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

[thehard]

his damage output, his frame data, his mobility, his fast disjointed hitboxes.

Hey, didn't everyone want Melee/Brawl Marth a few months ago?

 

[LancerStaff]

Hey, didn't everyone want Melee/Brawl Marth a few months ago?

...No?

I mean, I don't think I need to explain why. Cloud ain't that good.

 

[Locke 06]

You're kinda right. Sword-Mario is even easier than Mario. But it's a good analogy 8)

Everyone can just pick Sword-Mario up and play on a decent level immediately. his damage output, his frame data, his mobility, his fast disjointed hitboxes.
It's no effort - high reward in it's purest form.

Cloud can't grab you and get much damage.

He also can't hit a shield without good spacing or air>ground well.

I don't get why people think this character is ezmode. The only thing that's ez mode is juggling and mobility.

 

[TurboLink]

I would wants duck hunt to be top tier.

I wouldn't want anyone to be top-tier.

U know I rather deal with Cloud because in cannon Sheik is among the weakest chars

What? -.-

 

[Zannabluke]

Abadango has attended a french tournament before where he got 2nd to Mr r. Though Beast will definitely have the stronger competition.

do you remember by any chance if said tournament was using three stocks or not?

 

[Routa]

I thought you guys meant Mii Swordfighter with Mario Cap when you talked about Sword Mario.

Me no very smart.

 

[ZcK]

Question Does any ness mains in the Sheik MU ever tries to PK absorb the vanish explosion ?
Well at least in tourneys I havent seen such strategy being used

 

[S_B]

But then if Sheik/ZSS are just this much better than the rest of the cast, what would happen if the players switched characters? What if Nairo used Mario and Ally used ZSS? What if Ito used Sheik and Zero used Meta Knight? Assuming they received time to train up their new characters on both sides, would it mean that Ally or Ito could reliably beat them?

I'd love, LOVE, to host a tournament with like a $20,000 prize pool and ban the S-tier (Sheik and ZSS) and see what we get for attendants.

I'd also love to pay ZeRo or Nairo $50,000 to play only Ganondorf or something for a year of tournaments.

But both of those would require having that kind of money... And I feel like we realistically already know the outcome of that. Some of these characters just have way better toolkits than others and those are going to rise to the top.

And to your other point, yeah, the size of the roster probably plays a role in matchup experience, but this isn't going to carry a character forward.

It's when skilled Sheik/ZSS players KNOW the matchup and still have a decent chance of losing that we've found the balance we're looking for.

 

[Tizio Random]

Question Does any ness mains in the Sheik MU ever tries to PK absorb the vanish explosion ?
Well at least in tourneys I havent seen such strategy being used

I think FOW did it against VoiD but I'm not sure.

EDIT: My bad, it absorbed the grenade. I've just rewatched it now.

 

[L9999]

Question Does any ness mains in the Sheik MU ever tries to PK absorb the vanish explosion ?
Well at least in tourneys I havent seen such strategy being used

I saw Ribs doing it to ZeRo long time ago. The thing is forcing Sheik to do Up B and not get hit.

 

[PND]

I thought you guys meant Mii Swordfighter with Mario Cap when you talked about Sword Mario.

Me no very smart.

I can't even. . . this is going a little off topic, but this has to be said.

Your signature is absolutely horrible. Not only are you quoting yourself, which is really, really lame. . . you're quoting yourself saying something that's not only unfathomably stupid -- it's actually toxic.

TO's are the backbone of the entire community. There would be no scene without the hard work the TO's put in, securing venues, running tournaments, and growing the community -- often for little or no pay. Saying that a TO doesn't care about the community and is only trying to please loud players is ****ing ignorant. They care. Trust me, they ****ing care. They care a lot more than you do. They care enough to DO something and actually host events, not just complain about crap online.

Did you enjoy Genesis? Did you enjoy watching top players from around the world clash? Guess what? It was organized by a team of TOs, who cared enough about the scene to build a tournament of that magnitude. And the vast majority of those top players that participated? They honed their skills in their local scenes, which were made possible because of TO's that cared enough to go out and host something.

