Character Competitive Impressions

[BSP]

i dunno allys mario is a spectical

The only thing Ally's play made me rethink about the character was Usmash's KO potential. I admit, I didn't realize how reliable it is.

Other than that, he still has the low DPS, unreliable combos, low range, etc. He's not as bad as I thought before, but I still don't see him higher than mid tier.

Currently no one has done anything with Marth or Lucina (yet), although I would probably agree. Marth and Lucina are still basically Marth. I don't think Marth will ever be bad unless they take away his sword.

Luigi I have seen the good things being done with him, I just don't want to jump on the Luigi hype train JUST yet. There seems to be a general consensus that Luigi is better than Mario, would you agree with that?

Marth's tippers are insane. Just wait.

As for Luigi, yes, better than Mario.

 

[san.]

Continuing on the Mii Brawler+Gunner train, I think both are going to go up as competitive players actually decide to take them seriously as possible mains.

is something that I believe only a few people knew about. The learning curve is a little bit high if you want to completely shut down a competent player, but I think that Gunner would be able to with mastery of all of her movement/reversal options.

 

[NairWizard]

Swordfighter isn't so bad after all either, but you already know that (and better than I do) @ san.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

There exists the trend of Rosalina being 3rd on peoples' tier lists behind Diddy/Sheik, even though she loses solidly to virtually every fast character with a decent grab game. Not only this but the anti-Luma metagame is progressing increasingly more quickly every week since the Wii-U's release. Her lack of either a decent combo breaker or mobility option to get away from juggling + her floatyness + her weakness to Luma dying make for a volatile character in a tournament setting. As it stands now, her polarizing matchup spread against everyone who isn't fast makes her 7th on my list, right behind Sonic.

That's interesting! Personally I think even if Rosalina loses Luma (yes, I think the Luma respawn nerf was HUGE) that she's still incredibly solid by herself even against faster characters

Would you compare her to say, Dedede from Brawl? That was a character who struggled against two playstyles (campy and combo... mainly meta knight) but proceeded to destroy pretty much every character below him.

Marth's tippers are insane. Just wait.

As for Luigi, yes, better than Mario.

You can compare Marth's tippers from Brawl here to Smash 4's tippers here!

Brawl: http://opensa.dantarion.com/autoframe/FitMarth.php
Smash 4: http://smashboards.com/threads/before-you-ask-the-differences-between-marth-and-lucina.376180/

From what I can tell his tippers are slightly worse than Brawl's.

Thanks for the info about Weegee, I will keep it in mind.

 

[Luco]

In regards to the tier list, I think your S and A tier are pretty good, though some characters should be juggled around in it and a couple more characters deserve to be in it, such as pika. Pika I believe deserves a particularly high position due to his fantastic ability to rack up damage and a very, very solid edge-guarding game, along with a variety of strong MUs to boot. Solidsense definitely convinced me on this one, though i've known ESAM in particular (like always) has been inflating doing a lot of work with pika to show how viable he is. Other Pikachu mains have been doing well and I agree with their sentiment that he's very, very good.

A couple characters and placings I feel a little awkward about too outside of Pika, most notably Peach who I believe has every reason to be a high tier candidate with a strong ability to rack up damage + kill power (which she didn't have in Brawl), a strong footsies game with aerials that are safe on block (most notably Fair) and is very hard to edge-guard. Also a solid MU spread afaik.

The other two that strike me as somewhat odd are Robin and Link, the former of which has been getting very strong placements with nairo at the very least and has shown promise with a mid-range game that leads straight into combos. Literally, Arcfire bursts on shield, and if you unshield at any point you get trapped in it which leaves you vulnerable to a levin Uair / Fair / Bair by Robin and... well basically this character's lack of mobility is definitely catered for in my opinion with very strong options at long, mid and close range and a command grab that heals as a mix-up.

Link on the other hand... is debatable. Personally I think the main reason he was so awful in just about every other smash game was because of a recovery you could compare to Little Mac's. Now, with a far stronger recovery and a new dash attack that kills surprisingly early, I feel Link will do quite a bit more for himself this time around. Tether grabs have been buffed which makes his grab game somewhat more viable, and removal of CGs also helps him quite a bit (as it does with most characters who suffered from the terminal chain grab illness). I think he's pretty solid.

