To be honest, All of the top four characters are more stressful to go against, because they all have one thing that controls their neutral and punish game. With Bayo, its her Witch Time, with Cloud, its Limit, Diddy, Bananas, and Sheik, Needles. All of these characters can control the pace of the match very easily.

 

[The-Technique]

I'm suprised that we are not talking about Rosalina since she won the tourney.

It's 2018, Rosalina is a fair and honest character now :^)

Beginning to feel like its mandatory to complain about Bayonetta after every major. Yeah we got 3 of them in the top 8...but thats where they were seeded to place to begin with. It's like everyone forgot that the top 10 of the PGR were absent from this tournament, and players like ESAM and Elegant were unable to attend.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

It's been 3 weeks and Routa's post is still relevant.

https://smashboards.com/goto/post?id=21905511#post-21905511

All I will say that I find laughable that people are now concerned about people leaving if we ban their character.

If we limit Miis to 1111 then I see no issue with banning bayo with shaky reasoning. Like it or not the situation is laughably similar (main difference being how power character we are talking about) to that of the Mii drama.

Edit: I'm going to spend some more time in the Bayonetta Discord with the hopes of talking about more useful stuff here gameplay-wise towards Bayonetta.

Edit 2: Nakat just posted a forty-two minute video on Bayonetta if anyone is interested.

 

[Skeeter Mania]

At least its not as bad as Marshadow is right now, that thing is only beatable by Primal Groudon, and only one build of Primal Groudon too. Bayo loses to Cloud and probably Marth, those are two counters. To be honest, All of the top four characters are more stressful to go against, because they all have one thing that controls their neutral and punish game. With Bayo, its her Witch Time, with Cloud, its Limit, Diddy, Bananas, and Sheik, Needles. All of these characters can control the pace of the match very easily.

With merely 125 base Attack? What makes it so sufficiently threatening?

 

[WiFi]

Look it up on Smogon, with its movesets. Its worse than Witchtime.

Edit: Just like Bayo, Marshadow has ridiculous damage output, and has a whole host of broken moves, along with amazing typing.
Double edit: This guy sums it up perfectly, Base 125 Attack and Speed? Check.

Decent bulk for a sweeper? Check.

Good movepool? Check.

Unresisted STABs? Check.

Technician-boosted Shadow Sneak and Pursuit? Check.

Godlike signature move? Check.

Yea this thing a monster.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

Would you rather let the patient die or sever their infected limb, the poison slowly coursing through their body? Bayonetta at the moment is that poison for viewership.

Viewership is the most important background aspect of competitive smash. You need viewers to watch streams, for sponsers to find events that enters competitive smasher's pockets. If the game isn't being viewed anymore, sponsers leave, events die. Every smash player loses. Whoever was great at Brawl had Mk partially to blame because no one pulled the trigger to ban before it was too late (well, they reversed it for reasons I'll never know) granted, the game engine and balance still between the cast hurt too so it's harder to say.

Point is, after reading multiple Reddit convos about Bayo's tools and her impact on the meta leans me slightly to pro ban. Why wait until it's all top 8 Bayos? 3/8 in the top 8 is pretty bad in a game of 56ish.

At least, as someone else suggested, implement a soft ban at local level first and slowly build up if reception is good. Can't just slam the ban hammer in one swift blow. Gradually weave the ban tapestry into the rulesets from locals to majors. Gives time for other Bayo players to work on another new main too. And if the reception is bad then it can be reversed without too much hassle. If viewership goes up? That's extremely important. I don't know if I I afflict that number because I shut the stream down when I see mirror bayo lol.



Oh, doubles cloud is actually much worse, even down to the results. All his weaknesses are patch in doubles (bad recovery, no grab combos). He's flawless. I think no question a ban on doubles Clouds needs to happen (to one cloud only per team) but who cares about doubles...



Bans are ok people. We don't need to be Smogon about it, but sometimes, it's necessary to save a game.

