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

[Baby_Sneak]

BlazGreen Please be joking when you put Ryu, R.O.B. and Sonic on "Keep the Same", especially Ryu.

They objectively don't deserve nerfs. At all.

 

[KeithTheGeek]

ROB and Ryu are both pretty well designed characters. True Shoryuken is a tad bit silly, but every character has that one move that's dumb for some reason or another. Take his kit as a whole and it's clear he's a powerful character, but he also has well defined strengths and weaknesses, as does ROB. Sonic is a little bit more questionable but he's been nerfed so much as it is, at this point he just need minor adjustments here and there to get things just right.

As for Cloud, who was on the unsure portion of that list...the main thing that sticks out to me is how little commitment Limit Charge is. If they added some ending lag to using it, I feel it would balance out the huge reward he gets from it and make approaching him with less mobile characters not as huge of a hassle.

 

[meleebrawler]

Major Buffs


And now we get to the characters that need all the help they can get. Whether it's bad frame data, terrible hitboxes, an awful neutral or a combination of all three and more, these guys just aren't that good and sadly for some of these characters I can see no way out unless they get a complete overhaul.

See, can you really name one aspect that's so terrible that it makes Samus really unviable? Certainly not bad frame data, hitboxes or neutral like you suggest. Her grab game perhaps (more so for Jr., though), but even that has some redeeming qualities like it's range and fast pummel.

A lot of Samus's tools seem bad on on the surface but have uses that aren't immediately obvious. Homing missiles bait airdodges. Utilt has low endlag in contrast to most of her other fast startup power moves. Jab, even if it doesn't link is still a really fast jab.

There's also the question of what exactly constitutes the difference between a minor or major buff. A 5% damage buff sounds major, but not if it's on something like Jet Hammer.

 

[Rizen]

The issue is Ryu has such strong and safe kill options. He can chain fast attacks into a finisher that kills at 90%. I mean he's not terribly broken but he deserves to be toned down a little.
Cloud should have some nerf to his limit. I like Thinkman's idea of lag when canceling limit charge
I'd be nice if Sheik and ZSS were toned down a little too. These 2 invalidate characters much more than the other top tiers.

SSB4 is well balanced so I'll be fine with no nerfs from the patch but it could be tweaked too.

 

[RaptorTEC]

get overlooked because they are joke characters. *I would love to see a Sakurai column explaining why this 3 are so trash.

PuffMasterFlex thinks otherwise.

 

[Radical Larry]

It would be hilarious if Cloud had to taunt for Limit Break finishing up; a 65 frame taunt showing "how much power" he has gained would make him more balanced. If not that, make it harder to charge up in every way; doubling the amount of time and halving how much he gets from being damaged and damaging would be better. Limit needs to be a "last resort" thing, not something you can whip out.

Tweaking ROB's laser to charge slower and his animation after shooting Gyro to have more endlag would be good to balance him.

And having Ryu's True Shoryu kill at 110% would be great, or tweaking his U-Tilt to not link together into itself would be wonderful.

At least those would balance the characters without ultimately shattering their strengths and viability.

 

[BlazGreen]

There's also the question of what exactly constitutes the difference
between a minor or major buff. A 5% damage buff sounds major, but not if it's on something like Jet Hammer.

I consider minor buffs to be either quality of life fixes or buffs to one certain aspect. For example I would like Mewtwo to have more grab range and Marth to have better frame data on his aerials. Major buffs are for when I want multiple parts of a character's moveset to be altered. Samus has lot of small problems that add up to the point where the character is underwhelming. A jab combo that doesn't connect, no kill throws, weak missiles, weak down smash, an up smash that still has problems connecting all of its hits. She could really do with having these things fixed.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

I feel like may go down as time goes on. He lacks kill confirms, his recovery is pretty bad and exploitable and his neutral seems to be average-ish in comparison to other top tiers. his jab is really good, his Bair is good, Ftilt is pretty good and Utilt is good for the neutral, but they're all short ranged and don't control a whole bunch of space. His movement may be the thing I need to use the most in the neutral (which means my grip on fox's movement has to be marvel, melee-good), but idk, I need to keep playing him. But I feel like I know he's going down. Smash 4 is getting more and more kill-confirm centric, and fox don't have those.

