Official Character Competitive Impressions - Tourneys, Tiers, Theories, Tactics

[Ffamran]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy_hpEcqXdc

I was just getting into Lucas, and I find this. This hurts him a lot.
Edit: WHOOPS wrong video lmao.

Welcome to the life of Brawl Falco Nair and Fair and Smash 4 pre-1.0.8 Falco Nair and Samus Uair.

Just like his phantom hitting Uair that doesn't work at all? Lucas still seems like a rushed mess that was coded in a week.

Wouldn't be surprised. His Specials and Side Smash were in the game after all; they were Ness's. Even Roy's stuff was in the game since outside of Flare Blade, Blazer's animation, Counter's animation, jab, Ftilt, and Fair, all of Roy's moves belonged to Marth except for Side Smash which looks like Link's and Dair which is Ike's. Hell, you could even stretch it and say Mewtwo was a Zelda semi-clone since Melee. Oh, and Little Mac has some stuff from Captain Falcon; Little Mac's tech rolls, pitfall, and I think tumble animations are all Captain Falcon's. Games, especially ones with lots of content, have to cut corners and the more you ask them to do things, the more they will have to cut corners to meet deadlines.

Smash 4 should have released with only 25 characters max, the original 12, the 3 third-parties Mega Man, PAC-MAN, and Sonic, and 11 newcomers. People would be pissed as hell if that happened, but they, the developers, would have so much time to fine-tune the game like they were working on nanomachines and more time overhauling and fine-tuning Melee and Brawl veterans, and even DLC characters who are the arguably highest quality characters. I mean, if Zelda hasn't worked in 3 freaking games, then there's something wrong.

 

[MF Viewtiful]

This talk on character choice got me thinking.

Kinda controversial opinion: Lower tier characters in Smash games are not particularly fun to play. The characters themselves are pretty limited of course. But most of all IMO, the system mechanics of Smash don't give the flexibility that some characters would like.

The opposite of this situation is Guilty Gear and Soul Caliber 2. Guilty Gear has low tiers of course, but the ability to "burst" out of combos and "romantic cancel" moves gives all the cast powerful options. EVOLUTION 2015 saw Leo , a lower mid tier, take a top 8 spot. Something like this is unlikely in Smash.

SC2 has the all powerful ability of step guard (guarding during side step). Being able to move and guard simultaneously gives even chumps like Yungsung a fighting chance.

Opinion 2: "Broke" characters are fun to play.

Broken characters are pretty fun imo. All you MvC 2 heads, would you rather play Magneto or Roll? Pretty obvious if you ask me. Having strong/many options is better than weak/limited ones. I'm not going to struggle with Zelda when Ryu ko's at 75.

Enough ranting from me. Point is that smash low tiers are limited in ways I don't find fun. Play whoever you want. But always be wary of what's going on in the meta. You may hit a wall at some point and that maybe your character.

 

[Djent]

BSP yeah, it's here: http://www.twitch.tv/smashatscu/v/35374370

 

[Wintermelon43]

This talk on character choice got me thinking.

Kinda controversial opinion: Lower tier characters in Smash games are not particularly fun to play. The characters themselves are pretty limited of course. But most of all IMO, the system mechanics of Smash don't give the flexibility that some characters would like.

The opposite of this situation is Guilty Gear and Soul Caliber 2. Guilty Gear has low tiers of course, but the ability to "burst" out of combos and "romantic cancel" moves gives all the cast powerful options. EVOLUTION 2015 saw Leo , a lower mid tier, take a top 8 spot. Something like this is unlikely in Smash.

SC2 has the all powerful ability of step guard (guarding during side step). Being able to move and guard simultaneously gives even chumps like Yungsung a fighting chance.

Opinion 2: "Broke" characters are fun to play.

Broken characters are pretty fun imo. All you MvC 2 heads, would you rather play Magneto or Roll? Pretty obvious if you ask me. Having strong/many options is better than weak/limited ones. I'm not going to struggle with Zelda when Ryu ko's at 75.

Enough ranting from me. Point is that smash low tiers are limited in ways I don't find fun. Play whoever you want. But always be wary of what's going on in the meta. You may hit a wall at some point and that maybe your character.

And then Leo, in return, made sure this happened to Meta Knight as well

 

[TTTTTsd]

Welcome to the life of Brawl Falco Nair and Fair and Smash 4 pre-1.0.8 Falco Nair and Samus Uair.


Wouldn't be surprised. His Specials and Side Smash were in the game after all; they were Ness's. Even Roy's stuff was in the game since outside of Flare Blade, Blazer's animation, Counter's animation, jab, Ftilt, and Fair, all of Roy's moves belonged to Marth except for Side Smash which looks like Link's and Dair which is Ike's. Hell, you could even stretch it and say Mewtwo was a Zelda semi-clone since Melee. Oh, and Little Mac has some stuff from Captain Falcon; Little Mac's tech rolls, pitfall, and I think tumble animations are all Captain Falcon's. Games, especially ones with lots of content, have to cut corners and the more you ask them to do things, the more they will have to cut corners to meet deadlines.

