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

[Jams.]

Good on Hyuga.

Don't see how that changes how much work Toon needs to put in to rack up that damage compared to most characters. It speaks more about Hyuga than the character.

I don't see how you can see Hyuga consistently land low % utilt set-ups and bomb conversions into high damage, then dismiss that as "Hyuga is godlike" instead of "Toon Link has the tools to land high damage follow-ups at least semi-consistently." You're basically using your own theorycraft to dismiss what Hyuga has proven to be possible for this character, which is exactly what you were accusing HoSmash4 of doing.

 

[Sinister Slush]

26 different characters in Top64
Every character played more than twice is considered a potential Top10 character.

But how can characters used more than 2 times be considered top 10 when characters used more than 3 times sums up to 10 different characters :^)

 

[Yikarur]

"potential"
Shouldn't be too hard to understand

 

[Sinister Slush]

Honestly those 10 characters look fine for top 10, only one people would try to switch out is maybe Villager or Mario with Ness or Pikachu.
Otherwise, looking at the other 15... is anyone seriously going to put characters like Falcon Yoshi or ROB in top 10 as examples?

 

[L9999]

Near the top of low tier and I'd argue that him and Bowser Jr are on almost equal footing. are definitely worse while maybe a smidge better or a little worse than those two.

Sorry but Lucina is garbage tier and worse than DDD in every sense possible. No players, no results, barely any advantageous traits, gets shrekt by every top tier and high tier. And seeing you group Roy with other trash tiers...does Roy has anything going for him besides being a noob slayer/ FG top tier?

 

[Tizio Random]

Spoiler: Genesis Top64 Character representation

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26 different characters in Top64
Every character played more than twice is considered a potential Top10 character.

Everytime I saw Komorikiri playing I saw him playing Sonic except for the set against Mr.R where he got pretty much bodied. Cloud is probably not a Top10 character. He is just the easiest character to play in this game while being good at the same time.

I think it isn't too much of a stretch to assume that this Top 10 in usage is the Top 10 characters in the game, they just need to be ordered. The others we can argue.

 

[Superbat]

Was there any stream for KiT 16?. nvm found it by myself. http://www.twitch.tv/team_drx

 

[Rizen]

Solo places at 97th (Scizor) and 65th (Erow)
http://www.ssbwiki.com/Genesis_3#Smash_Wii_U_singles

IMO this supports him as a mid tier who is usable but still not very good. placings really showed how large the gap between the Links is. I attribute this to 's safety in mobility, which also aids his followups. Like in Brawl, is a zoning character who can zone and is one who can't. has that heavy syndrome of good power/damage not being enough vs good players who don't give him the chance to land hits.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Toon Link's Utilt strings do only 3-5% per Utilt up to 25-30% for the Usmash/Fsmash finisher, and the Bombs themselves do only 4%. The impetus is on the Toon Link to be on the ball with his bomb confirm reads, and that's if he gets the Bomb confirm in the first place; Toon Link lost his ability to attack with normals with a Bomb in hand in the first patch, so when he has that Bomb, you know he has to do something with it at some point, so you can plan for it.

Toon Link has the potential to get that damage racking, certainly. But it requires a lot of interactions and confirmations that not only Toon Link has to play one step at a time, but that the opponent gets to play at the same time as well. Basically the old "Once the opponent knows what to do he or she can handle this matchup easier" argument, only this MU also grants the wary opponent Bombs of their own to neutralize and play with if they catch it.

 

[C0rvus]

Toon Link does have damage racking problems, doubly so if your opponent is good at bomb counterplay. But people never talk about his neutral. He can command a lot of space with boomerang, it passively carves out an area where the opponent has to react to it, almost like Lloyd. His ground speed is very good too.

I am of the opinion that Toon Link is a very capable character, but he has to play on point at all times. Not top 10 or 15, maybe top 20. His top tier matchups are okay. Sonic is near even, so is Ryu, ZSS is doable it seems. Call me an optimist but Toon Link seems solo viable, given Hyuga, Zan, etc are solo mains.

 

[Mr. Johan]

I dunno if I want to call it a damage racking "problem". He definitely has the mobility to just pester you with Rangs and Bombs from a distance, and you're definitely in trouble if your air speed is not as fast as his dash speed to avoid that lovely Usmash and Uair that keep you up there. If that's all the opponent is going to allow, Toon Link isn't going to get anywhere, but then, unless you're Fox or Sheik, neither is that opponent. You can only win the shield game so many times before you mess up.

