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

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Horseketchup

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And we have only 1 Pika rep and until that changes putting Pika Top5 is not really justified. Are there any other Pikas that do at least well in their region? I haven't heard of any regional winning Pikachu.
CosmicCosmos actually just won a 108 entrant Shockwave last night using almost all pikachu. Granted a handful of usual top guys like Karna, Denti, Dakpo, weren't there but he looked pretty dominant the whole tourney. Only lost one game with pika that I saw. Z is also a really good pika, though he's not winning regionals or anything.
 
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Skeeter Mania

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CosmicCosmos actually just won a 108 entrant Shockwave last night using almost all pikachu. Granted a handful of usual top guys like Karna, Denti, Dakpo, weren't there but he looked pretty dominant the whole tourney. Only lost one game with pika that I saw. Z is also a really good pika, though he's not winning regionals or anything.
Anything regarding Kenny?
 

Vyrnx

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If we were to make a Venn Diagram based on these proposed main characteristics...

Pure Brawler: :4bowser::4charizard::4dk::4kirby::4littlemac::4lucario::4luigi::4peach::4sonic::4yoshi::4falcon::4ganondorf::4jigglypuff::4miibrawl::4wario::4ryu:
Pure Gunner::4megaman::4samus::4villager::4pacman::4duckhunt::4miigun::4ness::4rob::4lucas:
Pure Swordsman::4myfriends::4marth::4lucina::4metaknight::4shulk::4miisword::4feroy::4cloud:
Brawler/Gunner::4diddy::4fox::4mario::4pikachu::4sheik::4wiifit::4zelda::4zss::4drmario::4falco:
Swordsman/Brawler::4dedede::4greninja::4palutena::4gaw::4mewtwo:
Gunner/Swordsman::4link::4olimar::4pit::rosalina::4tlink::4robinm::4bowserjr::4darkpit:

Brawler: primarily hand to hand combat, not a lot of projectiles
Gunner: lot of projectiles, lot of disjointed hitboxes, playstyle tends to revolve around projectiles and using them properly
Swordsman: primarily a sword, usually don't have a projectile
Brawler/Gunner: primarily hand to hand combat but projectiles and/or reflectors are a very big part of their gameplay
Brawler/swordsman: lots of disjointed hitboxes with a lot of physical attacks thrown in and maybe a projectile
Gunner/swordsman: tend to be very projectile reliant and typically fight with a disjointed weapon
I also don't want to pick on individual choices, but I often see people group Samus in with the projectile characters when she really isn't. The only projectile I use is CS. I use missiles almost never, maybe against Ganon and not really even then.

Midrange is definitely Samus' range and she's one of the better characters in that range. Utilt especially when perfect pivoted is a really good anti approach, safe on shield, and on hit can be really dangerous since it can combo into CS, up b, etc. Dtilt is massively disjointed and has huge range. People generally criticize this move for whatever reason, but it's a frame 6 move, probably one of the most disjointed normals in the game, and does 12 damage. Ftilt is more situational but it does have the best range of any tilt in the game I'm pretty sure, and sets up tech chases. Samus has a really strong set of tilts, and combined with zair makes her midrange game strong. All of her tech chases happen at midrange, her shield pressuring, and her keep away.

Samus could be considered a "keep away" character but it ALL happens at mid range. Missiles are more of an invitation for your opponent to run, jump, dash at you and all of a sudden by the time Samus has come out of endlag she has lost all stage control, which she absolutely needs. CS isn't used at long range obviously, unless out of a tech chase.

Now I'm just gonna go on about Samus, it has nothing to do with the gunner thing.

Samus' advantage state is no joke. When Samus mains talk about putting opponents at kill percents after 2-3 hit confirms, they aren't lying. Kills happen naturally around 120-140. It's hard to explain how as we don't rely on kill confirms, but this is the percent where Samus gets kills without really... Trying, for lack of a better word. A lot of her moves just have high knockback at this percent, like nair or bair, she catches someone with CS, she edge guards them.

Samus is a really solid edge guarder. I haven't found many off stage moves as good as Samus' nair. I sincerely believe it is one of the best edge guarding moves in the game. Combined with her low fall speed, Samus can just walk off the edge and use nair and the hit box kind of floats in front of the edge. It hits like a freaking truck at high percents, it's fast, and disjointed. The angle, though, is what makes it great. Many people try to challenge Samus in the air. But Samus happens to have a fast, disjointed, good range forward hitting aerial that will send you flying horizontally, where Samus can harass your recovery with nair, bombs, dair, zair, CS, homing missiles, even fair, bair for stage spikes, and if all else fails, up b, utilt at the ledge, or ledge trump bair/CS. Many characters can not do anything about Samus' nair off stage. If they get hit by the forward hit, they're dead as early as 40-50 because of the angle, if they get hit by he backwards hit, it will send them away from the ledge at a semi spike angle (for some reason). If they get hit by the lingering hitbox, it will stage spike or send them underneath the stage.
 