Smash 4 should have released with only 25 characters max, the original 12, the 3 third-parties Mega Man, PAC-MAN, and Sonic, and 11 newcomers. People would be pissed as hell if that happened, but they, the developers, would have so much time to fine-tune the game like they were working on nanomachines and more time overhauling and fine-tuning Melee and Brawl veterans, and even DLC characters who are the arguably highest quality characters. I mean, if Zelda hasn't worked in 3 freaking games, then there's something wrong.

If Smash came out with 25 characters after Brawl's roster you know how disappointed the entire 70% that don't play this game competitively would be?

We're a small sect and I think this game is a lot of fun and stuff and I'd love improved balance but I don't want to sacrifice part of what makes Smash an amazing character based fighter experience, and that is the scale and amazing size of the rosters.

 

[LancerStaff]

Worth noting that Lucas' nair has a x2.0 SDI multiplier. Seems to be an intentional flaw of the move.

Normally I get why certain moves and characters have the flaws they have, but this is kinda baffling. It's otherwise a good move with a fatal flaw that makes it pretty much trash. It's a noob move that literally only works against people who don't know how to combat it. At least Little Mac's aerials function...

Well, could be worse. At least it's not Brawl Pit's Nair that was always unsafe on hit because it lacked a finisher.

 

[MF Viewtiful]

And then Leo, in return, made sure this happened to Meta Knight as well

I'm talking about the Guilty Gear character Leo. Not the player.

 

[TurboLink]

It's clear as day that Cloud is broken. We can let the trolls dance around it facetiously but anyone with a brain can see the blatantly broken elements of this fighter. In my opinion, having been around the block and on the scene for many years, Cloud is obviously an A tier character right now, and likely S tier if big timers lose to him consistently for the next few big tournaments.

What do you believe to be so broken about Cloud?

 

[Wintermelon43]

I'm talking about the Guilty Gear character Leo. Not the player.

Lol I'm joking

 

[Lavani]

Just like his phantom hitting Uair that doesn't work at all? Lucas still seems like a rushed mess that was coded in a week.

No, that actually is sloppy design. The animation would have you believe his uair hits like Ness', but the hitbox stays directly above him rather than following his head. It's really misleading and I don't think anyone would have problems with it being patched either in hitboxes or animation.

"Increased SDI on a multihit move" is a much less accidental thing. Whether or not it's warranted is another thing entirely.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Kinda controversial opinion: Lower tier characters in Smash games are not particularly fun to play. The characters themselves are pretty limited of course. But most of all IMO, the system mechanics of Smash don't give the flexibility that some characters would like.

How is that opinion controversial?

 

[zblaqk]

No, that actually is sloppy design. The animation would have you believe his uair hits like Ness', but the hitbox stays directly above him rather than following his head. It's really misleading and I don't think anyone would have problems with it being patched either in hitboxes or animation.

"Increased SDI on a multihit move" is a much less accidental thing. Whether or not it's warranted is another thing entirely.

Unfortunately there are many characters whom suffer from a blatantly obvious mismatch of hitbox and animation :/

 

[MF Viewtiful]

How is that opinion controversial?

Some people REALLY frown upon playing "top" tier for whatever the reason. They say things like "you are not playing for fun if you play top tier" or something like. I like having strong options myself. I don't always go for the strongest character mind you. I just avoid weak ones like the plague.

 

[S_B]

I actually have been practicing Z-Drop stuff because of that. Stealing stuff like Pac-Man's fruit and knowing how to use it against him instead of just trying to keep him from spawning it helps a lot to hinder him for some time.

I feel like everybody should take some time to learn item play like that, it makes MUs against item-spawning characters significantly easier.

Yeah, Bowser especially because Diddy and ROB are two of his more annoying matchups, and because Bowser has a command grab, meaning they cannot simply shield and wait for him to throw the banana.

The real issue here is that Diddy, ROB and Pac all tend to rely somewhat heavily on their items (and cannot pull out another one until the first one is gone), Megaman not so much.

So yeah, I think everyone should be as proficient with these items as those who play the characters who spawn them. I see SO MANY PLAYERS just throw these items immediately back at the character in tournaments. It's like, "Diddy NEEDS his banana to get that opening to Fsmash you. Why do you just hand it back to him like that?"

Furthermore, you have to ask yourself: how does this banana/gyro/fruit gel with my character's moveset? We know that Diddy has good followups after hitting someone with a banana peel, but what can YOUR character do specifically?

Also, z-dropping is highly underrated. Not only can you still perform many aerials while holding the item this way, but z-dropped items fall more slowly and yet tend to still have a strong effect on landing on someone, meaning you can chase them to the ground and followup with another attack.