TO's aren't lazy or corrupt. (There are a couple, but they're the exception, not the rule.) TO's are people who care so much about the scene they sacrifice their time, money, and energy into running events so they can see the community grow. Some TO's make money off their work, but it's peanuts compared to what they could be making spending the exact same time and energy into hosting banquets, weddings, things like that. TO's aren't in it to maniacally cackle while rolling in a scrooge mcduck pool of gold, you're not going to get rich from doing it. TO's don't conspire how to spite you by making you play with one less stock than you prefer, they host events with the rules that they feel best benefit the community. Maybe their views are misaligned with your own, but at least they're actually out there actually ****ing doing something about it.

You are toxic. I've seen good TO's quit because of the same kind of Toxic crap you spout. Some TO's care so much that they see the hate that ignorant idiots like you post and they get discouraged and quit.

Get outta here with that "Only a few TO's / politicians care what's good for the community" crap. You are a shining example of everything that is wrong with the community. Whiny and entitled, and all to eager to pin the blame on the people who work the hardest.

I know I'm going to get modded for this, but I don't care. It needed to be said.

Everyone else: I urge you to go out and give your local TO a hug or a pat on the back. Let them know how much you appreciate what they do for the scene. TO's are people too, and dealing with this crap only distances them. Please go give them a reminder of why they are doing what they are doing, so players like you have a scene.

---

Let's keep this on topic, I guess.

Villager is good, but I don't see him skyrocketing up the tiers because of Ranai -- Ranai performed excellently, but I think it speaks more to Ranai's skill as a player than the natural strengths of the character. I kind of lump Villager in with Pikachu and Toon Link in that cluster of "These characters are good, but there's only a handful or top players of each. How much of it is the character being good, versus how much of it is based on the underlying skill of the player?"

Like, I know comfort is a huge factor in picking characters -- but assuming there was no comfort, do you think if ESAM switched to Sheik instead of Pikachu, would he place higher or lower? Is it based on the strengths of the character? Or is it based on ESAM just being an insanely good player, and would be able to pilot any other top character to similar results?

Food for thought, anyway.

 

[aεrgiα]

Character matchup + choice is a big factor but its a not a deciding factor. Otherwise everyone would be playing sheik


Zero beats every sheik. Zero is better than everyone else proving that Sheik isnt unbeatable and on another level.

Sheik might be on top. Cool. At the end of the day there will always be a number one and in this case it is sheik.
Another mentality problem that people have in general, not just in smash is complain about who is on top rather than putting more time into working how to beat the top.


So they resort to complaining.

People complain about location barriers. Void and Zero werent born in SoCal were they? Put the hard work in and you'll get rewards if you overcome barriers

the thing is, we are heading in exactly that direction, players are dropping their mains in favour of sheik or contemplating it at least, or they pick up sheik as a secondary to handle ALL the mus that their character cant handle(just to back up my point, dkwill, dabuz and larry lurr have all had a sheik secondary at some point(those are the ones that i can think of off the top of my head), and only dabuz doesnt pull her out anymore atm), heck even zero largely dropped diddy in favour of sheik when diddy was nerfed when he had to play against other people close to his skill level and has only been using diddy more since the shield nerf patch which helped diddy out quite a bit.

More then likely yeah, ZeRo would win with almost any other character because he is that good and actually learns all the things he needs to know in order to win. Just like when he steam rolled that whole Captain Falcon tournament against the "Worlds Best Falcons". Its not the character but the player that really carries in a match.

Edit: Oh and Omni's video on "Is it too late to play Melee?" everything he said also works and applies in Smash 4 not just in Melee as well.

you really think zero wouldve beaten ranai with... lets say puff, or falco or zelda? because sorry looking at the tools sheik has and at how close those games were despite her amazing tools, not to discredit zero but no, i dont think he wouldve won :/ in the end its the player AND the character. would zero have beaten ranai, nairo or dabuz with his falcon? i highly doubt it tbh...

I'd like to see ZeRo go with Link, I'd like to see him try with him. No, honestly, I'd actually like to see what ZeRo can do with Link in the tournament scene.