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Wintropy

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eh. early kills were always her thing. who does this work on?
according to the video, d-smash -> flip kick works on: :4sheik::4zss::4fox::4greninja::4megaman::4diddy: (it did say it's a bit trickier for diddy though)

d-smash -> u-air -> boost kick works on everybody above and: :4ryu::4metaknight::4dedede:

very interesting stuff, @Trifroze! doubt it's going to shift the zss meta in any tangible way (she doesn't exactly want for kill setups in the first place), but it's a good option to have and may open up new possibilities in neutral.
 
D

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Now I'm triggered of the days where ZSS could down smash-lock people in Brawl into Plasma Whip or back air. I'm gonna go cry right now.
 

FullMoon

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She can't 0-death Greninja because Shadow Sneak hitstun cancel gets him out of the first two D-Smashes.

#shadowsneakruinseverything
 

Antonykun

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Swordfighter is more of a Sworsman/Brawler than pure Swordsman.
not really?
A Swordfighter is all about spacing with disjointed moves to keep the enemy where as a Brawler is all about using fast movement and frame data to overpower the enemy
Mii Swordfighter is far more like the archetype of the same name than anything else even if he borrows moves from non Swordfighters like F-air/D-air/"Cape"
 

Peppermint1201

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Anything regarding Kenny?
To be honest, Kenny isn't that good in the grand scheme of Smash. On anthers' he's only a Silver II. To give you an idea for how lackluster that is, Tweek got to Gold I with Lucas-only. There are like 13 wifi-only pikachus that are higher-ranked than Kenny. Kenny seldom does well at Xanadu which is, to be blunt, not very "stacked." Unless another region is coming in, the only good players at Xanadu are Boss and Seagull.


So how good did ZSS just get?
I'm pretty sure there is no debate (if there was any beforehand) that ZSS is second-best in the game now. I mean, this isnt a huge deal since she can still get even earlier kills out of downthrow and this dsmash chain only works on a portion of the cast but she now has better matchups with Diddy and Sheik.
 
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Jaguar360

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If we were to make a Venn Diagram based on these proposed main characteristics...

Pure Brawler: :4bowser::4charizard::4dk::4kirby::4littlemac::4lucario::4luigi::4peach::4sonic::4yoshi::4falcon::4ganondorf::4jigglypuff::4miibrawl::4wario::4ryu:
Pure Gunner::4megaman::4samus::4villager::4pacman::4duckhunt::4miigun::4ness::4rob::4lucas:
Pure Swordsman::4myfriends::4marth::4lucina::4metaknight::4shulk::4miisword::4feroy::4cloud:
Brawler/Gunner::4diddy::4fox::4mario::4pikachu::4sheik::4wiifit::4zelda::4zss::4drmario::4falco:
Swordsman/Brawler::4dedede::4greninja::4palutena::4gaw::4mewtwo:
Gunner/Swordsman::4link::4olimar::4pit::rosalina::4tlink::4robinm::4bowserjr::4darkpit:

Brawler: primarily hand to hand combat, not a lot of projectiles
Gunner: lot of projectiles, lot of disjointed hitboxes, playstyle tends to revolve around projectiles and using them properly
Swordsman: primarily a sword, usually don't have a projectile
Brawler/Gunner: primarily hand to hand combat but projectiles and/or reflectors are a very big part of their gameplay
Brawler/swordsman: lots of disjointed hitboxes with a lot of physical attacks thrown in and maybe a projectile
Gunner/swordsman: tend to be very projectile reliant and typically fight with a disjointed weapon
Also she doesn't have a sword in this game, Zelda's probably resembles swordsman moreso than the others since she's very spacing-reliant, has some disjoints and doesn't like close range combat so much. She's probably a Gunner/Swordsman when taking Phantom into consideration.

Oddly enough, Mii Swordfighter could also fall into Gunner/Swordsman since he/she can greatly rely on Gale Strike/Shuriken of LIght and Chakram. I guess MSF is a weird case since he/she can be made to not have any projectiles though.
 

Y2Kay

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Happy Thanksgiving, nerds! :p

Speaking of which, what does your main have to be thankful for?
I know my main:4greninja: ought to be thankful for quick shurikens. He can force approaches now, thnx sakurai! ^_^

This happened a while ago but you get the point.......