I've been tempted to make a thread about utilizing the items of other characters against them but I've just not had the time, sadly...

 

[meleebrawler]

No, that actually is sloppy design. The animation would have you believe his uair hits like Ness', but the hitbox stays directly above him rather than following his head. It's really misleading and I don't think anyone would have problems with it being patched either in hitboxes or animation.

"Increased SDI on a multihit move" is a much less accidental thing. Whether or not it's warranted is another thing entirely.

Doesn't Lucas swing his head into the background or foreground, unlike Ness (and literally every other character with a headbutt for that matter) who swings it in the direction he's facing? It's also one of the few physical moves in the game to NOT have a trail (besides a very small sparkle denoting where it hits). So, maybe you can call him an idiot for swinging his head the wrong way, but I wouldn't call it "inaccurate".

As for the nair thing, it's likely due to the fact he's the one who could abuse a nair of it's kind the easiest and don't want a repeat of Brawl's jumping around racking up excessive damage with little else.

That, or it's their way of saying "zone, dammit! Zone 'till the Cattlesnakes come home!".

 

[Locke 06]

Z-axis is one thing, but there are a lot of moves that make sense in practice to have hitbox/animation mismatches. While playing Cloud, I asked myself if FAir could hit diagonally above me (like Peach's FAir), how crazy would that be?

But on the other hand, how else would I animate his forward air without looking like it "should" hit up there? From a developer standpoint, it's not as easy as "make the hitbox follow the animation trail."

Hitbox/hurtbox viewer when?

 

[Nu~]

Yeah, Bowser especially because Diddy and ROB are two of his more annoying matchups, and because Bowser has a command grab, meaning they cannot simply shield and wait for him to throw the banana.

The real issue here is that Diddy, ROB and Pac all tend to rely somewhat heavily on their items (and cannot pull out another one until the first one is gone), Megaman not so much.

So yeah, I think everyone should be as proficient with these items as those who play the characters who spawn them. I see SO MANY PLAYERS just throw these items immediately back at the character in tournaments. It's like, "Diddy NEEDS his banana to get that opening to Fsmash you. Why do you just hand it back to him like that?"

Furthermore, you have to ask yourself: how does this banana/gyro/fruit gel with my character's moveset? We know that Diddy has good followups after hitting someone with a banana peel, but what can YOUR character do specifically?

Also, z-dropping is highly underrated. Not only can you still perform many aerials while holding the item this way, but z-dropped items fall more slowly and yet tend to still have a strong effect on landing on someone, meaning you can chase them to the ground and followup with another attack.

I've been tempted to make a thread about utilizing the items of other characters against them but I've just not had the time, sadly...

And at least rob's gyro and diddy's banana disappear on shield. Pacman is at risk whenever a fruit even hits shield because you can just steal it with an attack of your choice.

I urge everyone to abuse PacMan's fruit against him heavily.

 

[Das Koopa]

Guess I'll display my Tier List since I've mentioned it multiple times. For Pre-Genesis: Based on a combination of results/theoryworking/etc

Top Tier: For characters that clearly are generally considered to have the most consistent and best results, have the best tools compared to the rest of the meta, etc. Applies to Pikachu and Kirby in 64, Fox and Falco in Melee, and Ice Climbers in Brawl. Meta Knight in Brawl and similar occurrences would most likely require another exclusive Tier to emphasize dominance. E.g., SS Tier, God Tier, etc.



High Tier: For characters that have fantastic tools, but might have slight weaknesses or flaws that keep them from being dominant. They often can clash with the best. See; Marth, Sheik, and Floaties in Melee, Fox and Falcon in 64, and Diddy and Olimar in Brawl.



Upper Tier (Upper Mid): For characters with some clear advantages but noteworthy disadvantages that allow them to compete at a higher level but often struggle to win serious competitions. See; Ice Climbers , Falcon, Samus, and Pikachu in Melee.



Mid-Tier: For characters with a share of advantages and weaknesses that make them Top 8-viable but would require outstanding skill and effort to score especially high in National settings. See; Luigi and Yoshi in Melee.



Borderline Tier (Lower Mid): For characters that have noteworthy strengths, but have significant weaknesses or are generally outclassed by the higher levels of metagame. Unlikely to top nationally as a result of being mained, and often will be most relevant as counterpicks or secondaries. See; Young Link and Ganondorf in Melee.




Low Tier: For characters that have more weaknesses than strengths who suffer when trying to keep up with higher level characters. Even high-class players may struggle to use low-tiers effectively, but they may have one or two workable matchups.



Bottom Tier: For characters that are mostly non-viable and have substantial weaknesses that severely outweigh their strengths.



Negligible Tier: For characters that are essentially completely nonviable at top-level play even with extremely good players backing them due to a variety of weaknesses that're often related to the game engine itself, atrocious frame data, a near-unworkable moveset, or bugs. See; Kirby and Bowser in Melee, and The Triforce Trio and Jigglypuff in Brawl.