It's more of a damage racking predicament, I guess. Toon Link can get the damage in, but in what way is he going to do it?

I personally have him as just below, if not barely at, Top 15 regardless though. A Toon Link that knows what he's doing is a very scary piece of work that you'll have to take a lot of time to figure out to an art form. And even then, Tink needs just a few interactions to go his way to really press advantage hard and ride that momentum out.

(I've also noticed that damn near every tier list someone makes has Robin and Toon Link right next to each other, or two spots apart at the very most. It's quite amusing.)

 

[RonNewcomb]

No, the source of Sheik's disproportionate strength lies entirely in the d-throw uair 50/50. It allows her to subvert her ordinary kill option weakness that is otherwise prevalent throughout her design, all at the hands of her terrific grab game. It's exactly the same as pre-patch Diddy, but only half as much of a problem. (Literally and figuratively.)

If you add a few frames of endlag to d-throw, Sheik suddenly doesn't get free kills on a coin flip. She is still a high-tier, just like Needle-less Sheik; I'd speculate they'd be similarly tiered. But we are comparing adding a few frames of lag to a throw to removing the game's best special move from a character's kit.

I came to a similar conclusion by a different route: why do I enjoy watching Mr. R's Sheik so much, but ZeRo's Sheik not at all? And I think it's because ZeRo, like a lot of ppl who second Sheik, play her as a speedy grappler with fast normals, who goes for the 50/50 over and over and over again until it works.

If I could, I'd nerf Sheik in a way that wouldn't affect Mr. R's gameplay but affects most everyone else's Sheik, and the throw combo into the 50/50 of death was what I came to.

In other news,

I saw two very different ways of playing Cloud in singles. The Japanese way, who save the LB for recovery or an ultra-ensured combo opportunity, and Mew2King's, who toss out LBs in neutral like they're free then run away micro-charging meter. I can't say which is better, necessarily. Mew2King didn't get very far, but further in the bracket Komorikiri (I think?) using the Save It way got 2-stocked by Marss(Nairo?), so he started throwing them out speculatively which worked that round and got him the reverse 2-stock. Then he returned to the old ways and... lost.

I think I'm of the opinion that neither way is optimal. Rather, go the M2K route until Cloud's % gets high enough that flying off stage becomes a constant danger, then save it.

 

[meleebrawler]

Toon Link does have damage racking problems, doubly so if your opponent is good at bomb counterplay. But people never talk about his neutral. He can command a lot of space with boomerang, it passively carves out an area where the opponent has to react to it, almost like Lloyd. His ground speed is very good too.

I am of the opinion that Toon Link is a very capable character, but he has to play on point at all times. Not top 10 or 15, maybe top 20. His top tier matchups are okay. Sonic is near even, so is Ryu, ZSS is doable it seems. Call me an optimist but Toon Link seems solo viable, given Hyuga, Zan, etc are solo mains.

This Toon Link talk is making me think of how similar Olimar is. It can be hard for him to do much if the opponent is on point with shielding, but it's virtually riskless to keep throwing them (especially with purples as backup), and when he does land them it's damage that's very hard to avoid without giving Olimar a chance to close in, or just throw even more Pikmin. Both he and Toon Link even have that backup kill throw if they end up racking tons of damage without getting a solid aerial to kill with.

 

[Jams.]

Toon Link's Utilt strings do only 3-5% per Utilt up to 25-30% for the Usmash/Fsmash finisher, and the Bombs themselves do only 4%. The impetus is on the Toon Link to be on the ball with his bomb confirm reads, and that's if he gets the Bomb confirm in the first place; Toon Link lost his ability to attack with normals with a Bomb in hand in the first patch, so when he has that Bomb, you know he has to do something with it at some point, so you can plan for it.

Toon Link has the potential to get that damage racking, certainly. But it requires a lot of interactions and confirmations that not only Toon Link has to play one step at a time, but that the opponent gets to play at the same time as well. Basically the old "Once the opponent knows what to do he or she can handle this matchup easier" argument, only this MU also grants the wary opponent Bombs of their own to neutralize and play with if they catch it.