Little Mac is someone who my instinct tells me is perhaps slightly too high on your list due to his volatile nature... but at the end of the day it's very debatable and a KO punch that basically makes you the ice climbers until you get hit or whiff it has gotta count for something, I reckon, so... maybe it's valid to have him there.

Most of the tier list though is something i'm reasonably happy with, i'd probably argue in favour of Shulk and Ike being a tad higher but to be honest I still think we're very vague on the specifics of our tier lists atm so it's quite acceptable.

EDIT: So Gunner is the new snake in terms of amazing, multiple wavebounces for landing to avoid juggles. <3

 

[san.]

Swordfighter is very gimmicky with some great moves (utilt, dtilt, jab2, dthrow, uair, dair) and the rest situational. His dair never fails to bring a laugh when used to gimp. I think he can compete, but it's going to take a lot of work. I can't say he's better than many characters from my current understanding, but I don't think he's crippled/bad.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Can we not make Mii Gunner a thing, that character's Side B is annoying.

Edit: also link is bad and his new dash attack sucks (like actually sucks). Frame 20+ dash attack pls.

 

[Morbi]

Seeing as @B0NK was manly enough to post his tier list, I decided to post my first few months impressions of what a tier list should/would look like if it was released right now.

Spoiler

S Tier:

A Tier:


B Tier:


C Tier:


D Tier:


E Tier:

Hyrule Tier:

Please don't kill me. I'd like some input that isn't "MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER ISNT IN THAT POSITION".

I am fairly certain S to C tier is fairly accurate. Less certain about D tier. I have a lot of people telling me Bowser Jr. is really good for example.

People are welcome to ask what my thoughts are of a characters perceived strengths and weaknesses too.

I am just curious as to why you believe Falco to be in B Tier; I would be very intersted in hearing the rationale if you have the time. Most people speak about how nonviable the big blue bird is and I am trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Deleted member]

This is why I dislike arbitrary groupings and ratings/labels, like C/D/E tier.

They leave the size of the gap to the reader's imagination, and thus at best communicate nothing, and at worst communicate incorrectly.

This. Right now we're not at the point where we can reasonably decide on a tier list; we just got SSB Wii U just over two weeks ago (and Japan just got it two days ago) so there is still going to be a long time before we can make a decent tier list. Opinions are all over the place in regards to characters because of how new SSB 3DS & Wii U is.

 

[Luco]

Can we not make Mii Gunner a thing, that character's Side B is annoying.

Edit: also link is bad and his new dash attack sucks (like actually sucks). Frame 20+ dash attack pls.

Soz, I think of it more like a smash attack in that it's better for punishing landings or reads haha.

I dunno, i've had it in my mind for quite some time now that the disparity between Link and TL's placements had gotten considerably smaller since Brawl. I could be wrong though.

 

[NairWizard]

I am just curious as to why you believe Falco to be in B Tier; I would be very intersted in hearing the rationale if you have the time. Most people speak about how nonviable the big blue bird is and I am trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Actually, Falco in this topic has generally been lauded as pretty good. It's mostly that his tilts do good damage, he has a reflector, and he has kill setups on basically all of his moves that send you vertically.

 

[Thinkaman]

This. Right now we're not at the point where we can reasonably decide on a tier list; we just got SSB Wii U just over two weeks ago (and Japan just got it two days ago) so there is still going to be a long time before we can make a decent tier list. Opinions are all over the place in regards to characters because of how new SSB 3DS & Wii U is.

Yup. I don't have anything against ranking or listing the characters, as long as we maintain proper context of how limited and meaningless it is.

Assigning labels to tiers ("Samus is D-tier") is imo one step too far. It falsely implies things we don't/can't know.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

I am just curious as to why you believe Falco to be in B Tier; I would be very intersted in hearing the rationale if you have the time. Most people speak about how nonviable the big blue bird is and I am trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Incredible normals, Laser's are still decent from far away/force approaches, solid air game, solid recovery, one of the better reflectors in the game.

He lost some of his cheese stuff from Brawl (chaingrab to 8,000,000%, absurd run away game, silly down air), but Falco was so much more than that in Brawl.