 

[Browny]

Shoryuken wont be nerfed... its already on par with luigis upb it would be ridiculous if it was weaker, its meant to be a very strong move.

Remove focus attack taking 50% damage please and wed be good.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

It would be hilarious if Cloud had to taunt for Limit Break finishing up; a 65 frame taunt showing "how much power" he has gained would make him more balanced. If not that, make it harder to charge up in every way; doubling the amount of time and halving how much he gets from being damaged and damaging would be better. Limit needs to be a "last resort" thing, not something you can whip out.

Tweaking ROB's laser to charge slower and his animation after shooting Gyro to have more endlag would be good to balance him.

And having Ryu's True Shoryu kill at 110% would be great, or tweaking his U-Tilt to not link together into itself would be wonderful.

At least those would balance the characters without ultimately shattering their strengths and viability.

Please think about this


Are all of these changes absolutely necessary? Are these characters doing anything that hurts the metagame of smash 4? No? Then no change. Period.

Nerfing Rob is something I have no words on. Bad MUs on a number of top tiers and high tiers (villager)? My goodness

EDIT: I see you viewing us @Shaya =)

 

[Routa]

Unsure

I'm pretty sure everyone agrees with me when I say that the most needed buff for them is making them usable in FG. This might not sound important, but

Ofc small buffs for killing would be nice. Miis don't have the easiest time killing.

 

[Radical Larry]

Shoryuken wont be nerfed... its already on par with luigis upb it would be ridiculous if it was weaker, its meant to be a very strong move.

Remove focus attack taking 50% damage please and wed be good.

I thought it took above 25% damage to beat Focus Attack with a single attack.

 

[jespoke]

Can we get a thread for patch hopes/predictions before someone here ends up banned?

 

[Rizen]

Can we get a thread for patch hopes/predictions before someone here ends up banned?

It's not like this doesn't tie into the current meta.

Please think about this


Are all of these changes absolutely necessary? Are these characters doing anything that hurts the metagame of smash 4? No? Then no change. Period.

This is kind of a nihilistic perspective. The game is well balanced already but that doesn't mean some patch adjustments won't make it better. Also sheik and ZSS do invalidate many characters.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

They don't "invalidate" them in the sense that MUs are literally unwinnable. We're talking 8:2/9:1, or whatever notation Smashers like to commonly use when talking about this.

Heaven forbid you have to work a little bit to get the W.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Rizen]

They don't "invalidate" them in the sense that MUs are literally unwinnable. We're talking 8:2/9:1, or whatever notation Smashers like to commonly use when talking about this.

Heaven forbid you to work a little bit.

Smooth Criminal

Again with the all or nothing attitude. Sheik and ZSS are undeniably the 2 best characters. Tell me some minor nerfs wouldn't better balance the entire cast?

 

[Radical Larry]

Can we get a thread for patch hopes/predictions before someone here ends up banned?

This all somewhat fits within the context of the Meta for now, because we could want to know if it will change viability of some characters. But if you want, I can just make one.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

Again with the all or nothing attitude. Sheik and ZSS are undeniably the 2 best characters. Tell me some minor nerfs wouldn't better balance the entire cast?

We're not entitled to them, bud. That's my point.

Better to adapt on the fly than pray to the dev-gods for alteration of the meta as a whole.

Smooth Criminal

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

let's hope that more and more characters get viable after the patch

 

[Rizen]

We're not entitled to them, bud. That's my point.

Smooth Criminal

No one said we were. The point is people talking about nerfs to ZSS/Sheik are coming from a good angle and don't simply want to 'not work for the win'.

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

What do you guys think is the most overhyped character in the game? I think it's .

 

[Deathcarter]

I feel like may go down as time goes on. He lacks kill confirms, his recovery is pretty bad and exploitable and his neutral seems to be average-ish in comparison to other top tiers. his jab is really good, his Bair is good, Ftilt is pretty good and Utilt is good for the neutral, but they're all short ranged and don't control a whole bunch of space. His movement may be the thing I need to use the most in the neutral (which means my grip on fox's movement has to be marvel, melee-good), but idk, I need to keep playing him. But I feel like I know he's going down. Smash 4 is getting more and more kill-confirm centric, and fox don't have those.