This is a good point. I would really like to see more players airdodge out of shield to catch the bomb or insta-toss it. Hyuga was able to get easy reads because most players only rolled or held shield when bombs hit their shield, so he only had to cover 3 options. Marss was the only player I saw airdodge to catch bombs, and I think it helped alleviate Hyuga's shield pressure.

 

[TDK]

Looking at results, I'm going to try to put it into a list. The list is probably bad.

Spoiler: a tentative post-G3 tier list

S:
High S

Middle S

Low S


A:
High A

Middle A

Low A


B:
High B

Middle B
( / )
Low B


C:
High C

Middle C

Low C


D:

This is very tentative, and takes a lot of things from genesis into account, as well as theorycraft. There are separations for each tier except D, who are all about on the same level of viability.

Tier explanations:
S: Tried and true characters who are very likely to come in top 8 of major tournaments, these are the characters with amazing tools, including damage racking, KO options, offstage game, and recovery. These characters have very few flaws, which are mitigated by their large strong points.

A: Solid characters who are very likely to come in top 16 of major tournaments, these characters have great tools for damage racking, KO options, offstage game, and recovery. While these characters have flaws, they are mostly mitigated by their strong points.

B: Good characters who are likely to come in the top 32 of major tournaments, these characters have above average tools for damage racking, KO options, offstage game, or recovery. These characters have flaws, but their flaws are partially mitigated by their strong points.

C: Average characters who often require a secondary to come in the top 32 of major tournaments, or are seen as secondary characters themselves, these characters have average tools for damage racking, KO options, offstage game, or recovery. These characters often have one or two strong points and glaring flaws, but their strong points warrant their use.

D: Below average characters who are almost never seen in major tournaments, and very rarely make it into the top 64 of tournaments, almost exclusively with/as a secondary. These characters have below average options for damage racking, KO options, offstage game, and recovery. These characters have massive flaws in most of these areas, and are often outclassed by characters above them.

Also, I probably forgot someone. Any thoughts?

 

[R3D3MON]

No they don't. They have average recovery frames, 37 for Up Smash and 35 for Down Smash, for Smashes except for Side Smash which has 23 which is pretty above-average. For startup, they're all below average, none of them got above frame 12, which for Sheik is slow when almost all of her moves are fast on startup. Her Smashes are pathetically weak compared to her other options like Bouncing Fish. I said to nerf her Bouncing Fish from 12% to 10% and compensate by better Side and Down Smashes and a reversion of her Bair to pre-1.0.6? Bair. I didn't say make her Side Smash as strong as Ganondorf's or Down Smash invincible. Side Smash should at least connect better and Down Smash shouldn't do 9% total when there are Down Smashes like Luigi and Little Mac's that are much faster, safer, more spammable, and do 12% minimum.

Balancing should be re-tuning characters so they function in more "healthier" ways. You want butchering? Then look at launch Falco, Marth, and Meta Knight. Look at patch 1.0.4 Greninja and even patch 1.0.6? Diddy and Link. It wasn't until 1.0.8 that Diddy was re-tuned and not blatantly nerfed and it wasn't until 1.1.1? that Greninja was re-tuned, especially for Water Shuriken. Link on the other hand has been getting incremental buffs to Spin Attack while having moves like Fair and D-throw were re-tuned. You also don't straight-up buff a character in stupid, exclusive ways like what they did to DK's cargo U-throw. Yeah, let's ignore his hitboxes on his Smashes or the fact he has I-frames on pretty much everything and more active I-frames than Bowser, a naturally armored character because Bowser's a freaking scaled turtle-dragon while DK's just a gorilla.

What you said is true, but her smash attacks are punishable regardless, even without perfect shielding. Also, you still ignored what I said afterwards: there is no real setup into her smash attacks that properly kill at properly percents since the few setups that she has requires her sweetspotting a move that has a really small hitbox and pathetically weak power (up-smash). Buffing her smash attacks will literally not help her in anyway because there is no real way for her to link them or use them in a practical manner. For example, after nintendo nerfed luigi's d-throw, they slighlty buffed d-smash's kill power and damage output...but it barely did anything to luigi. There were no kill setups involving d-smash, so just buffing the raw power of d-smash did nothing to actually compensate for luigi's nerfs.