=================

Though talking about Link, I ask, what buffs would you guys want to see for Link to have that might make him viable? Would additional mobility, a faster U-Tilt/more damaging U-Tilt, faster F-Tilt, more powerful D-Air (in exchange for losing the meteor) or maybe even a faster throw and better throw combo game do well for him? I'd honestly sacrifice D-Air's meteor for power, and F-Tilt's power for speed.

Any opinions?

well i dont know that much about link, but from what ive seen, what he lacks the most is a fast close range gtfo/oos option, and as mentioned before, slightly less strict requirements on his dthrow to uair would of course also help a lot, but the thing is overall what does link want to do, better run away zoning game(like toon link) wouldnt help as much due to his worse mobility(compared to TL) and i think hes better suited for that mid range spacing game, in which case the thing he needs the most are just fast options(whether thats jab, nair etc. doesnt matter) especially oos. but since im no expert on the character, make of that what you will

Question Does any ness mains in the Sheik MU ever tries to PK absorb the vanish explosion ?
Well at least in tourneys I havent seen such strategy being used

actually i think one did it at genesis, i think it was shaky, im not sure though :/ i just remember it was a dthrow 50/50 and the ness used psi magnet and healed off of the vanish, way to read a read

 

[Das Koopa]

Zero would have a great chance of winning with Diddy, who isnt a top tier.

Asking if Zero would win with Roy is like asking if Armada would have won with Yoshi in Melee.

Yoshi's actually decent and is, in many ways, basically a pseudo-spacie (in a similar way Mewtwo is a much worse version of Marth in Melee, practically speaking, except Yoshi can accomplish his job)

I'm pretty sure if you got sober tryhard Armada to adequately train a Yoshi he could easily make Top 8/4 considering Leffen nearly did the same thing a while back.

 

[TurboLink]

Cloud can't grab you and get much damage.

He also can't hit a shield without good spacing or air>ground well.

I don't get why people think this character is ezmode. The only thing that's ez mode is juggling and mobility.

I'd imagine it's not that hard for Cloud to space on shield with a nair and fair with that amount of range combined with Cloud's high mobility.

 

[Antonykun]

You're kinda right. Sword-Mario is even easier than Mario. But it's a good analogy 8)

Everyone can just pick Sword-Mario up and play on a decent level immediately. his damage output, his frame data, his mobility, his fast disjointed hitboxes.
It's no effort - high reward in it's purest form.

I think it's time we strengthen our edgeguarding as a whole isn't it?
the cloud salt is real in this thread

 

[wpwood]

Right after Genesis, I think I saw someone say something like "Rosalina vs Sheik looking pretty even"
But I'm going to assume that's not the general consensus, right? Usually, when ZeRo is winning, it's because he's playing on a higher level, but it seemed pretty obvious that Dabuz was playing EXTREMELY well in grand finals, and I would argue that he seemed like the better player in that moment. However, Sheik has an easier time getting KOs, and that's what really mattered in the end. Rosalina has no bread and butter KO setup anywhere near the ease of Sheik's Dthrow->Upair, and that's why he kept losing his stocks first. It's a shame that Sheik's initial perceived weakness of "has trouble ending stocks" turned out to not be true, as I almost never saw a Sheik's opponent live past the 100-120% range. Whereas my opponents still live past 140% pretty often, even with Kirby's Upthrow buff.

I wouldn't really say Sheik has an easier time KOing than Rosa. Rosa is kind of light and makes it a little harder to get the 50/50 on. Also Dabuz lost because he didn't land the best way possible. ZeRo got around 3 up smash tipper kills on Dabuz as he was trying to land. Dabuz probably should have gone to the ledge if he was just going to land on ZeRo at the edge of the stage. I guess landing might be a problem for Rosa, but I do think he could have done it better. He did loose his very last stock by landing on top of Sheik's up smash.

 

[L9999]

Rosalina has sucked at landing since the dawn of time. It's a common theme in Smash 4 as a matter of fact.

 

[san.]

I think it's time we strengthen our edgeguarding as a whole isn't it?
the cloud salt is real in this thread

Edgeguarding games have been weak in general. Cloud is putting us back on track with it.

stuff

I am assuming his sig is just in reference to TOs' rulings on Miis where most believe is primarily spurred by select top players. I may be viewing it optimistically, but I don't think it really references anything else like TO corruption or money and is mostly about Mii rules.