Mii Fighters:

I don't think they can be adequately estimated right now. Neither Gunner nor Swordfighter are realistically worse than several people in the lowest ranks, but they lack results or a lot of play, and the rules applied to them are inconsistent. The latter is probably the biggest issue and could directly affect the former two. Hence, for now and until we get a universal ruleset regarding them, I won't be categorizing them.

And some reasons

Ryu and Meta Knight's high placement: Very good results in the past few months, especially Ryu. I think Ryu could sit up with Sheik and ZSS in due time if he continues to do well in tournaments.

The order of high tier: This was extremely difficult to make. Pikachu doesn't even have results outside of ESAM's use, and much the same can be said of Mario. Yet, this applies to Rosalina. However, Dabuz very consistently places within the Top 4, while ESAM and Ally sometimes struggle to reach that in more heated competition.

All of mid-tier: A very rough and undefined order, as all of these characters have similar results. They do well on occasion, but never seem to break out, hence I place them in the same mid-level category. In comparison, Upper-tier characters tend to do more consistently well at a top level.

Lucas in borderline: Newly discovered Nair SDI weakness led me to bump him from Mid to Borderline. If one of his key combo tools is really that exploitable, he may go lower in the future.

The rest of Borderline: All characters who are agreed to have some major weaknesses yet give out respectable results/gameplay in tournaments. This is definitely a temp position; I think these characters with either migrate upwards or downwards as time goes on because either their sudden stir of relevance was due to unfamiliarity with the matchup or they really do have hidden strengths that need to be tested by a higher caliber player.


Specific tier for Jiggs and Zelda: It seems as those these two in particular would be hard to make workable/viable without a high number of buffs. In Jigglypuff's case, I feel like the game engine as a whole has (since Brawl) not catered to her gimp-heavy gameplay. I feel like she lacks even a basic core as a result, so I ranked her below Zelda. You could argue Zelda doesn't either, but I feel like Zelda has a "plan" as a character that just needs buffs. Nonetheless, both are garbage atm.

 

[Pazzo.]

We've made a lot of tier lists on the current meta, but what about our "ideal" meta?

Which characters would you want to dominate competitive play in SSB4, if any?

 

[Y2Kay]

Guess I'll display my Tier List since I've mentioned it multiple times. For Pre-Genesis: Based on a combination of results/theoryworking/etc

Top Tier: For characters that clearly are generally considered to have the most consistent and best results, have the best tools compared to the rest of the meta, etc. Applies to Pikachu and Kirby in 64, Fox and Falco in Melee, and Ice Climbers in Brawl. Meta Knight in Brawl and similar occurrences would most likely require another exclusive Tier to emphasize dominance. E.g., SS Tier, God Tier, etc.



High Tier: For characters that have fantastic tools, but might have slight weaknesses or flaws that keep them from being dominant. They often can clash with the best. See; Marth, Sheik, and Floaties in Melee, Fox and Falcon in 64, and Diddy and Olimar in Brawl.



Upper Tier (Upper Mid): For characters with some clear advantages but noteworthy disadvantages that allow them to compete at a higher level but often struggle to win serious competitions. See; Ice Climbers , Falcon, Samus, and Pikachu in Melee.



Mid-Tier: For characters with a share of advantages and weaknesses that make them Top 8-viable but would require outstanding skill and effort to score especially high in National settings. See; Luigi and Yoshi in Melee.



Borderline Tier (Lower Mid): For characters that have noteworthy strengths, but have significant weaknesses or are generally outclassed by the higher levels of metagame. Unlikely to top nationally as a result of being mained, and often will be most relevant as counterpicks or secondaries. See; Young Link and Ganondorf in Melee.




Low Tier: For characters that have more weaknesses than strengths who suffer when trying to keep up with higher level characters. Even high-class players may struggle to use low-tiers effectively, but they may have one or two workable matchups.



Bottom Tier: For characters that are mostly non-viable and have substantial weaknesses that severely outweigh their strengths.



Negligible Tier: For characters that are essentially completely nonviable at top-level play even with extremely good players backing them due to a variety of weaknesses that're often related to the game engine itself, atrocious frame data, a near-unworkable moveset, or bugs. See; Kirby and Bowser in Melee, and The Triforce Trio and Jigglypuff in Brawl.



Mii Fighters:

I don't think they can be adequately estimated right now. Neither Gunner nor Swordfighter are realistically worse than several people in the lowest ranks, but they lack results or a lot of play, and the rules applied to them are inconsistent. The latter is probably the biggest issue and could directly affect the former two. Hence, for now and until we get a universal ruleset regarding them, I won't be categorizing them.