Yup. I don't have anything against ranking or listing the characters, as long as we maintain proper context of how limited and meaningless it is.

Assigning labels to tiers ("Samus is D-tier") is imo one step too far. It falsely implies things we don't/can't know.

D tier doesn't have to be bad.

 

[NairWizard]

Yup. I don't have anything against ranking or listing the characters, as long as we maintain proper context of how limited and meaningless it is.

Assigning labels to tiers ("Samus is D-tier") is imo one step too far. It falsely implies things we don't/can't know.

Agree with this. My tier list categories are as follows in my head:

"Most Consistent For Tournaments" tier -- these characters have very few to no bad matchups; you definitely don't need a secondary
"Consistent For Tournaments" tier -- these characters struggle in a few matchups, but there aren't any in which they're just dominated, so you shouldn't need a secondary
"Tournament-Viable" tier -- you will do well with these characters, but they have bad matchups that may require use of a secondary
"Tournament-Unviable" tier -- you definitely need a secondary to compete, because good/popular characters have strong matchups against your character

 

[Thinkaman]

D tier doesn't have to be bad.

Yup! But many people will read it as bad, naturally. And that's the problem: The interpretation of what it means is left to the audience, to an extreme degree.

 

[DanGR]

@ KuroganeHammer Yeah I think that comparison mostly holds up. It falters a bit in that camping is a non-issue for Rosalina, considering her absorption special. The problem comes when opponents threaten knocking away Luma with safe projectile harassment, limiting Rosalina's options thereafter in footsie interactions. (bombs, megaman everything, needles, eggs, arrows, shurikens, etc.)

Here's a little secret for all you very silly Rosalina players I see in videos/streams that would rather save 5/52% of Luma's HP than gain vital stage positioning by spamming the absorption against Fox' lasers in the beginning of matches on flat stages. You can down-b-> SH forward-> down-b to maintain the absorption field while gaining stage positioning.

 

[KiteSC]

Yup! But many people will read it as bad, naturally. And that's the problem: The interpretation of what it means is left to the audience, to an extreme degree.

I actually was always curious about this aspect. Why is smash tier list so mean with the letter grades? Like, if I see a character in D-tier, it SHOULD tell me they suck. But in most smash tier lists, it actually feels less like a letter grade and more like power level steps. Is my perception of it right? Or is there some other hidden meaning?

 

[Ffamran]

I am just curious as to why you believe Falco to be in B Tier; I would be very intersted in hearing the rationale if you have the time. Most people speak about how nonviable the big blue bird is and I am trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Go back a page and you'll find my rant beliefs in why Falco, the bread-bird, is a solid fighter.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Wii Fat Trainer suffers from extremely poor range, incredibly slow KO options, while her strengths are honestly gimmicks, being her jab bury and self heal being the main ones. Solid KO percents on forward smash but that move is terribly slow that you can't even get it off from jab bury. Decent camp game but not enough to save her from the depths of bottom tier.

WFT doesn't have trouble with KOs. Land any aerial after Deep Breathing, which you can do easily offstage due to her super solid recovery. Land trap with Sun Salutation or edgeguard with it. She's terrible in neutral though and easily juggled, so I do see her as bottom 5 overall.

Ganondorf, see Brawl Ganondorf really, lacks approach options, easily camped, extremely slow (movement and attack speed wise!), but at least pretty much every move is a KO move.

The last advantage is much bigger than you suggest, in a game where most characters do only like 15% with throw combos, and do like 8% a hit. It means Ganon's risk/reward in neutral is actually kinda insane, when you factor that all his moves are generally speaking good. Like seriously, nobody in the right mind wants to directly challenge his Dash Attack or N-air, and his N-air is even safe on block. Sure, Ganon has terrible grab range, but that honestly just stops him from being broken. Ganondorf demands a lot of respect in this game when he kills you if you accidentally trade with him.

Zelda, again, see Brawl Zelda, which is basically Brawl Ganondorf: Can't approach, can't force an approach, can't KO reliably unless the opponent commits to something from a teleport distance away, weak aerial game aside from neutral air, up and forward smash are unreliable (people pop out of them for no reason even more frequently than Brawl), mediocre damage racking options but on the plus side her throws have been improved immensely, what a shame her grab is like, 12 frames when everyone elses is frame 7.