Trust me when I say I totally get this view point and argument. You don't want viewers to go away because you lose some players, money. Tournaments get less hyped and less people and things start to die off until the next new thing comes along and deals the death blow. This is what happened to Brawl although with a broken character and twitch not being so important back then for growth. And yes it would totally suck to see S4 die the same way because people hate bayonetta that much.

However that harsh reality is that none of that should be deciding how to make a game more competitively balanced in regards to the rule set because none of it are competitive factors that impact how you play the game. Duck Hunt wasn't banned because Sonic was super boring to watch on it, it was banned because certain strategies, namely circle camping and run away were deemed to oppresive for some characters to deal with to a point they were forced to ban the stage automatically which made the stage strike system irrelevant, that's a competitive reason to ban something. Banning because people aren't going to watch would kill the competitive integrity of the game.

The reality of the situation is that Bayonetta hasn't been deemed as being overpowering to the point she's overcenterlized the meta game. Either she's proven to be a broken character thus warranting a ban or the people who are willing to deal with her being a very strong but legitimate character will be left watching and playing the game.

The only compromise I can see is that she isn't included in the base game but is a add-on and therefore could be treated as a unwanted or un mandatory add-in that way but that opens up a discussion on the other add ons in this game.

 

[WiFi]

Trust me when I say I totally get this view point and argument. You don't want viewers to go away because you lose some players, money. Tournaments get less hyped and less people and things start to die off until the next new thing comes along and deals the death blow. This is what happened to Brawl although with a broken character and twitch not being so important back then for growth. And yes it would totally suck to see S4 die the same way because people hate bayonetta that much.

However that harsh reality is that none of that should be deciding how to make a game more competitively balanced in regards to the rule set because none of it are competitive factors that impact how you play the game. Duck Hunt wasn't banned because Sonic was super boring to watch on it, it was banned because certain strategies, namely circle camping and run away were deemed to oppresive for some characters to deal with to a point they were forced to ban the stage automatically which made the stage strike system irrelevant, that's a competitive reason to ban something. Banning because people aren't going to watch would kill the competitive integrity of the game.

The reality of the situation is that Bayonetta hasn't been deemed as being overpowering to the point she's overcenterlized the meta game. Either she's proven to be a broken character thus warranting a ban or the people who are willing to deal with her being a very strong but legitimate character will be left watching and playing the game.

The only compromise I can see is that she isn't included in the base game but is a add-on and therefore could be treated as a unwanted or un mandatory add-in that way but that opens up a discussion on the other add ons in this game.

Duck Hunt was banned because Cloud, Sonic, Sheik, and Bayo were practically unbeatable on it, which is sad, considering how fun DH is to play on.

 

[The_Bookworm]

I have to agree with ZeRo here. That is why Diddy Kong has became less relevant as the Smash series went on. When he was finally nerfed, he was down a little in top tier. Then he got popular and rose to being the best, but I think Diddy will very slightly cool down a little. He is still bonkers in theory, but I am sure there are undiscovered ways of beating Diddy Kong. I think Diddy Kong will always remain a top four character, but never top two. Can someone think of any characters that use follow-ups more ( Bayo ) or prefer neutral more ( Diddy Kong )?

Diddy was toned slightly down the list not because of this, but because of the growing dominance of Bayo and Cloud, and now the loss of ZeRo. I think neutal and punish is equally important in this game, but Bayo does her part marginally better. Diddy is top 5 though and I currently consider him at the 3rd to 5th spot (competing with Sheik and Rosalina).

Edit 2: Nakat just posted a forty-two minute video on Bayonetta if anyone is interested.

I wonder why NAKAT hasn't been competing lately. Is it because he parted with CLG?

It's 2018, Rosalina is a fair and honest character now :^)

Beginning to feel like its mandatory to complain about Bayonetta after every major. Yeah we got 3 of them in the top 8...but thats where they were seeded to place to begin with. It's like everyone forgot that the top 10 of the PGR were absent from this tournament, and players like ESAM and Elegant were unable to attend.