And some reasons

Ryu and Meta Knight's high placement: Very good results in the past few months, especially Ryu. I think Ryu could sit up with Sheik and ZSS in due time if he continues to do well in tournaments.

The order of high tier: This was extremely difficult to make. Pikachu doesn't even have results outside of ESAM's use, and much the same can be said of Mario. Yet, this applies to Rosalina. However, Dabuz very consistently places within the Top 4, while ESAM and Ally sometimes struggle to reach that in more heated competition.

All of mid-tier: A very rough and undefined order, as all of these characters have similar results. They do well on occasion, but never seem to break out, hence I place them in the same mid-level category. In comparison, Upper-tier characters tend to do more consistently well at a top level.

Lucas in borderline: Newly discovered Nair SDI weakness led me to bump him from Mid to Borderline. If one of his key combo tools is really that exploitable, he may go lower in the future.

The rest of Borderline: All characters who are agreed to have some major weaknesses yet give out respectable results/gameplay in tournaments. This is definitely a temp position; I think these characters with either migrate upwards or downwards as time goes on because either their sudden stir of relevance was due to unfamiliarity with the matchup or they really do have hidden strengths that need to be tested by a higher caliber player.


Specific tier for Jiggs and Zelda: It seems as those these two in particular would be hard to make workable/viable without a high number of buffs. In Jigglypuff's case, I feel like the game engine as a whole has (since Brawl) not catered to her gimp-heavy gameplay. I feel like she lacks even a basic core as a result, so I ranked her below Zelda. You could argue Zelda doesn't either, but I feel like Zelda has a "plan" as a character that just needs buffs. Nonetheless, both are garbage atm.

And the vicious tier list life cycle begins anew.............

 

[S_B]

I urge everyone to abuse PacMan's fruit against him heavily.

You vile traitor!!! D:

But actually, ROB's gyro will stay in play until it either hits a shield, goes off the stage, or hits the ground and bounces once. So long as you can hit ROB with it, you can definitely recover it afterwards.

But yeah, Pac's fruits are probably the worst for "betrayal" because you can hold onto them and bounce them around a much as you'd like.

For Pac players, learning the best way to go about RECOVERING your fruit from someone who has snagged it and is z-drop bouncing it on your face/shield would probably be a sound idea.

 

[Smog Frog]

the nair thing makes me wonder if they forgot to change the SDI multiplier. isnt SDI dependent on knockback? if thats the case the damage buff on the multihits maybe pushed it over the edge? also is it dependent on positioning(eg: if you hit them right in the center and follow them with it, can they sdi out? remember that he has very good aerial accel/decel, so he can change direction to follow sdi)

 

[meowth_]

What do you believe to be so broken about Cloud?

Hahaha I think that the real question is, "what isn't broken about Cloud?".
But rather than sit and argue I will just point out that this sword fighter has tremendous priority, a handful of obscenely low frame moves (8 frame dsmash for starters), ranged spam, and still maintains extreme mobility. I'd venture to say that his recovery is his only downfall, and coming from Melee / Brawl, the ledge is so weak in this iteration that his recovery is still gerber baby food status for any decent smasher. The character is out of line - and if he wasn't, they wouldn't sell cloud DLC like hotcakes.

Still though, I am sure people will come to refute my claims (and rightfully so, stand up for your character or your idea) - I wont sit and argue about it for very long, I will stand firmly by the idea that tournament results and a lack of nerfs will plop this character right up into an immediate A tier placing (at the least)

Edit: I improperly claimed Coud Dsmash at 6 frames - it is at 8 frames per http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Cloud

 

[Y2Kay]

Now I feel people Put Charizard as bottom tier out of habit. do people even know what he can do? Do people even understand what his weaknesses and strengths are?

 

[Rizen]

Have Bowser and Mewtwo made a splash since their buffs? How good would you say they are now (@ anyone)?

 

[Nu~]

You vile traitor!!! D:

I just want the torture of knowing my character will become obsolete in the future to end

Let the apocalypse begin today so we can advance the meta (and hope sakurai notices the oversights...)

For Pac players, learning the best way to go about RECOVERING your fruit from someone who has snagged it and is z-drop bouncing it on your face/shield would probably be a sound idea.

we used to think running behind hydrant walls would help...until we realized that hydrants are made of paper. It's difficult to find counterplay against fruit stealing since we're so slow on the ground. Sonic players with the lead can effectively time us out as soon as they catch it...

Trying to throw out a hitbox of our own to cancel the z drop hitbox may work...but when people start immediately recatching fruit with attacks to just wall us out...life will get hard. At least fruit can't be caught again after item tossing them

 

[UberMadman]

Now I feel people Put Charizard as bottom tier out of habit. do people even know what he can do? Do people even understand what his weaknesses and strengths are?