As I said before, sheik really just needs her safety during recovery dumbed down a bit since other top/high tier characters tend to have rather exploitable recoveries (rosalina, mario, diddy kong, cpt falcon, fox, ness, luigi, etc). Nerfing her bouncing fish is also, imo, unnecessary because it does not really kill before 150% unless you are really close to the blastzone (in which case literally any semi-weak move will kill you), and her setups into bouncing fish are not exactly free, with several characters that can just air-dodge out of the setup (i.e. ness) and actually setup a counterattack and punish sheik for attempting the combo. Also because of sheik's rather lackluster killing abilities, comebacks are real against even the best sheik player (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVxgOl3bPmw).

Anyways I think I'm gonna stop talking about sheik since I've already said what I wanted in past posts.

On the topic of DK: I think his buff for his cargo throw was fine since it was already his combo throw before the buff. DK really needed that buff because he really had trouble killing if it was not from some kind of a read. And for me a game where it is mostly read-based does not sound fun at all (i.e. brawl...). His cargo throw buff allowed him to properly punish people who were too aggressive (shield grabbing is such a good option, and DK was able to use it to its fullest), and allowed DK to actually be the aggressor with the threat of his dash grab and some setups into a grab (tipper jab 1 into grab, uptilt into reaction shield-grab, etc.). His cargo throw buff essentially was the missing link for allowing his moves to fully flow better and function better together. Overall I would say it was not a stupid buff, but a much-needed buff for DK that allowed his moveset to flow together better and allow DK to properly punish people in situations where other characters would have done so. Feel free to disagree, but the pre-buff DK just felt really tiring to me because I had to make so many reads and gain damage mostly through raw hits instead of combos or strings (of course I never expected DK to have a lot of long combos or strings, but the fact that he didn't have too many short combos/strings disheartened me).

 

[ARISTOS]

Spoiler: Genesis Top64 Character representation

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26 different characters in Top64
Every character played more than twice is considered a potential Top10 character.

I would disagree with the second statement.

As for top 10, I'm not sure if there are even divisions in the top 10.

Spoiler: Thoughts on the Metagame as it stands

IMO, these are the most relevant characters



**
-
*/
--
--**


At the moment, this is where I see the meta as it is currently taking shape today. I'm trying to be as holistic as possible when typing this, so comment as necessary. Genesis 3 being the most stacked tourney of all time seems like a good time to review where we are.

* means I think the character has a lot of room to explore and get better. - means either I see the character as having already been significantly explored with no major developments in sight, or developing counterplay will leave the character increasingly ineffective in the long haul.