:150:
 
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Wintermelon43

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Happy Thanksgiving, nerds! :p

Speaking of which, what does your main have to be thankful for?
I know my main:4greninja: ought to be thankful for quick shurikens. He can force approaches now, thnx sakurai! ^_^

This happened a while ago but you get the point.......


:150:
:4kirby: is thankful for the forward throw buff he got on July.
 

thehard

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TTTTTsd

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this is only exacerbated given almost all of the characters it works on generally shouldn't be hit at 0% by DSmash to begin with, much less with the optimal stage positioning needed to perform the lock.
 

FullMoon

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Yeah I was going to point that out, how often do you hit people at 0% with ZSS's D-Smash?

And even then doesn't the combo require you to be at about mid-stage in order for it to work?

It's going to be really rare to see this in a tournament, but if somehow the stars align, then ZSS can do her ZSS things. It really only works on about 7 MUs considering one of the characters it works on is ZSS herself and Greninja can hitstun cancel out of it.
 

valakmtnsmash4

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I know I'm late for posting this, but r/smashbros had released another monthly tier list!


The placements shown go as follows:

S :4sheik:

A+ :4zss::rosalina::4pikachu:

A :4mario::4ryu::4sonic::4diddy::4fox::4ness:

A- :4luigi::4yoshi::4villager::4falcon::4metaknight:

B+ :4rob::4peach::4wario::4myfriends::4pit::4feroy::4pacman:

B :4darkpit::4dk::4tlink::4olimar::4lucario::4miibrawl::4greninja::4megaman::4lucas::4kirby:

B- :4gaw::4falco::4robinm::4marth::4link::4bowserjr::4drmario::4littlemac::4wiifit::4shulk:

C+ :4duckhunt::4dedede::4lucina::4bowser::4charizard:

C :4jigglypuff::4ganondorf::4samus::4palutena::4miigun::4mewtwo::4miisword:

C- :4zelda:



My thoughts: I really wish they didn't get rid of the D tier as I believe at least Jiggs and Zelda should go down there. But here are the rest of my thoughts in bullet-point form.

  • MK should be higher than pretty much every character in the A- tier.
  • Greninja is too low. Should at least be at the bottom of B+ or top of B.
  • Little Mac and Falco are a bit too high. Shulk is also too high. All should go in C tier (Falco in C+)
  • Several people in recent days have told me and themselves that Mario should switch places with Pika. While I do agree Pika should be a bit lower, I similarly do not see Mario being in the Top 4. I'll just ignore their placements and move on.
  • Pit and Dark Pit should be right next to each other (Pit being one place higher).
  • Roy is still overhyped (at least this time he is where he deserves to be: below Ike).
  • Lucas is still overhyped.
  • Falcon is overrated. I don't really see him being A tier anymore when he has horrendous MUs against at least 3 of the top/high tiers (Sheik, Ryu, and Pikachu), though I suppose Fatality's 5th place finish at FPS is convincing enough to at least put him at the top of B+ or bottom of A-.
  • Mewtwo is way too low. It's clear that no one really focuses on his advantages that much. No way is he worse than someone like Jiggs or Ganon.
  • Sonic may or may not be slightly too low. True, Komikiri has been getting good results with the character, though I don't recall too many in America, and I'm pretty sure people are getting adjusted to fighting him.
  • Olimar is a tad too low as well. May be appropriately placed in regards to results, but still.
  • Overall this list is certainly better than the last list, but I still think there could be things fine-tuned.
you may think this is main bias but I think Shulk should stay where he is. maybe at the top of C+
 

Y2Kay

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Why is that on every tier list dark pit and pit are always apart? Do people just not know there's little difference between them?

:150:
 
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meleebrawler

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I'm thankful that the returning Melee vets finally (and officially) got the treatment they deserve (well, maybe Doc wasn't so happy about that, but he's definitely thankful for being the only "clone" worth considering over the original, even if only for personal taste).
 

TTTTTsd

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I'm thankful that the returning Melee vets finally (and officially) got the treatment they deserve (well, maybe Doc wasn't so happy about that, but he's definitely thankful for being the only "clone" worth considering over the original, even if only for personal taste).
2-3 matchups where he does better is still something! Anything to eliminate the really dull Mario mirror match is always nice to have in the game too.
 