 

[Y2Kay]

Ranai's performance at G3 was simply inspiring, truth be told. He took a good character with solid tools, labbed the mess out of him with hard work, and was able to develop strategies and tech from his work, and turned a character not percieved as great into a real tournament threat, going toe to toe with other high level players and their top tier games. Ranai represents everything I love about competitive smash bros. I have never really seen such a great story before since aMSa's tear through melee as yoshi. This game's scene desperately needs more players like him.

So you could imagine my dismay to find out all these top level players quitting on their mains, and becoming sheik and zss mains. They view the conditions of their main (some of which are top tier) as hopeless. They felt like their was no way to conquer Sheik.

 

[Nah]

I wouldn't really say Sheik has an easier time KOing than Rosa. Rosa is kind of light and makes it a little harder to get the 50/50 on. Also Dabuz lost because he didn't land the best way possible. ZeRo got around 3 up smash tipper kills on Dabuz as he was trying to land. Dabuz probably should have gone to the ledge if he was just going to land on ZeRo at the edge of the stage. I guess landing might be a problem for Rosa, but I do think he could have done it better. He did loose his very last stock by landing on top of Sheik's up smash.

He probably didn't always try to go for the ledge when landing because a lot of the time iirc when he did he struggled a bit to fight his way back to the stage. And like L9999 said, Rosa's never been terribly good at landing in most cases.

Also just a nitpick, but it's that Rosa's floaty that makes the 50/50 a bit harder on her (though she is also a large target), not her weight.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Didn't see this

I wouldn't want anyone to be top-tier.-

There's nothing wrong with having top tiers as long as the gap is small enough for diversity. And you should know, every fighting game has top tiers, but a lot of them also sport some pretty exceptional balance (we're almost there, just need a couple nerfs and mostly tweaks to 1-2 characters really and then buff a lot of the mid and lower tier characters).

 

[L9999]

Ranai's performance at G3 was simply inspiring, truth be told. He took a good character with solid tools, labbed the mess out of him with hard work, and was able to develop strategies and tech from his work, and turned a character not percieved as great into a real tournament threat, going toe to toe with other high level players and their top tier games. Ranai represents everything I love about competitive smash bros. I have never really seen such a great story before since aMSa's tear through melee as yoshi. This game's scene desperately needs more players like him.

So you could imagine my dismay to find out all these top level players quitting on their main and running to join the sheik train.

Japanese are more of optimization rather than playing to win money. I don't think Rom (Mii Gunner) and Dol (Jigglypuff) play to get a lot of cash and win a lot. I'm sure they like their character and want to optimize what little there is up to the max. Even if Abadango threw Pacman to the trash, he INVENTED Pacman and optimized him as long as he liked him. America is very prone to the Dark Side of Competitive Smash, or 20XX if you like it better. Example, many USA DHD players, if not all, already threw him to the trash, and now we are seeing top players throwing their mains to the trash in favor of the character that will likely fill their pockets instead of being like Ranai and push the character to the maximum limit. RIP Shaky's Ness and Ally's Mario. It's their decision at the end of the day though.

 

[S_B]

So you could imagine my dismay to find out all these top level players quitting on their mains, and becoming sheik and zss mains. They view the conditions of their main (some of which are top tier) as hopeless. They felt like their was no way to conquer Sheik.

Probably because Sheik is overpowered, needs to be nerfed, and Sakurai won't do it because...reasons.

These guys have tried for over a YEAR to develop the meta for these characters to the point where they can contend with S-tiers, but it just ain't happening.

If SSB4 gets its last balance patch and Sheik and ZSS aren't toned down by then, then we may as well write it off as Brawl 2.0 with a couple more viable characters and hope that whoever directs SSB5 does a better job of balancing it.

And seriously, it's not that hard to balance for BOTH competitive AND casual play. If Sheik's needles went half as far and weren't transcendent, would casuals complain? If her vanish no longer had invuln frames on startup and caused her to lag for longer than "hardly at all" when she landed on stage with it, I'm not sure casual players would even NOTICE.