1. I've talked about Sheik and ZSS before, and nothing really has changed too much. Sheik's ability to outbox AND outcamp every character in the game means that in all situations she generally has the advantage. ZSS gives up some neutral domination for the ability to kill most of the cast easily off of incredibly safe moves. Their recoveries are essentially unpunishable and they both have incredibly safe ways of getting off the ledge. This safety is what leads to their domination and IMO should be the starting point of any nerfs that were to come in the future. Sheik showing up 14 times in top 64 isn't quite but it's definitely something to be concerned about. Something to watch. Why more people don't play ZSS, I'll never know.
2. All three of these characters play to various strengths. Rosalina's advantage isn't talked about as often but it's actually quite absurd how large, damaging, and quick some of these hitboxes are. There is absolutely nothing worse than being above Rosalina in this game, and small conversions can turn into quick and heavy punishes very quickly with this character. Her ability to exude pressure while standing still is second to none and GP shuts down projectile-based characters. The Great Wall () indeed. Diddy has a dominating neutral game that's been talked about a lot, but his ability to reset to neutral should also not be understated. Fantastic damage racking and with anti-banana strats being nerfed from Brawl+quick smashes that kill at reasonable percents, there's no reason not to believe this character is strong.
3. Metaknight has been talked about extensively, but I see him as the character with the most potential out of any character. Confirms off of very safe moves, one of the best edgeguarders in the game, no disadvantage to speak of, etc. This character has everything needed to become a top 3 threat. Not sure about Fox atm- fast, safe attacks, great neutral, but he can get edgeguarded unlike some of the characters above and he gets comboed badly just as he comboes others, all while dying much earlier. Larry Lurr gives me determination, though. Ryu underperformed at this tournament but I still have high hopes for the World Warrior. I think his player base still has a ton to learn and you can't beat safe, high damaging moves that can link into a Shoryu that kills 20-30% higher than most other moves. Interested to see how use of Shoryu to get out of strings will continue over time. His disadvantage is worse than those above him, as well.
4. Mario is solid, but simple, and I think that'll hurt him in the long haul. Ally can keep getting away with turnaround Up-Smash forever. Ness I had dropping, but FOW and Shaky looks so consistent with the character I'm not sure where to keep him. Rosa and Villager both look like rough MUs.
5. Villager needs to be looked at closely from here on. Ranai's use of Villager's ranged F-Smash and Dash Attack to continue comboes/add damage were the first time I'd seen Villagers do that and he has staked a large claim for Villager to be the best edguarder in the game. TL may be high here to some, but unlike the characters below him he seems to not get out-neutralled but the characters above him and each opening he gets can lead to good damage. It's doesn't matter that each individual hit is low because he's usually chaining 2-3 of these hits together and poking you at all times. Pikachu has been underwhelming for awhile now from what we thought a couple months back, but NAKAT seems to be taking the character a bit more seriously so lets hope he'll continue to improve. The lack of kill confirms+lightweight really hurts Pikachu, but you can't deny it's damage racking and great disadvantage.
6. Cloud looks really strong for a month old character. Sheik may be a bad MU but I'm not sure how many characters actually have the tools to edgeguard him effectively (Side Note: Peach's Golf Club reaches under the stage, outranges, and will hit Cloud out of Up-B. Falcon, as I said earlier, has almost been entirely figured out and has no chance outside of a Fatality run of doing well in the long haul.
7. I don't think highly of grappler-based characters in general IMO, because grabs are much harder to get the better play becomes. DK has immense disadvantage problems and has trouble creating openings; Luigi also has trouble getting openings in while also having one of the worst shields on block due to sliding everywhere when hit. If you can stop Green Missle, you stop Luigi; it's that bad. Lucario and Greninja IMO are still underexplored characters with a lot to offer. I have faith.
8. The last batch of relevant characters IMO. Outside of these, you are likely going to face trouble wherever you go. and may join this list in the future but we'll wait and see. I don't think is good at all, and Tweek is a great player using an awful character.

Like, comment and subscribe and we'll see you next time on ARISTOS's long musings

 

[HeavyLobster]

Solo places at 97th (Scizor) and 65th (Erow)
http://www.ssbwiki.com/Genesis_3#Smash_Wii_U_singles

IMO this supports him as a mid tier who is usable but still not very good. placings really showed how large the gap between the Links is. I attribute this to 's safety in mobility, which also aids his followups. Like in Brawl, is a zoning character who can zone and is one who can't. has that heavy syndrome of good power/damage not being enough vs good players who don't give him the chance to land hits.

Link's clearly outclassed by Toon Link as a zoner. He is better at midrange with a better grab and his spacing tools are better. The main problem he has is that playing at such quarters is much riskier than Toon Link's game of run away and bomb, especially since his physics make him combo food, especially vs high tiers. I maintain that Link is generally a good character, but he does have limitations and can't be played like Toon Link.

 

[Zelder]

Ah, is this the part of the discussion where we start rating Villager higher and higher, despite him being in similar place to Pikachu a while back - one top tier player that drives their results, with no one else being able to really replicate their success? Though admittedly, Ranai is a bit more top tier than ESAM.

As an aside, I think Villager is better than Pikachu, but I'm also not too impressed with Pikachu.

edit: I long for a Smash game where Link is good.

 

[R3D3MON]

Ah, is this the part of the discussion where we start rating Villager higher and higher, despite him being in similar place to Pikachu a while back - one top tier player that drives their results, with no one else being able to really replicate their success? Though admittedly, Ranai is a bit more top tier than ESAM.

As an aside, I think Villager is better than Pikachu, but I'm also not too impressed with Pikachu.

edit: I long for a Smash game where Link is good.

Project M?

 

[TurboLink]

I personally believe that Little Mac will never be viable. Shulk being viable is more likely than Little Mac ever being viable.

 

[Ulevo]

I think it isn't too much of a stretch to assume that this Top 10 in usage is the Top 10 characters in the game, they just need to be ordered. The others we can argue.

I think this really appropriately demonstrates Sheiks inherent balance disparity to the rest of the cast.

I have seen people complain previously about how Zero Suit and Sheik need to be tuned because of their relative balance compared to the rest of the roster, as if to say they are both on the same level of concern. I find this notion absolutely hilarious.