Baby_Sneak

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I'm thankful that the returning Melee vets finally (and officially) got the treatment they deserve (well, maybe Doc wasn't so happy about that, but he's definitely thankful for being the only "clone" worth considering over the original, even if only for personal taste).
Wat r u talking about? I'm confused
 

Fatmanonice

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Every time there's a 0-death combo scare, the same thing always happens: it's found out that it's highly impractical in high levels of play unless it's stupidly easy to pull off ala Dedede's infinite on DK in Brawl. If it's hard, all but the most dedicated players will typically opt out of it just because practicing infinites and putting too much value in them is an all too easy trap to fall into (see 95% of people who've ever tried to be competitive with the Ice Climbers).

Also, thanks for all the comments on my previous post. Obviously, I don't play the entire cast and it was nice to hear some input from their respective players.
 

Teshie U

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Why is that on every tier list dark pit and pit are always apart? Do people just not know there's little difference between them?

:150:
The superior arrows make a big difference for edgeguarding and general harassment. The uppercut KOing vertically is also far more consistent.

Its also hard to take Pit seriously because it sounds like you are fighting Mickey Mouse.
 

meleebrawler

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Wat r u talking about? I'm confused
I mean these guys: :4mewtwo::4feroy::4drmario:

They finally have the specs they were meant to or should have had in Melee were it not for the game being rushed. To a lesser extent you could say the same for Bowser.

Dr. Mario is just that unfortunate case where his intended philosophy makes him worse by design in Smash. But it still makes him far more distinct than most clones, and recently got buffs (dat usmash) to make it even more apparent.
 

Jamurai

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you may think this is main bias but I think Shulk should stay where he is. maybe at the top of C+
... Why? If you say something like this without giving good reasons then it sounds very much like main bias.
 

TTTTTsd

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I mean these guys: :4mewtwo::4feroy::4drmario:

They finally have the specs they were meant to or should have had in Melee were it not for the game being rushed. To a lesser extent you could say the same for Bowser.

Dr. Mario is just that unfortunate case where his intended philosophy makes him worse by design in Smash. But it still makes him far more distinct than most clones, and recently got buffs (dat usmash) to make it even more apparent.
At this point I think the Fair buffs should be mentioned too because now he kills fastfallers off of grab 100% reliably because D-Throw > Fair. Reading the DI is ez. Very relevant (esp. in the Fox MU), I think it keeps him competitive in MOST fastfaller MUs (ZSS is still ugh)
 
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Baby_Sneak

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I mean these guys: :4mewtwo::4feroy::4drmario:

They finally have the specs they were meant to or should have had in Melee were it not for the game being rushed. To a lesser extent you could say the same for Bowser.

Dr. Mario is just that unfortunate case where his intended philosophy makes him worse by design in Smash. But it still makes him far more distinct than most clones, and recently got buffs (dat usmash) to make it even more apparent.
Did a patch happen for these characters that I'm unaware of? Outside of cloud and shield changes, I don't remember a super recent patch for anybody in smash.
 

meleebrawler

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Did a patch happen for these characters that I'm unaware of? Outside of cloud and shield changes, I don't remember a super recent patch for anybody in smash.
I mean compared to Melee.

Mewtwo had two non-functional specials, smashes that were really weak for how slow they were and a hurtbox that shield couldn't cover properly.

Roy just wasn't as good as Marth even when you got his mechanic to work. Now he gets reward on par with his.

Dr. Mario was supposed to be a slower but stronger Mario, but the only thing slower about him was his jab.
 

TTTTTsd

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I mean compared to Melee.

Mewtwo had two non-functional specials, smashes that were really weak for how slow they were and a hurtbox that shield couldn't cover properly.

Roy just wasn't as good as Marth even when you got his mechanic to work. Now he gets reward on par with his.

Dr. Mario was supposed to be a slower but stronger Mario, but the only thing slower about him was his jab.
Doc, funnily enough, actually had faster airspeed than Mario in Melee.

Jab was slower and his aerials had like 1-2 frames more landing lag (sometimes 3-4)
 
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valakmtnsmash4

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... Why? If you say something like this without giving good reasons then it sounds very much like main bias.
I don't think that Shulk is in the league with dedede and charizard. shulks frame data is bad but not bad as dedede's. He is unviable but not bottom 10 imo
 

Y2Kay

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The superior arrows make a big difference for edgeguarding and general harassment. The uppercut KOing vertically is also far more consistent.

Its also hard to take Pit seriously because it sounds like you are fighting Mickey Mouse.
Not enough for pit to be high and ebony pit to be high mid. They should both be next to each other, but there is always two, three, or even four chars. In between.

:150:
 
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kaz99

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I don't think that Shulk is in the league with dedede and charizard. shulks frame data is bad but not bad as dedede's. He is unviable but not bottom 10 imo
Shulk's frame data is actually worse than D3 and Charizard
 
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