I don't want to spend the next 5 years watching grand finals coming down to some combination of Sheik and ZSS (and sometimes Rosa or Diddy). These characters are already boring as dirt to watch, and from the sounds of things, we're only going to be seeing more and more of them as time goes on.

Really, having this small of a portion of a roster of this size be tournament viable is INSANE, and even the characters that were almost viable are now being dumped in favor of the S-tier.

I don't care if Sakurai doesn't age and could therefore technically go on making SSB games until the end of time. I'd like to see a balanced SSB game in my lifetime...

 

[TurboLink]

Probably because Sheik is overpowered, needs to be nerfed, and Sakurai won't do it because...reasons.

These guys have tried for over a YEAR to develop the meta for these characters to the point where they can contend with S-tiers, but it just ain't happening.

If SSB4 gets its last balance patch and Sheik and ZSS aren't toned down by then, then we may as well write it off as Brawl 2.0 with a couple more viable characters and hope that whoever directs SSB5 does a better job of balancing it.

And seriously, it's not that hard to balance for BOTH competitive AND casual play. If Sheik's needles went half as far and weren't transcendent, would casuals complain? If her vanish no longer had invuln frames on startup and caused her to lag for longer than "hardly at all" when she landed on stage with it, I'm not sure casual players would even NOTICE.

I don't want to spend the next 5 years watching grand finals coming down to some combination of Sheik and ZSS (and sometimes Rosa or Diddy). These characters are already boring as dirt to watch, and from the sounds of things, we're only going to be seeing more and more of them as time goes on.

Really, having this small of a portion of a roster of this size be tournament viable is INSANE, and even the characters that were almost viable are now being dumped in favor of the S-tier.

I don't care if Sakurai doesn't age and could therefore technically go on making SSB games until the end of time. I'd like to see a balanced SSB game in my lifetime...

Next month is probably everyone's last hope. Either Sakurai has been preparing to nerf Sheik and whoever else needs it for quite a while now or Sheik is not getting nerfed. I'm going with the latter.

 

[Jams.]

Rosalina has sucked at landing since the dawn of time. It's a common theme in Smash 4 as a matter of fact.

Rosalina is at least above average at landing compared to the rest of the cast. She has a dair that outranges most uairs and usmashes (though it's unsafe on hit in some cases), good aerial mobility, and lunar landed aerials means she can always challenge players trying to dash grab or shield grab her landing.

 

[Teshie U]

Aside from ZeRo, is sheik really even dominating that hard? Obviously you can say "oh ZeRo wouldnt win with ganondorf hurr hurr", but no one would. ZeRo still obviously does it with Diddy (remember MLG where his sheik won 0 games vs Nairo).

If Sheik was this unstoppable the next best sheik would also be the next best player. When top reps of many viable characters are present, we rarely see 2nd place go to sheik at majors.

 

[C0rvus]

Ranai's performance at G3 was simply inspiring, truth be told. He took a good character with solid tools, labbed the mess out of him with hard work, and was able to develop strategies and tech from his work, and turned a character not percieved as great into a real tournament threat, going toe to toe with other high level players and their top tier games. Ranai represents everything I love about competitive smash bros. I have never really seen such a great story before since aMSa's tear through melee as yoshi. This game's scene desperately needs more players like him.

So you could imagine my dismay to find out all these top level players quitting on their mains, and becoming sheik and zss mains. They view the conditions of their main (some of which are top tier) as hopeless. They felt like their was no way to conquer Sheik.

Not to knock your enthusiasm, but Ranai is one of the best players in the world. Villager is a good character. Him doing well didn't surprise me. I'm glad he has stuck to his guns or whatever. I am disappointed that top players are moving up to Sheik. Ally's Sheik will be terrible though, since he's such a lazy player.
Honestly I'm surprised people don't complain about Villager more. It's the same deal as Sonic. You have to chase him down for 10 seconds to get a single interaction then reset because his aerials and floatiness say nope. Except while Villager plays neutral away from you, he's constantly pelting you with ****. Lloyd is a free mixup if it gets out, and a super strong conditioning tool. Is it because nobody plays Villager or what?

 

[TurboLink]

Aside from ZeRo, is sheik really even dominating that hard? Obviously you can say "oh ZeRo wouldnt win with ganondorf hurr hurr", but no one would. ZeRo still obviously does it with Diddy (remember MLG where his sheik won 0 games vs Nairo).