Zero Suit is a strong character with strong traits, but she has specific weaknesses that can be exploited or abused to promote counter play. Her necessity to take risks with grab and boost kick at higher %, her short hop height which leaves her vulnerable and telegraphed, the ability to DI most of her kill combos, and difficulty with low-profiling and succeptibility to powershield counterplay helps to keep her a relatively honest character with a few exceptions (i.e. rage Boost Kick): She has a few match ups where she loses as well, and has a semi-binary playstyle in order to reach her high rewards or be forced to stale mate in neutral with her safe options.

Sheik is stupid. The amount of options she has in any one given situation is astounding. Needles dictate neutral in a way that forces any projectile based character to have to approach Sheik on terms where she naturally dominates in CQC. There is no reason they should be that fast while also having laser prority. Bouncing Fish's hitbox is way too big, being capable of even clipping people on a ledge 2-frame. Vanish is likely her biggest problem, since being able to actually edge guard her would open up opportunities to exploit her, but that's not a thing. Instead players are often forced to let her return to the stage because the risk of either dying to Vanish or losing stage position and having to then fight off an edge guarding Sheik is not worth the reward. Forward air is silly by itself but I think Sheik could have it if the former points were addressed because while nerfing forward air would make her less oppressing it would not give her direct counterplay or losing match ups without nerfing it too much.

To illustrate what I am talking about, just at the ledge, Sheik can:

- Fade away short hop neutral air.
- Ledge cancel Vanish.
- Auto cancel Vanish.
- Needle Storm.
- Drop down double jump untechable back air.
- Jumping Needle Storm.
- Grenade.
- Down air spike.
- Up tilt the 2-frame.
- Down Smash.
- Short hop forward air to cover ledge attack options.
- Bouncing Fish the 2-frame.
- Every other option offered by universal mechanics (i.e. Pivot grabs, empty jumps, trot fake out to grabs, et cetera.)

Nearly all of these options are incredibly safe, provide zero risk high reward. Many of them cover multiple ledge options, can be mixed up, and several lead to high damage or kills.

This is just her ledge game. This trend of 'too many good options' expands to the rest of her game play as well. Recovery, combos, kill set ups, et cetera.

Despite how technical and deep of a character she is, I think it is very telling that she has twice as many top 64 entrants as the next most popular pick, particularly compared to Zero Suit who is far more rewarding on a per read basis and is signiciantly easier to employ on top level play. Just watching the things Void does on a regular basis should be more than enough evidence for people to recognize that this character is not on the same level as Zero Suit, and is not a healthy long term roster member.

 

[zeldasmash]

edit: I long for a Smash game where Link is good.

He is good in Smash 4, just severely underrated.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Looking at results, I'm going to try to put it into a list. The list is probably bad.

Spoiler: a tentative post-G3 tier list

S:
High S

Middle S

Low S


A:
High A

Middle A

Low A


B:
High B

Middle B
( / )
Low B


C:
High C

Middle C

Low C


D:

This is very tentative, and takes a lot of things from genesis into account, as well as theorycraft. There are separations for each tier except D, who are all about on the same level of viability.

Tier explanations:
S: Tried and true characters who are very likely to come in top 8 of major tournaments, these are the characters with amazing tools, including damage racking, KO options, offstage game, and recovery. These characters have very few flaws, which are mitigated by their large strong points.

A: Solid characters who are very likely to come in top 16 of major tournaments, these characters have great tools for damage racking, KO options, offstage game, and recovery. While these characters have flaws, they are mostly mitigated by their strong points.

B: Good characters who are likely to come in the top 32 of major tournaments, these characters have above average tools for damage racking, KO options, offstage game, or recovery. These characters have flaws, but their flaws are partially mitigated by their strong points.

C: Average characters who often require a secondary to come in the top 32 of major tournaments, or are seen as secondary characters themselves, these characters have average tools for damage racking, KO options, offstage game, or recovery. These characters often have one or two strong points and glaring flaws, but their strong points warrant their use.

D: Below average characters who are almost never seen in major tournaments, and very rarely make it into the top 64 of tournaments, almost exclusively with/as a secondary. These characters have below average options for damage racking, KO options, offstage game, and recovery. These characters have massive flaws in most of these areas, and are often outclassed by characters above them.

Also, I probably forgot someone. Any thoughts?