To be fair, though I don't think Charizard is nearly as bad as most people think he is, I also struggle to think of many characters I can consider him "better" than, which is why I imagine he places low on a lot of tier lists. He still has very limited options in neutral, the prototypical terrible disadvantaged state of the super heavies, terrible aerial mobility (WHY?!?!?!), and no solid kill confirms, (though his killthrow is pretty good!)

 

[Ffamran]

If Smash came out with 25 characters after Brawl's roster you know how disappointed the entire 70% that don't play this game competitively would be?

We're a small sect and I think this game is a lot of fun and stuff and I'd love improved balance but I don't want to sacrifice part of what makes Smash an amazing character based fighter experience, and that is the scale and amazing size of the rosters.

I know. Even if Street Fighter V is marketed as a competitive fighter, there are people who just play Street Fighter because it's Street Fighter. At launch, SFV will only have 16 characters which is double what SFII had at its launch, but 9 shy of what SFIV ended up with. With the known DLC, it'll have 22 characters and likely will end up with more characters after a while. SF isn't known for having a giant roster unlike Smash, but people will be disappointed when their favorite characters aren't in the game regardless if it's competitive or not.

There are people who play/compete using one character and only one character regardless of how bad or good they are. Sethlon comes to mind. Can he play Cloud? Can he play Mario? Absolutely, but he likes playing as Roy because it's Roy. Some people might be fortunate enough to click with several characters like Seagull Joe liked Sonic in Brawl, but Wolf was considered a better character. Wolf's not in Smash 4, so he's stuck with Sonic who's still a character he likes playing. Or Ryo who was Roy main, but clicked with Ike. He still plays Roy and a bunch of other characters, but for competitions, he's going Ike. Others might compromise like DKWill uses Sheik for tough MUs and in some cases, and I feel like this is the worse one, some people give up. Some people just switch because they feel like their character will never come back or are just way too bad to play in this game. Tyrant, a Brawl Meta Knight main, started off as Diddy main. Does he like Diddy? Do I know what this man's thoughts are? Nope, but interpretations of what he did is that he gave up, he sold out, whatever. Meta Knight wasn't bad; Meta Knight had quality control issues. Once those were resolved, Meta Knight was functioning and Tyrant's partner in crime was ready to fight alongside him again.

Spoiler: Game development woes

Note: I'm not a game developer; I don't know exactly what's going on, but I can at least observe what's going on and try to interpret it as best as I can.

You can't win between quality and quantity. You can't win over everyone and there's always a consequence when a choice is made. The problem regardless of what's chosen is game development is getting more expensive, more time consuming, and failures are much, much costly. In the past, a game could bomb and it wouldn't be that bad. Now? A game bombs and that's millions of dollars, Euros, pounds, etc. down the drain. Advertising games is sometimes even more expensive than the game's budget.

Ever heard of crunching? For game developers, it's pretty normal... Yes, it's Kotaku, but it's still a good arcticle from them: http://kotaku.com/crunch-time-why-game-developers-work-such-insane-hours-1704744577. There's also this one that's just on localization and how that's a pain in the ***: http://kotaku.com/the-curse-of-kiseki-how-one-of-japans-biggest-rpgs-bar-1740055631. If you don't like Kotaku, then head over to Gamasutra: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132112/not_everyone_feels_the_crunch.php. Pretty much the same thing. Masahiro Sakurai has told us about his health issues, especially how his hands are severely being affected. For Hideo Kojima, he mentions how he sleeps like 3 hours a day, but laughs it off as something that's normal to him and it's just because he has a habit of watching films before sleeping... Imagine the rest of the employees... Developers work a ton to get games done on time and time and time again, you'll see news of games getting delayed. In context of Smash, Brawl was delayed and so was Smash 4. This leads to a vicious cycle of you have to work on the game, so you don't sleep which means you have to sleep, so you don't work on the game, but end up needing to sleep because if you don't you die. Near or even before deadlines, that means developers crunch. They work their butts off to get games working. Here's the problem, if you're sleep-deprived, stressed, etc., you're not at your best, so there can be mistakes... which if they get corrected, means more time working... It's a mess. Traditional game development of make a game and release it isn't working when games are getting bigger and bigger and that means more need for quality control. It's sometimes not even because the game is big, but the process of making it is big. Look at the textures in this game and compare them to Melee or 64. That's hours upon hours of more work than before and that's more money needed to fund the game because employees need to be paid, equipment needs to be bought, and licensing for programs need to be paid as well. Cloud-related, more studios are going the episode routes where they work on games bit by bit and release them bit by bit. They still have to work on a giant game, but it's done in chunks. Do they do that with one big release? Probably, but they have to release the entire game and as good their Q&A team can be, they still can't track everything when thousands or millions of players can which if done in chunks, they can make those fixes in those chunks. It's still going to be a grueling process for them.