If Sheik was this unstoppable the next best sheik would also be the next best player. When top reps of many viable characters are present, we rarely see 2nd place go to sheik at majors.

Even if it really is just ZeRo, if you had the choice to bring Sheik and others more in line with the rest of the cast, why would you choose not to?! It's like the Smash Bros. community is ashamed of wanting a character to be toned down out of fear that they'll be ridiculed and met with snarky comments like "git gud."

 

[S_B]

Aside from ZeRo, is sheik really even dominating that hard? Obviously you can say "oh ZeRo wouldnt win with ganondorf hurr hurr", but no one would. ZeRo still obviously does it with Diddy (remember MLG where his sheik won 0 games vs Nairo).

If Sheik was this unstoppable the next best sheik would also be the next best player. When top reps of many viable characters are present, we rarely see 2nd place go to sheik at majors.

There are plenty of amazing Sheiks across the country and the world.

If Zero was to Sheik what Ranai is to villager, we wouldn't be seeing the reaction we do.

Next month is probably everyone's last hope. Either Sakurai has been preparing to nerf Sheik and whoever else needs it for quite a while now or Sheik is not getting nerfed. I'm going with the latter.

I'm REEAAAALLLLLY hoping that there's at least one more balance patch after the release of Bayo, just in case it turns out she or Corrin is stupidly overpowered or has an infinite on half the cast or something...

 

[Y2Kay]

I'm not bringing up Ranai as an answer to all the people complaining about Sheik, I actually feel the opposite.

I hope to see them nerfed so that players have more incentive to innovate and not assimilate. If Sheik and ZSS where less polarizing, people would be more rewarded for progressing their character's meta. Right now, it's kind of risky to devote your time to good but honest characters like , and probably didn't appear super wise for Ranai to invest his time in when he started(if his goal was to win, probably not tho) just because of really unfair and over tuned characters most likely still outgun him.

This never ending, self fufilling prophecy of mains of high tiers giving them up for top tiers is dissapointing, and I wish Sakurai would help end it by nerfing Sheik.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

There are plenty of amazing Sheiks across the country and the world.

If Zero was to Sheik what Ranai is to villager, we wouldn't be seeing the reaction we do.



I'm REEAAAALLLLLY hoping that there's at least one more balance patch after the release of Bayo, just in case it turns out she or Corrin is stupidly overpowered or has an infinite on half the cast or something...

ZeRo, Void, Trevonte, Ito (isn't he a sheik main now?), formerly Vinnie (sad to see him quit), Wizzrobe (when's the last time he won something not 64 related?), and some other people that are probably not dominating their regions as sheiks. Rain and shu are...there in Japan. I hear nothing in Europe. Mexico is El ciudad de Leo.

Honestly though, I have no idea who else is doing something with sheik.

 

[Teshie U]

There are plenty of amazing Sheiks across the country and the world.

If Zero was to Sheik what Ranai is to villager, we wouldn't be seeing the reaction we do.



I'm REEAAAALLLLLY hoping that there's at least one more balance patch after the release of Bayo, just in case it turns out she or Corrin is stupidly overpowered or has an infinite on half the cast or something...

ZeRo IS to Sheik what Ranai is the Villager. Both are very talented, knowledgeable players with great reflexes. The difference being that top players aren't trying to copy Ranai.

Sheik is the best, if you are going to follow someone's lead, it makes sense to get everything you can out of it. It doesn't mean that sheik is broken, just a clear best. If Sheik and ZSS get nerfed, the next clear best will be popular instead.

 

[TurboLink]

ZeRo IS to Sheik what Ranai is the Villager. Both are very talented, knowledgeable players with great reflexes. The difference being that top players aren't trying to copy Ranai.

Sheik is the best, if you are going to follow someone's lead, it makes sense to get everything you can out of it. It doesn't mean that sheik is broken, just a clear best. If Sheik and ZSS get nerfed, the next clear best will be popular instead.

At the very least the next clear best should be more manageable than Sheik and ZSS were.

 

[Nobie]

Real talk, if Ally wants to switch, then he should be maining Cloud, not Sheik.