The Bayo slayers that existed in the tournament was mainly in a different bracket altogether as well.
I know that your first sentence is sarcasm, but I have to:

877-241-*quick beeps x7* LUMAAAAAAAA .............I'm sorry....

Bayo is no gen 6 Mega Khan. Gen 5 Ferro is a more apt comparison imo.

Bayo in a nutshell tbh. An annoying defensive Pokemon that is seen a lot, but not overpowered.

At least its not as bad as Marshadow is right now, that thing is only beatable by Primal Groudon, and only one build of Primal Groudon too.

Unless you have a creator, or a giant snake which ate a meteorite that is said to be banned from even Ubers. :<) I'm sorry.... again..............

 

[Rizen]

Can we make a separate thread for ban talk? I feel it's not contributing to meta talk.

Would you rather let the patient die or sever their infected limb, the poison slowly coursing through their body? Bayonetta at the moment is that poison for viewership.

Viewership is the most important background aspect of competitive smash. You need viewers to watch streams, for sponsers to find events that enters competitive smasher's pockets. If the game isn't being viewed anymore, sponsers leave, events die. Every smash player loses. Whoever was great at Brawl had Mk partially to blame because no one pulled the trigger to ban before it was too late (well, they reversed it for reasons I'll never know) granted, the game engine and balance still between the cast hurt too so it's harder to say.

Point is, after reading multiple Reddit convos about Bayo's tools and her impact on the meta leans me slightly to pro ban. Why wait until it's all top 8 Bayos? 3/8 in the top 8 is pretty bad in a game of 56ish.

At least, as someone else suggested, implement a soft ban at local level first and slowly build up if reception is good. Can't just slam the ban hammer in one swift blow. Gradually weave the ban tapestry into the rulesets from locals to majors. Gives time for other Bayo players to work on another new main too. And if the reception is bad then it can be reversed without too much hassle. If viewership goes up? That's extremely important. I don't know if I I afflict that number because I shut the stream down when I see mirror bayo lol.



Oh, doubles cloud is actually much worse, even down to the results. All his weaknesses are patch in doubles (bad recovery, no grab combos). He's flawless. I think no question a ban on doubles Clouds needs to happen (to one cloud only per team) but who cares about doubles...



Bans are ok people. We don't need to be Smogon about it, but sometimes, it's necessary to save a game.

Is there actual evidence Bayo specifically is losing viewers? The internet is a toxic place; people will complain about anything. It's like road rage. The anonymity, general c****iness of life and everyday sadism are a vicious cocktail. I often avoid social media.

 

[WiFi]

Can we make a separate thread for ban talk? I feel it's not contributing to meta talk.

Is there actual evidence Bayo specifically is losing viewers? The internet is a toxic place; people will complain about anything. It's like road rage. The anonymity, general c****iness of life and everyday sadism are a vicious cocktail. I often avoid social media.

I can make a separate thread for ban talk, I'm tired of people talking about it on this thread, which is supposed to be about a tier list and the placement of its characters, not if we ban a character. We already talked about Bayo from around page 30 to 45. She had her time.
Edit: Nothing in Smash is as overpowered as Pokémon, which has two ban lists. Its not fair to compare the two, especially when they are in different genres. I'm guilty myself of starting the Pokémon discussion, but it should probably stop. It would be easier to compare Smash 4 with Rivals of Aether or Brawlhalla, despite the obvious differences between games.

 

[Nobie]

We talk as if previous Smash games and previous fighting games didn't drive anyone away. All the people who talk about Fox being more okay to fight? That's because they accepted Melee. Those who couldn't stand Fox checked out years ago.

Imagine if Lucario were the best character in the game. The calls for bans would be even louder than they are for Bayo.

 

[HoSmash4]

Lol at these Bayo ban arguements. Let’s not be ignorant of the fact that the other top tiers are nearly as oppressive.