What?! Jab, weak hit nair, and dair all confirm into Up-Smash. If you mean he has no confirms off of grabs then yeah you're right but Fox doesn't need that to be top tier. His recovery is pretty good as well at least in regards to Fox Illusion: hard to react to, good at getting back onto the stage from the ledge and even dangerous to ledgeguard against since it can confirm into Up-air. Fox's biggest problem is that he simply lacks safe offense against Sheik and Rosaluma.

 

[LancerStaff]

People freaking out over how strong Witch Time looks seem to have forgotten what its like when Shulk uses vision.

Or Electroshock since it's basically a dashing counter.

We're not entitled to them, bud. That's my point.

Better to adapt on the fly than pray to the dev-gods for alteration of the meta as a whole.

Smooth Criminal

Thinkaman said it best... If you're above the middle, a nerf wouldn't be unwarranted and would objectively make the game more balanced.

Balancing everybody into the high tier would be dumb anyway.

 

[Nobie]

Did they just nerf hitstun on light hits so that you can't get combos off of them, or did they add some sort of special anti-combo property to them?

I believe it's just set up so that light attacks don't automatically cancel or link into heavier attacks. I haven't played SFV though so I can't say for sure.

Thought: When it comes to the health of a competitive game, the more gimmicky your character is, the more risk they carry with them if they become a top tier. How am I defining gimmick? Obviously all characters will have some properties not shared by other characters, but I would say it's any character that operates off the notion of having extreme strengths and weaknesses that polarize how you fight against them.

Example 1: If Little Mac were top tier, I think people would enjoy the game way less. It would imply that his supposedly extreme weaknesses do not make up for his extreme strengths, and that incredibly tough ground gameplay of Mac would just overwhelm people.

Example 2: Palutena I would call a gimmick character, or more like a bag of tricks character. She has invincible this, unblockable that, up smash to high heaven, etc. If she were a top tier, it miiight still be okay because she's more rounded than Mac, but imagine those invincible bairs and dash attacks on a more robust character.

Example 3: Sonic is a high to top tier, and I would argue that prior to his nerfs he was kind of a problematic character because his kill power was too good for someone that fast. The speed should come at the cost of SOMETHING, and Sonic as he is now is more about average to below average kill power and an overall decent moveset. If you look at his actual moves, none of them are so crazy now.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Havent been on this thread for a while and people are still saying stuff like "Fox lacks KO confirms"
Lol.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

What?! Jab, weak hit nair, and dair all confirm into Up-Smash. If you mean he has no confirms off of grabs then yeah you're right but Fox doesn't need that to be top tier. His recovery is pretty good as well at least in regards to Fox Illusion: hard to react to, good at getting back onto the stage from the ledge and even dangerous to ledgeguard against since it can confirm into Up-air. Fox's biggest problem is that he simply lacks safe offense against Sheik and Rosaluma.

i know Dair does and Jab does, but weak Nair will be hard to confirm into. However, his recovery is actually really bad lol. Fox illusion is the same timing very time; you will never miss it if you know the timing. Fire fox has startup time and can be easily stage-spiked.

But I need to practice fox a lot more though lol.

 

[Amadeus9]

the only fighter in this game that needs nerfs is sheik. i wouldnt touch much else if i was in charge of the patch dev. not even buffs.

 

[meleebrawler]

Is it too radical to suggest locking the thread in anticipation of the patch? That looming change makes buffs/nerfs all people are interested in talking about.

 

[LancerStaff]

Is it too radical to suggest locking the thread in anticipation of the patch? That looming change makes buffs/nerfs all people are interested in talking about.

On the one hand we could be talking about semi-relevant patches and stuff, on the other we could just talk about absolutely nothing. Dunno about you but I don't think locking the thread will do much good.

 

[Amadeus9]

On the contrary, inhibiting all conversation is more disruptive, imo.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Since there is no limit to how many patch changes there will be, the current meta is no longer relevant. Patch changes is all that can talked about before the patch drops Wednesday and gives possible meta shakeups.

Boost Kick may no longer kill. Duck Hunt Bair may kill at 90. Ganon Utilt may get a 37 frame cut on startup. We don't know that for certain, but we also can't say they won't change like that.