Remember when Ally wanted to switch to Marth, who was strictly worse than Mario, because he wanted to be better rewarded for good spacing?

Well here's the super giant sword man with massive power and dangerous kill confirms.

No Sword-Mario jokes intended.

 

[L9999]

I'm REEAAAALLLLLY hoping that there's at least one more balance patch after the release of Bayo, just in case it turns out she or Corrin is stupidly overpowered or has an infinite on half the cast or something...

Not happening. Trailers lie, the hype clouds people's vision. A quick run:

Formely garbage tier. Now a counterpick character but still not sólo viable.

Non existent and disappointing. Totally low tier.

Overhyped, turned out to be garbage tier. Moving on.

I still remember people saying he was low tier because of his range and recovery. Now a top 10 character.

A mess. Results are impressive for a short amount of time. Either he will go up like Ryu or he will be exploited and drown like Ness.

 

[Antonykun]

hey @TSM ZeRo I hope i can modify your quote to point something out

Cloud's good but people (players) are lazy, ignorant and just choose to complain rather than learn what their options are majority of the time and that is a poor mindset in competitive play that happens very often

its much easier to come in an online forum and complain and write long posts of why cloud is here or there than simply sit down and learn your options in every scenario (like edguarding him)

its disappointing

It took me rereading this thread to get the underlying message of ZeRo's post. He sees people asking for sheik nerfs as "If he was playing a fair and balanced character, he would lose!" Every time someone gets salty for a character they are often spewing their salt with little regard of who you are insulting. granted i would personally wish for her to not have the best everything in the game but that's just me tho. Calling cloud "Sword Mario" is a mega insult to Cloud AND Mario saying "if that guy used a 'harder character' like my character they would totally lose!"

Cloud came out not even a month ago, in a game where like 30% of viable characters have absurdly strong/safe recoveries. We have dulled edgaurding senses and as a result Clouds don't have too worry too hard about recovering as a result.

I hate to sound like like an arrogant prick but seriously git gud
/end incoherent rant

 

[Radical Larry]

If Link gets a speed buff in attacks and mobility, as well as power buff in some attacks, there would essentially be no reason to use Toon Link over him. -Radical Larry, 20XX

 

[S_B]

Honestly though, I have no idea who else is doing something with sheik.

You forgot Mr. R, Denti, Dill, Dazwa, and a number of other Sheiks (too many to count, so I'm not even going to try).

Credit Das Koopa

April 18th-January 3rd Tournament Character Spread

Top 8:

Sheik: 27
Zero Suit Samus: 18
Diddy Kong: 13
Rosalina & Luma: 10
Captain Falcon: 8
Donkey Kong: 7 (5 DKwill, 2 M2K.)
Mario: 7
Ness: 6
Sonic: 6
Pikachu: 6 (5 from ESAM, 1 from Z.)
Wario: 4 (2 between Reflex and Abadango.)
Meta Knight: 4
Ryu: 3
Bowser Jr.: 2 (Both Tweek: He also secondaries Wario.)
Luigi: 2
Villager: 2
Fox: 2
Pac-Man: 2
Mega Man: 2
Toon Link: 2 (Snasen at Eclipse: 7th.)
Ike: 1 (Ryo at MLG.)
Marth: 1 (AirVault at MVG Sandstorm: 7th.)
Little Mac: 1 (Apachai at MVG Sanstorm: 7th.)
Lucario: 1
Yoshi: 1 (Firefly at Pax Prime: 5th.)
Peach: 1 (SlayerZ at Paragon LA 2015. 7th.)
Olimar: 1 (Logic at Pax Prime: 7th. Secondary was Diddy.)
Kirby: 1 (MikeKirby: 5th at KTAR XIV.)
Link: 1 (Christan Johnston: 5th At Eclipse. Used Ryu as secondary.)
Pit: 1 (Earth, 7th at Umebara Qualifier. Also made 9th at Umebara F.A.T., with Fox as a secondary.)