You see Dabuz and Leo dominate all these bayos. Why can’t everyone do it?

 

[Heracr055]

Dabuz and Leo are some of the most dominant players in this game.
In the case of Rosalina and Luma, she's certainly an enigma. I feel that there's just little interest in many players to try her out. Having to operate Luma and know her quirks, setups and positionings (sometimes having them separate) to optimize her probably intimidates many players. Especially since characters like Cloud and Bayo are available. I could def be wrong about this, however

This might actually encourage me to give her a spin

 

[nannerham]

Honestly I'm kinda astonished on what state the community is in right now, really talking about bayo in any way right now leads to bickering and arguing and really both sides of the spectrum (whether you're ban or anti-ban bayo) are handling the situation very poorly. On one side you have people spreading misinformation or coming up with absurd conspiracy theories on their own reasoning on how bayo isn't banned (while also blowing things out of proportion)

Are you kidding me? We're just gonna make things up now?

This is the OP of the most upvoted Smash 4 thread right now

And people wonder why I say reddit is a joke sometimes pic.twitter.com/HhvdhRdRqw

— BKROG | Ramin (@Mr_RSmash) February 12, 2018

While on the other side you have people completely shunning anyone and everyone's opinions/concerns who thinks she's unhealthy for the game, unreasonably misinterprets their issue, and making absurd statements that belittle or downplay others since "you're all too lazy because wiggling a stick fast is too much for you."

i don’t even consider that the community lol

there’s a difference between the community and the fandom

— Coney (@CONEY) February 12, 2018

(god I hate how coney's statement was said if he meant something else he seriously did a poor job wording it.)

You all fucking suck against bayonetta lol

— LG Tweek (@TweekSsb) February 12, 2018

Me and other top players have set so many examples to do well against bayo, but you’re all too lazy because wiggling your stick fast is too much for you

— LG Tweek (@TweekSsb) February 12, 2018

I totally get Tweek's frustrations here, having to hear your accomplishments constantly downplayed all the time since he mains cloud and bayonetta must be incredibly frustrating and tiring so I'm not gonna hold this against him, but he really could've handled his frustrations a lot better. If he would've voiced is POV and concerns in a more in depth and more collected manner the community would've taken to and accept his statements a lot better, but instead he kinda adds fuel to the fire insulting those who want bayo banned and assume that the majority that do, "sucks at fighting her and don't know how to SDI." And as much as I love and respect Mr. R he also said some things that really didn't help the situation either.

And this brings me to the main issue that everyone is acting so emotional and irrational that no one is listening to reason. To me there's valid concerns on both sides of the argument, bayo killing viewership and negatively affecting local scenes to the point of them disappearing is a normal and valid concern, leaving players kinda alienated for banning their main and fearing more people will go with them is a normal and valid concern and as Solidsense kinda pointed out earlier having a civil discussion on the state of bayonetta is becoming more and more difficult. Really the only thing that either side has in common is that they want to see smash 4 thrive and are passionate about the game but neither side as of right now is willing to comprimise, discuss, or even attempt to communicate and to me really its a shame how much of and issue this has become.

Idk man its kinda sad to see the community in this state but I've rambled on enough sorry for the essay.

Edit: Had to fix some images

 

[Deleted member]

First off, Dabuz and Leo are some of the most dominant players in this game.
In the case of Rosalina and Luma, she's certainly an enigma. I feel that there's just little interest in many players to try her out. Having to operate Luma and know her quirks, setups and positionings (sometimes having them separate) to optimize her probably intimidates many players. I could def be wrong about this, however

*Cough cough* Nairo? Niconico Tokaigi 2018 4-0ing MKLeo? Others?
Man people underestimate Nairo in this thread way too much. MKLeo may of had more results in Japan, but honestly Nairo has achieved many good results as well. ZeRo actually thinks Rosalina is the best non-DLC character, probably because her defensive game being among the best out of the crowd, who knows.
Honestly, Minordeth made a good point about Nairo. He has picked up good results recently.