Fairly in line with the results we've been seeing, except Dedede and Bowser Jr. are pulling in C tier results. Both are fairly similar characters in that they have weird trap-based gameplay and brutal punish games, meaning they don't give you second chances if you don't come in prepared against them, and very few people actually know the MU. I agree with the theorycraft working against D3 wholeheartedly, and have mixed feelings on how much it applies to Jr. I think he has better tools than D3.

 

[Nu~]

He is good in Smash 4, just severely underrated.

This has to be the most used phrase of all mid to low tier mains in sm4sh.

Why is link underrated? What makes him good?

 

[Yonder]

I think it isn't too much of a stretch to assume that this Top 10 in usage is the Top 10 characters in the game, they just need to be ordered. The others we can argue.

That's actually pretty fair, I guess that would leave Mario as the only outlier since he only had Ally. Would Mario still be top 10 or would he replace someone on that list?

 

[LancerStaff]

This has to be the most used phrase of all mid to low tier mains in sm4sh.

Why is link underrated? What makes him good?

For a mid to low tier we sure do see a lot of him... Not necessarily at nationals but you get the point.

 

[Deathcarter]

Looking at results, I'm going to try to put it into a list. The list is probably bad.

Spoiler: a tentative post-G3 tier list

S:
High S

Middle S

Low S


A:
High A

Middle A

Low A


B:
High B

Middle B
( / )
Low B


C:
High C

Middle C

Low C


D:

This is very tentative, and takes a lot of things from genesis into account, as well as theorycraft. There are separations for each tier except D, who are all about on the same level of viability.

Tier explanations:
S: Tried and true characters who are very likely to come in top 8 of major tournaments, these are the characters with amazing tools, including damage racking, KO options, offstage game, and recovery. These characters have very few flaws, which are mitigated by their large strong points.

A: Solid characters who are very likely to come in top 16 of major tournaments, these characters have great tools for damage racking, KO options, offstage game, and recovery. While these characters have flaws, they are mostly mitigated by their strong points.

B: Good characters who are likely to come in the top 32 of major tournaments, these characters have above average tools for damage racking, KO options, offstage game, or recovery. These characters have flaws, but their flaws are partially mitigated by their strong points.

C: Average characters who often require a secondary to come in the top 32 of major tournaments, or are seen as secondary characters themselves, these characters have average tools for damage racking, KO options, offstage game, or recovery. These characters often have one or two strong points and glaring flaws, but their strong points warrant their use.

D: Below average characters who are almost never seen in major tournaments, and very rarely make it into the top 64 of tournaments, almost exclusively with/as a secondary. These characters have below average options for damage racking, KO options, offstage game, and recovery. These characters have massive flaws in most of these areas, and are often outclassed by characters above them.

Also, I probably forgot someone. Any thoughts?

Why is Pit in the middle of B-tier? Aside from Earth placing top 16 and even taking a game of Zero's Sheik, its pretty apparent at this point that Pit just has better options overall than everyone else you listed in B-tier. His kit simply allows him to hold his own against the entire cast while letting him be at least proficient or outright great in practically every aspect of the game.

 

[HoSmash4]

The only thing with Sheik's ledge game is that she isnt going to kill you off one ledge read, but over a series of ledge reads (or rather, ledge option coverages)

ZSS will kill you with a downsmash read, conditioned by her broken tether ledge trump.
Mario's upsmash is amazing coverage of th ledge
Villager's ledge coverage is amazing.
Rosalina covers many options at a time with luma.
Falcon covers many options with bair and jab.
Ryu utilt covers standard options exceept roll.
Diddy banana ledge play.

Ledgetrapping is strong in this game in general ( A lot more threatening as well), but Sheik can force ledge situations way more often than any other character because of her neutral. Also Sheik is pretty relatively immune to conditioned buffer ledge trumps because of the option for sheik to delay her vanish so it doesnt autosnap the ledge and activates the 2nd hitbox + windbox of vanish. Granted her options coming off the ledge are pretty standard (no fox side-b or heavy shield push aerials etc) but the fact she isnt forced to play the ledge trump game in disadvantage helps a bit in clutch situations

 

[L9999]

Outside of FG, I haven't heard a single thing about Link doing anything in Smash 4. Have heard more about than Link. For some time I thought Izaw and Kirin stopped playing until I saw their names in the pools and sometimes I forget they and Link exist.