Top 4:

Zero Suit Samus: 16
Sheik: 12
Rosalina & Luma: 7
Diddy Kong: 4
Pikachu: 4
Mario: 4
Donkey Kong: 4
Ness: 2
Captain Falcon: 2
Luigi: 2
Pac-Man: 2 (Abandango & Koolaid; Koolaid used Doc as secondary.)
Wario: 2
Sonic: 2
Villager: 1
Fox: 1 (Larry Lurr at CEO, 4th.)
Toon Link: 1 (Hyuga at Smash Factor 4: 3rd.)
Meta Knight: 1
Bowser Jr.: 1
Lucario: 1 (Loota at Eclipse: 4th.)
Mega Man: 1 (ScAtt at Tipped Off 11. 4th.)


Winner:

Zero Suit Samus: 8 (7 Nairo; 1 SmashSK at Eclipse.)
Sheik: 6 (All ZeRo.)
Diddy Kong: 2 (All ZeRo.)
Meta Knight: 1 (Leo at Smash Factor 4.)
Villager: 1 (Ranai at Umebara Qualifiers.)


Side notes;
There are multiple instances of Ryu and Sheik being secondaries.
ZeRo has instances of co-maining Sheik and Diddy.
Nairo throws out a lot of characters like Doc, Dark Pit, and Robin as secondaries.

As you can see, even if Zero is the one doing the most winning with Sheik, he's far from the only one playing Sheik and doing well at tournaments.

Not happening. Trailers lie, the hype clouds people's vision.

I'm far more worried about them leaving something in the game like that bug where Diddy couldn't be grabbed ever again after mashing out, or an infinite that they accidentally give to a character through patch changes.

Really, THOSE are what I'm most concerned about...

 

[HeavyLobster]

Probably because Sheik is overpowered, needs to be nerfed, and Sakurai won't do it because...reasons.

These guys have tried for over a YEAR to develop the meta for these characters to the point where they can contend with S-tiers, but it just ain't happening.

If SSB4 gets its last balance patch and Sheik and ZSS aren't toned down by then, then we may as well write it off as Brawl 2.0 with a couple more viable characters and hope that whoever directs SSB5 does a better job of balancing it.

And seriously, it's not that hard to balance for BOTH competitive AND casual play. If Sheik's needles went half as far and weren't transcendent, would casuals complain? If her vanish no longer had invuln frames on startup and caused her to lag for longer than "hardly at all" when she landed on stage with it, I'm not sure casual players would even NOTICE.

I don't want to spend the next 5 years watching grand finals coming down to some combination of Sheik and ZSS (and sometimes Rosa or Diddy). These characters are already boring as dirt to watch, and from the sounds of things, we're only going to be seeing more and more of them as time goes on.

Really, having this small of a portion of a roster of this size be tournament viable is INSANE, and even the characters that were almost viable are now being dumped in favor of the S-tier.

I don't care if Sakurai doesn't age and could therefore technically go on making SSB games until the end of time. I'd like to see a balanced SSB game in my lifetime...

Even assuming there aren't any more nerfs,(and I would be genuinely surprised if Cloud wasn't) there's going to be more than 4 relevant characters. I can't see Ryu not being a force in the meta given enough development, and we don't really know how good Cloud could get if left as is. Sonic's probably going to remain a tourney threat, and Villager came within one game of knocking off the best Sheik in the world. Of course Sheik as is will remain a plague on the meta, and the game would benefit immensely were she nerfed meaningfully but not severely, and if Zero Suit were toned down slightly as well, but they don't actually invalidate the rest of the top 10(which I don't think Mario and Ness are, and they don't invalidate either one in any case.) Ness's main problem is Rosa, while Mario just isn't that dominant of a character and mostly became relevant because he's simple to play.

 

[TTTTTsd]

You forgot Mr. R, Denti, Dill, Dazwa, and a number of other Sheiks (too many to count, so I'm not even going to try).

Credit Das Koopa


As you can see, even if Zero is the one doing the most winning with Sheik, he's far from the only one playing Sheik and doing well at tournaments.

I'm just going to be a realist and say that if it wasn't Sheik, it'd be someone else with that number on it. That's how logistics and picking the best character is.

Changing Sheik because she wins too much is an incredibly faulty reason. She has other problems but I don't think I like where this tangent is going. No matter who the best character is, if they are the best, they will likely have the most results and the most players.