There is absolutely nothing "wrong" and there is no shame that developers have to reuse assets which in the case of Smash, means clones, clone moves, and little to no evolution of characters. It is wrong in a sense that there could have been more, but that can be said for any game. I mean, even with Smash 64, there were cuts and it only had 12 characters. In Brawl or Smash 4 where there were +40 characters? Of course there would be cuts either character, stage, or other content. The direction Smash has always headed was providing as much content as possible to players regardless if you were a competitive player or not. That is fantastic and there should never be any backlash for that. Even though tournaments might end up with the same 16 or so characters winning top 32, the other characters being used by players and for friendlies or just by players of the game and not a tournament, is still a fantastic thing to see. The problem with this is quality control. There's a point where you cannot make sure everything is in tip-top shape. It's even to a point where if a character functions, that's fine. By functions, I mean someone like Zelda where she doesn't have any dysfunctional things like misplaced hitboxes Meta Knight suffered, her own Up and Side Smashes failing to connect, way too over-tuned tools like Diddy's Uair or Luigi's D-throw, or something like the Diddy grab glitch or the giant Yoshi glitch. As long as she functions even at a low level, it's fine. Yeah, but people want to see Zelda take an international tournament or be a highly-functioning character, don't they? There's also a point where Smash cannot have anymore content. Smash with 100 characters would be absolutely amazing and absolutely insane. It might take them 3 years to just balance them all let alone create them and the rest of the game.

The flipside is what SFV is going for: quality. Of course, that means there's less quantity. It'll get boring, it'll get predictable, but it'll be balanced and nothing will be insane, dysfunctional, or out of the ordinary like Ryu inexplicably flies during a match because something went wrong with how the game's detecting if he's on the ground or not. Might be a basic thing, but even that can fail to be assured. The other problem is longevity which can also apply to quantity since you have everything, but for this scenario, it's worse since there's so little even though they're so fine-tuned. Done wrong, people will backlash over how much they have to pay for the game. Done right, it could be fine. The main issue isn't really consumer feedback on DLC, but consumer feedback on the game. If the game doesn't hold enough interest and it dies, DLC might not be able to revive it. Now, imagine if Capcom planned 3 seasons of the game and 18 more characters total? What if for whatever reason, SFV bombs? Welp, that's a ton of money, effort, and time wasted. And in a game as advertised and funded as this? Capcom could potentially go bankrupt which it's already treading...

 

[Y2Kay]

To be fair, though I don't think Charizard is nearly as bad as most people think he is, I also struggle to think of many characters I can consider him "better" than, which is why I imagine he places low on a lot of tier lists. He still has very limited options in neutral, the prototypical terrible disadvantaged state of the super heavies, terrible aerial mobility (WHY?!?!?!), and no solid kill confirms, (though his killthrow is pretty good!)

what do you mean? Jab-Jab-UpB is a great kill set up.

Do people not know that?

 

[TurboLink]

what do you mean? Jab-Jab-UpB is a great kill set up.

Do people not know that?

I'm guessing that's a mixup?

 

[HoSmash4]

That such a low-effort character is capable of doing what high/top-tiers such as Sonic have struggled with in such a short amount of time. It's shaping up to be Luigi all over again, except this time top players actually gravitate towards him instead of leaving him to terrorize mid-level players. In addition and related to that last point, he doesn't get bodied by Sheik, so there's nothing to "check" his spread.

Why does everyone think Cloud is low maintenance and doesnt need any labbing? Him trying to survive is a hard task to master unlike the free recoverys 80% of the cast has.
Can we just accept that Cloud is a very good character and just he seems 'simplistic' means its a bad thing?
We havent even optimised Cloud's combo game so theres still a lot we can do with him.

 

[UberMadman]

what do you mean? Jab-Jab-UpB is a great kill set up.

Do people not know that?

Welp, I didn't, and he's one of my secondaries... feeling a bit ashamed, but hey!I have something to integrate into my gameplay now!

I still stand by my point though, he's a serviceable character but it's hard to say who he's "better" than other than D3, Ganondorf, Puff, and Zelda for sure. I'd argue he's better than Duck Hunt and maybe Palutena too. After that point... fuzzy.

 

[jwj442]

I know. Even if Street Fighter V is marketed as a competitive fighter, there are people who just play Street Fighter because it's Street Fighter. At launch, SFV will only have 16 characters which is double what SFII had at its launch, but 9 shy of what SFIV ended up with. With the known DLC, it'll have 22 characters and likely will end up with more characters after a while. SF isn't known for having a giant roster unlike Smash, but people will be disappointed when their favorite characters aren't in the game regardless if it's competitive or not.

One major difference here is that Smash is (in part) a fanservice game. The characters in the game are from pre-existing franchises and the game tries to pay tribute to as much of Nintendo as possible, so it's only natural that there is going to be a large roster. Okay, I know Street Fighter has been around long enough that there's a large pool of available characters with their own fanbases, but it's still not the same thing.