 

[Antonykun]

Looking at results, I'm going to try to put it into a list. The list is probably bad.
S:



This is very tentative, and takes a lot of things from genesis into account, as well as theorycraft. There are separations for each tier except D, who are all about on the same level of viability.

Tier explanations:
S: Tried and true characters who are very likely to come in top 8 of major tournaments, these are the characters with amazing tools, including damage racking, KO options, offstage game, and recovery. These characters have very few flaws, which are mitigated by their large strong points.

1.) Ranai is the only villager i know that got close to top 8 all others drown out in pools
2.)
Villager's weaknesses:
horrendous mobility
"dead zones" in her zoning specifically mid range above or at lloid range depending
strong but exploitable recovery
short non projectile range
lack of reliable kill options (why do you think people were dying of hype when Ranai did anything lethal?)
you can dash grab past lloid on reaction

so on and so on. Villager has a lot of weaknesses she does make up for it with her amazingly dumb tools though.

I'm really glad that people are seeing that villager is good but I'm worried people are overdoing it

 

[J-Lit]

I get the theorycraft that Mario has little room for improvement, but are we really gonna call him worse than fox and ryu already? Mario's meta has been advancing just fine in comparison to the rest of the cast with improvements to his neutral and combo optimization. His main problem is that he has unconventional ways of killing compared to other top tiers. He usually has to fish for upsmash or go for a janky kill like upb or fludd.

Fox did better at G3 but Mario has done a lot better at previous nationals. Anti and Ron are also 2 great Mario's who rarely show up at big tournaments. As time goes on, people will also get better at punishing fox's meh disadvantage state. Shiek and pika can combo him to hell and once you force him to Firefox offstage he should be as good as dead.

 

[LancerStaff]

Outside of FG, I haven't heard a single thing about Link doing anything in Smash 4. Have heard more about than Link. For some time I thought Izaw and Kirin stopped playing until I saw their names in the pools and sometimes I forget they and Link exist.

Really? Because I remember Radical Larry bringing up how outstanding it was for Link to have gotten top X at Y tournament a whole bunch of times... Usually if not always somebody else brought up the results before him so I don't think it was cherrypicking.

 

[Zelder]

Mario is probably worse than Ryu, but to be fair, I'm fairly convinced that Ryu is a top 5 character.

 

[L9999]

Really? Because I remember Radical Larry bringing up how outstanding it was for Link to have gotten top X at Y tournament a whole bunch of times... Usually if not always somebody else brought up the results before him so I don't think it was cherrypicking.

Not popular talk then. Or I miss them.

 

[Flux0r]

Did Roy get any noticeable placements at G3? I feel like his whole playerbase died in the span of a month.

I feel like his abysmal disadvantage state is his ultimate downfall. You just can't screw up with him.

 

[Ropalme1914]

How the matchup between Ryu and Sheik changes now that we know he can edgeguard Vanish with Tatsumaki?

 

[LordShade67]

Did Roy get any noticeable placements at G3? I feel like his whole playerbase died in the span of a month.

I feel like his abysmal disadvantage state is his ultimate downfall. You just can't screw up with him.

One got in the 97th tied spot. That's it.

There's really no point in playing him when Ike and Cloud both exist if you want a good swordsman.

 

[Rizen]

Really? Because I remember Radical Larry bringing up how outstanding it was for Link to have gotten top X at Y tournament a whole bunch of times... Usually if not always somebody else brought up the results before him so I don't think it was cherrypicking.

Link definitely has results, probably archived in a certain tournament results thread on the Link forums . The thing is, so does Zelda and Ganon and probably all characters to some extent . IMO it's enough to justify him as a mid tier but people need to realize Link does better vs scrubs than good players. A lot of newbies think Link is fan-tucking-fastic but then they actually attend live events with good people and get a taste of reality.

 

[Dream Cancel]

One got in the 97th tied spot. That's it.

There's really no point in playing him when Ike and Cloud both exist if you want a good swordsman.

I'd say Roy has a niche amongst the swordsman.

Early post woops: I say this due to how deadly he is close range. Both Cloud and Ike have massive swords with strong spacing games, but at least Roy has a fairly easy time securing early kills without having to rely on Limit or otherwise.

Of course, I believe that Cloud has things much better than Roy and Ike though.