People surprised that Leo got beaten by Nairo, smh. Like this is the same Nairo who:

- Has been at least a top 5 player the entire length of the Smash 4’s meta.

- Still the same Nairo who made the most absurd Loser’s run in SSC 2017, getting sent to Loser’s in round 2 of pools, then took out Rich Brown, Sinji, Komo, Tweek, Void, Mr. R, Shoyo James, MK Leo, and capped it off by beating Winners Zero across 10 games in Grands.

- Has probably the best CQC and advantage play in the game.

- Makes top 10 players, who main characters with advantageous MUs over ZSS, hate fighting ZSS.

- Routinely confuses people into thinking ZSS is top 3 or something.

- Touches people and they die.

I could say the same for Salem but he just does not feel as dominate anymore.

 

[Heracr055]

*Cough cough* Nairo? Niconico Tokaigi 2018 4-0ing MKLeo? Others?
Man people underestimate Nairo in this thread way too much. MKLeo may of had more results in Japan, but honestly Nairo has achieved many good results as well.

Lol at these Bayo ban arguements...You see Dabuz and Leo dominate all these bayos. Why can’t everyone do it?

I was responding to the latter quote. Please read posts above mine to gather context before jumping on me.

 

[Deleted member]

Me on Bayonetta Ban: Do not ban Bayonetta. People just need to learn to SDI and to punish Bayonetta better. I think people are too afraid to punish Bayonetta because she has a chance of doing multiple things a potential witch time which is truly devastating. Bayonetta is becoming more and more dominate as the meta progress though, and slowly the meta is favoring her instead of other characters, referring to mostly the singles meta.

I was responding to the latter quote. Please read posts above mine to gather context before jumping on me.

Hey bud, there is something called quoting.

Diddy was toned slightly down the list not because of this, but because of the growing dominance of Bayo and Cloud, and now the loss of ZeRo. I think neutal and punish is equally important in this game, but Bayo does her part marginally better. Diddy is top 5 though and I currently consider him at the 3rd to 5th spot (competing with Sheik and Rosalina).


I wonder why NAKAT hasn't been competing lately. Is it because he parted with CLG?


The Bayo slayers that existed in the tournament was mainly in a different bracket altogether as well.
I know that your first sentence is sarcasm, but I have to:

877-241-*quick beeps x7* LUMAAAAAAAA .............I'm sorry....


Bayo in a nutshell tbh. An annoying defensive Pokemon that is seen a lot, but not overpowered.


Unless you have a creator, or a giant snake which ate a meteorite that is said to be banned from even Ubers. :<) I'm sorry.... again..............

I do not want to be rude, but you honestly need to calm down.

 

[Frihetsanka]

I remember when quoting the post just before you was considered somewhat redundant. It's not too hard to check the previous post to see if the poster is responding to that, in Heracr055's case it seemed pretty obvious that he was responding to the previous post.

Top level players are bad at SDI:ing Bayonetta? Most people don't seem to mind playing against her as much as they mind her doing so well in tournaments (and appearing so often on stream), in addition to being boring to watch (according to many people). "Learn to SDI" won't really help with that much.

 

[WiFi]

Me on Bayonetta Ban: Do not ban Bayonetta. People just need to learn to SDI and to punish Bayonetta better. I think people are too afraid to punish Bayonetta because she has a chance of doing multiple things a potential witch time which is truly devastating. Bayonetta is becoming more and more dominate as the meta progress though, and slowly the meta is favoring her instead of other characters, referring to mostly the singles meta.

Hey bud, there is something called quoting.

I do not want to be rude, but you honestly need to calm down.

I started a Bayonetta discussion thread a long time ago to discuss her weaknesses, I can start another for this ban Bayonetta conversation. I feel we are getting too off topic here. Bayonetta is a character you need to play like a scrub against. Only do true stuff on her and you won't get Witch Timed.