Tgc6 is apparently running the corrinetta patch despite it being 3 days old. Welcome to the new meta.

 

[hypersonicJD]

I hate Captain Falcon to dead and i'm not complaining in this thread about his god damn jab. I hate it but I have adapted to it and been defeating Falcons more recently with Sonic. It's a question of adaption. Maybe Sakurai and his crew will nerf Sheik, ZSS or Meta Knight. But I don't think it will be a really hard extreme. Also, why are people still asking for Limit break nerfs? It's Cloud's main tool for killing. Maybe reduce the knockback and such. I mean really, people love to complain about Sheik in this thread and we have seen so many times that Sheik can be defeated with a lot of dedication.

It's so easy to kill sheik at kill percents. Even with Bouncing Fish it's not hard to kill her and she lacks a kill move. Yes, I know Vanish and Bouncing can kll. But you won't see it very often outside of Down Throw, Fair strings or needdle storm.

People might discredit my post because i'm a Sonic main. But keep in mind that Sonic is now losing to Ike, Rosalina and Yoshi. Rosalina and Ike are nightmares. And Yoshi is also a pretty hard match-up. Waaaaaaaaaay back then he didn't really lose to anyone except Rosalina. And we are still going strong againts Sheik and other top tiers.

Maybe a nerd for Sheik and Zero Suit would be good. And what if they are nerfed so bad they end up being middle tier? Do you really want Sonic as Top 1? The most annoying character in the hole game to be the best character? Of course I want my main to be a really good top tier. But even then I can understand why people hate him.

We need to focus on the new characters: Bayonetta and Corrin. Both of them look really promising and meta changing characters. Corrin seems to have really good frame data and Bayonetta is a combo monster.

Also: If ZSS gets nerfed, Bayonetta will be her replacement. She can kill confirm After Burner Kicks into an Up Air and kill you at high percents.

 

[Amadeus9]

i really cant wait for bayo to be released and be no better than mid tier lol.

>frame 9 jab

 

[Eugene Wang]

Realistically, what will Corrin and Bayonetta play like? What I personally see:

Corrin seems to play similarly to his Fire Emblem brethren, but has a long-ranged paralyzer move and a long command grab that makes him an especially strong zoner. I could see a handful of Cloud mains moving to Corrin, trading lightning-fast moves for long range and a better recovery that can also be used to edgeguard.

Bayonetta, on the other hand, just plain screams bait and punish. Her moveset has significant startup lag, but she has what will probably turn out to be the best counter in the game, and can use it in abundance. Not only that, she has an aerial combo game that Meta Knight wishes he had, and at least 9 different long-ranged pressure options in the form of bullet arts and bullet climax.

 

[Das Koopa]

So, wait, Marth got a %2 buff on Fair? Was this caught from that FFA vid on Umbra Clock Tower?

How many other characters have gotten a multi-% buff on attack power throughout the patches? That might be a sign of major incoming buffs, idk.

 

[Amadeus9]

i really dont think bayonetta is gonna be good guys. on the other hand, have you seen corrin? crazy

 

[jespoke]

i really cant wait for bayo to be released and be no better than mid tier lol.

>frame 9 jab

She would be taking 's spot as most overhyped for sure. I don't really see it though just based on the tools she has even if they have bad frames

 

[apparently fuz]

i really cant wait for bayo to be released and be no better than mid tier lol.

>frame 9 jab

Because a character's jab frame defines how good they are.

 

[jespoke]

So, wait, Marth got a %2 buff on Fair? Was this caught from that FFA vid on Umbra Clock Tower?

How many other characters have gotten a multi-% buff on attack power throughout the patches? That might be a sign of major incoming buffs, idk.

It was Marth tipper Fair 2%, tipper Uair 1% according to the Marth main that showed up here yesterday IIRC. I think multi-% buffs have happened before, especially to heavier attacks (Link Up-b? Ike Dash?) but i don't know about attacks as light (sigh) as tipper Fair.

Edit: F*** me for letting misinformation into my post

 

[meleebrawler]

i really cant wait for bayo to be released and be no better than mid tier lol.

>frame 9 jab

That doubles as a less laggy Fox Blaster. And if you think you can duck it then you get the dtilt version. Not to mention Bullet Climax for halting short hops.