Zelda doesn't have trouble with KOs. Go D-air someone offstage since you have one of the best recoveries in the game, and even if you don't sweetspot, they're probably dead if you footstool them anyway. D-throw U-air can be frame tight at KO percents (U-air for that matter does 15%, which is massive for damage racking). F-smash is still more importantly safe on block, and most characters in this game don't kill as early as Zelda nor do they really do more damage per hit than her. Better yet, more characters have trouble actually KOing Zelda because you basically can't be edgeguarded or land trapped with any real consistency. Poor shieldgrab sucks, but you at least have an amazing D-tilt that sets up F-air and a great DA that is both fast, has great range, and covers air options well.

Also you keep saying Phantom is bad, when I see it as a perfectly fine move that is safe when used outside DA range, and can take a nice chunk out of people's shields. Din's is less useful, but does better in this game forcing people into awkward positioning while they recover when trapping airdodge is stronger in this game.

Luigi I have seen the good things being done with him, I just don't want to jump on the Luigi hype train JUST yet. There seems to be a general consensus that Luigi is better than Mario, would you agree with that?

frame tight D-throw combos that do 24% for the braindead. Potentially more like 40% if you position REALLY well or depending on matchup. Luigi is one of few characters that basically has Brawl level damage combos in this game.

Fireballs are like ZSS Paralyzer. Like...seriously. Ignore that sure, the hitstun is worse. Better startup, virtually 0 commitment and leaves Luigi consistently positive on shield, and they still do 6% in this game which is actually kinda massive for a spammable projectile. Cyclone ignores zoning and still makes Luigi hard for most characters to gimp. Can confirm KO moves out of D-throw like N-air, Up-B, and even Cyclone. Frame 2 Jab that has massive range and does 10%. Luigi's D-air spike also seems more reliable in this game (at least Boss makes it look that way) making Luigi's gimp potential offstage actually scary.

Edit: I forgot to mention that Megaman is UNKILLABLE, that's a fairly big one.

Mega Man is hard to gimp, but he has to play respectfully against edgeguards and juggles like everyone else. He doesn't get out of traps for free, as his mobility is pretty bad honestly. Being unkillable would be Samus in a nutshell in contrast (who has other problems, but dealing with traps isn't one of them), though Mega Man as I've always stated has been an extremely solid character against people that don't have good anti-projectile tools.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

So here are my thoughts, not quite in a full list though I could make one.

Customs on or off makes a huge difference. Customs on is way, way better balance.

I see top 4 as Diddy, Lucario, Sonic, and Rosalina in that order with customs off. Customs off Diddy belongs in his own tier at the top and is just distinctly non-trivially better than every other character; customs on I suspect Lucario is probably #1 by a small margin (it's really close but Snaring Aura Sphere is the sort of thing that especially helps against characters like Diddy and Sonic up here among the tops) and Rosalina/Sonic are relatively closer to the two ahead of them (I really want Luma Warp vs Diddy so bad...) but I don't think the order changes. Villager also enters the picture with Timber Counter and Exploding Balloon Trip to make top 4 more like top 5 (he probably takes #5 with customs on but belongs with the top N characters instead of in also ran land); with custom off he's right near the middle of the cast and won't prove a notable character in the long run though he's not bad.

Customs off I'd probably put the race for #5 as between Yoshi and Sheik; I feel like both are just not *quite* there with the tops but are really close and definitely fully competitive. Customs on it's so chaotic between so many characters for #6 I don't even know; I feel like you could just name characters at random for #6 for customs on and have a good shot of saying something smart because it compresses the tiers so much and all of the previously bad characters who are suddenly good change the match-up calculus enough to even throw characters like Ness who might not have benefited so much directly from customs into the argument again.

A lot of these lists are seriously sleeping on Ike and Shulk. Customs on helps both a lot (ESPECIALLY Ike who I'm pretty sure is in the fight for the highest tiers in customs on), but even customs off both are legitimately good characters and no worse than mid. Everyone talks about Marth being not so bad (and I agree he's not), but I'm pretty sure if you want a sword character both of these guys are better than Marth.