Edit: This is coming from a Fox main, a character that gets BODIED by Bayonetta. But normally I switch to Cloud or M2 for that matchup.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Me on Bayonetta Ban: Do not ban Bayonetta. People just need to learn to SDI and to punish Bayonetta better. I think people are too afraid to punish Bayonetta because she has a chance of doing multiple things a potential witch time which is truly devastating. Bayonetta is becoming more and more dominate as the meta progress though, and slowly the meta is favoring her instead of other characters, referring to mostly the singles meta.

Hey bud, there is something called quoting.

I do not want to be rude, but you honestly need to calm down.

I wasn't acting crazy. I was making two.... bad.... jokes..... Silently walks away in shame.....

What did happen to NAKAT anyways? I saw him in Frostbite chat.

I started a Bayonetta discussion thread a long time ago to discuss her weaknesses, I can start another for this ban Bayonetta conversation. I feel we are getting too off topic here. Bayonetta is a character you need to play like a scrub against. Only do true stuff on her and you won't get Witch Timed.

Edit: This is coming from a Fox main, a character that gets BODIED by Bayonetta. But normally I switch to Cloud or M2 for that matchup.

Link to the thread?

 

[WiFi]

I wasn't acting crazy. I was making two.... bad.... jokes..... Silently walks away in shame.....

What did happen to NAKAT anyways? I saw him in Frostbite chat.

Link to the thread?

The thread is not up yet. I decided to ask permission from a moderator first, given that this is a very controversial topic.

 

[Kofu]

We talk as if previous Smash games and previous fighting games didn't drive anyone away. All the people who talk about Fox being more okay to fight? That's because they accepted Melee. Those who couldn't stand Fox checked out years ago.

Imagine if Lucario were the best character in the game. The calls for bans would be even louder than they are for Bayo.

Bayo thrives by having an absurd advantage state and the ability to turn matches around in the blink of a hat but honestly, so do most of the other top tiers (largely excepting Diddy and Sheik). That's just the game.

Anyway, regarding Lucario...

 

[The_Bookworm]

Bayo thrives by having an absurd advantage state and the ability to turn matches around in the blink of a hat but honestly, so do most of the other top tiers (largely excepting Diddy and Sheik). That's just the game.

Anyway, regarding Lucario...

Still not as strong a Melee Puff's bair. kappa
(Don't ask why, I am feeling silly today.)

 

[Frihetsanka]

Speaking of Bayonetta, might she actually lose to Corrin? Ryuga used to believe that (perhaps he still does). See:

pic.twitter.com/t6nXdIWZ9r

— ryuga (@trueRyuga) August 26, 2017

Corrin, apparently, won the last two sets he played against Salem, and is up 5-1 against Mistake recently. We can't base MU ratios strictly on player performance, of course, but it's worth considering (I'm personally leaning towards "It's even" and Cosmos being really good at the MU).

If Corrin turns out to slightly beat Bayonetta, I wonder if we'll see people pick up Corrin as a secondary for dealing with Bayonetta? Corrin should be fairly easy to pick up for most to players (she's a very fundamental-based character, and most top players have good fundamentals).

 

[WiFi]

Speaking of Bayonetta, might she actually lose to Corrin? Ryuga used to believe that (perhaps he still does). See:

pic.twitter.com/t6nXdIWZ9r

— ryuga (@trueRyuga) August 26, 2017

Corrin, apparently, won the last two sets he played against Salem, and is up 5-1 against Mistake recently. We can't base MU ratios strictly on player performance, of course, but it's worth considering (I'm personally leaning towards "It's even" and Cosmos being really good at the MU).

If Corrin turns out to slightly beat Bayonetta, I wonder if we'll see people pick up Corrin as a secondary for dealing with Bayonetta? Corrin should be fairly easy to pick up for most to players (she's a very fundamental-based character, and most top players have good fundamentals).

All of the swordies do pretty well against Bayonetta, they each have an answer to her shenanigans.