If Smash were ever going to have a small roster, it would probably be in a game that totally reworks the basic mechanics and reboots the franchise. My feeling is that "Smash 5" will probably be "Smash 4 Turbo" on NX, so who knows? If they just upgrade Smash 4 for NX, some kind of reboot could happen one day if they ever decide to make a new Smash game.

 

[Y2Kay]

I'm guessing that's a mixup?

the second hit of jab combos into Fly. I don't think it's a true combo, but the hitbox of Fly is humongous, you can't really avoid it.

 

[Djent]

Why does everyone think Cloud is low maintenance and doesnt need any labbing? Him trying to survive is a hard task to master unlike the free recoverys 80% of the cast has.

People think he doesn't need much lab time because of how little time elapsed between his release and the point where people started succeeding with him. I mean when it only takes < two weeks for a character to attain top-level wins, there's only so much labbing that could have occurred. And TBH I'm not convinced his recovery is hard to master, since, well...people mastered it so quickly. People in this very thread have remarked how his deficits in this area were originally overstated.

Can we just accept that Cloud is a very good character and just he seems 'simplistic' means its a bad thing?
We havent even optimised Cloud's combo game so theres still a lot we can do with him.

Yeah, that's the scary part. There's more optimal stuff that he doesn't have to do yet, because the simple stuff works so well (this sounds familiar). Again, this is why I really hope there's something better to be done than "throw him offstage lol."

 

[TTTTTsd]

People think he doesn't need much lab time because of how little time elapsed between his release and the point where people started succeeding with him. I mean when it only takes < two weeks for a character to attain top-level wins, there's only so much labbing that could have occurred. And TBH I'm not convinced his recovery is hard to master, since, well...people mastered it so quickly. People in this very thread have remarked how his deficits in this area were originally overstated.
Yeah, that's the scary part. There's more optimal stuff that he doesn't have to do yet, because the simple stuff works so well (this sounds familiar). Again, this is why I really hope there's something better to be done than "throw him offstage lol."

I'm not sure how much more we can optimize his stuff outside of playstyle IMO.

Don't get me wrong I think Cloud is an incredibly strong character but unlike Diddy he doesn't have a Banana or all of these crazy B reverse tricks or other stuff. He's a lot more linear in that regard. Like, for as simple as he is, I don't think he's going to go super far up past here outside of playstyle and player optimizations. His moveset is very grounded in what it does vs. say, Diddy. I'm not really sure what more we COULD optimize and I've labbed this character intensely since release. We don't have the crazy monkey flip or nanner stuff, or the Up+B stuff that MVD amazed me with.

Just clearing things up, move along here~

PS One of the ways people will do better vs. Cloud is getting VERY familiar with option trees out of shield. They don't beat him or ruin him perse, but they're SUPER pivotal here in comparison to other matchups.

TL;DR Diddy Kong had a ton of options but never had to use them. Cloud has a ton of options and is so far utilizing basically all of them. I think there's a very large difference and I don't mean to sound rude, but I think that comparison is very, very misleading.

 

[Strong-Arm]

I still think Roy is really underrated and under appreciated.

 

[arbustopachon]

Jab Jab fly is solid but it can be beaten by counters and can whiff if the opponent DIs during the jabs and then jumps. Also i think frame 3 nairs beat it but don't quote me on that. It's also beaten by airdodges but that's kinda risky.
Grab and U-smash can also be used if you think fly will whiff.
Killing is not really an issue with charizard, i mean even jab kills at the edge at around 135% with rage.
The issue is you are a fat lizard that can't really move at all in the air and that all of his landing options imply 22 frames of landing lag. So once you get juggled you have to mix em up really hard to land.

 

[Planty]

Now that Roy has been brought up, what exactly could he do against shields past the % where he could combo off grabs and before his U-throw kills? That window is quite big and it just seems like he struggles hard against smart shielding. Even if he throws you offstage, he's not one to go edgeguard.

 

[HoSmash4]

People think he doesn't need much lab time because of how little time elapsed between his release and the point where people started succeeding with him. I mean when it only takes < two weeks for a character to attain top-level wins, there's only so much labbing that could have occurred. And TBH I'm not convinced his recovery is hard to master, since, well...people mastered it so quickly. People in this very thread have remarked how his deficits in this area were originally overstated.
Yeah, that's the scary part. There's more optimal stuff that he doesn't have to do yet, because the simple stuff works so well (this sounds familiar). Again, this is why I really hope there's something better to be done than "throw him offstage lol."

Reminds me of (at times) pre-patch
So he's just a really good character, with a clear weakness.

Cloud has some tech like Instant Limit cancel, and learning how to charge limit as safe as possible, using all the options you can do out of it effectively (jump, shield, platform drop, attack etc) Yeah he's recovery isnt as vulnerable as it seems because of how easy it is to get limit charge, his amazing aerials to protect himself and good aerial mobility and the concept of di up but it definitely is vulnerable with correct reads on the recovery.