Customs on makes Samus, Ganon, Charizard, Palutena crazy better. These characters are all legit with customs on but just garbage with them off; they're the most stark balance cases of how much customization matters.

Greninja doesn't belong so high on lists; he's the worst character of his archetype. Diddy, Sheik, Zero Suit Samus, Sonic are all in the game as speed characters and all better than him (well, Sonic isn't really that similar, but he is better for what that's worth). This statement holds with either customs on or off; I think Greninja is overrated.

I'll risk saying it; Pac-Man is awful. Customs on helps him since he gets some really good options (On-Fire Hydrant is ridiculous!), but he's still a low tier character from where I'm sitting either way (customs is just a question of whether low tier has viability, not of whether he's in it). He's just so unsafe as a character, and he lacks solid goto options or really anything oppressive to do to assert his dominance. He's not even really a power character; for how unsafe so much of his stuff is, he should probably hit as hard as Bowser, but he doesn't. I also foresee him getting worse as the metagame advances; if he ever got to be a real threat in the metagame, people would just practice catching his fruit, and that would be a really big problem for him since it's not like he has any kind of a real rushdown game (unsafe attacks AND the worst grab in the game, great combo) so if you as a player had no fear at all of camping him I dunno what he would do.

Wii Fit Trainer is not bottom tier. Her range on a lot of stuff is awkward, but her speed-power ratio and projectile game are both great. To be fair, I mostly think of her in the context of customs and she benefits more than almost anyone else. Jumbo Hoop gives her a solid hitbox option and changes the game for her. She's probably low tier (but not bottom) in customs off, but I think she's a legitimately good character in customs on (who also has bar none the most diversity in playable load-outs).

Mii Gunner is IMO the worst character either way. The character just has poor options to finish stocks and awful options to get out of disadvantaged situations. If everyone played Bowser and Ganon Mii Gunner might be okay, but I honestly don't know what this character is supposed to do other than lose against characters who don't care about his projectile zoning. I have long felt Mii Swordfighter is underrated but probably still lowish. If I'm just talking about Miis, Mii Brawler is transparently at least decent, but I'm not convinced he's anything special.

Speaking of projectiles, am I the only one who increasingly gets a sense Duck Hunt may not actually be all that good? His control is really great and it's hard to write off a character with his kind of options, but his "get off me" is really poor (I haven't looked into his frame data, but it feels really bad in gameplay) and this character struggles so much to finish stocks which can just create all kinds of problems for him especially if he starts losing and needs to make a comeback. He feels like a less extreme version of Snake except with bad kill moves instead of very good ones, and that is making it harder and harder to see him as high tier.

I have no idea where Peach and Jigglypuff fall but heavily suspect both are being very slept on. Both need to see *way* more play.

If it sounds like everyone moves up with customs on it kinda is because they do; the tiers mostly just compress with a few characters I mentioned shooting up relatively. That's my balance impression, and while I could talk about other characters, these are the main stand-outs from my pondering of the balance. Given that I see it how I do, it is probably not a wonder that I'm such a customs advocate; it helps the game a lot!

 

[Nairo]

Seeing as @B0NK was manly enough to post his tier list, I decided to post my first few months impressions of what a tier list should/would look like if it was released right now.

Spoiler

S Tier:

A Tier:


B Tier:


C Tier:


D Tier:


E Tier:

Hyrule Tier:

Please don't kill me. I'd like some input that isn't "MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER ISNT IN THAT POSITION".

I am fairly certain S to C tier is fairly accurate. Less certain about D tier. I have a lot of people telling me Bowser Jr. is really good for example.

People are welcome to ask what my thoughts are of a characters perceived strengths and weaknesses too.

I'm curious as to why greninja is 4th in your opinion id like to hear about it! and also palutenas perceived strengths and weaknesses(and bad MUs due to the weaknesses too in your opinion)

 

[SanicJan]

Shulk crushed that tournament and that Japanese tier list. I guess this is when the quote is best handled. "Tonight, we use our power to fell a god"
So personally I think Shulk is one of the better characters. It's just very hard to master him but I'm sure when you do he can be pretty good. Especially with all of his buffs in Version 1.0.4.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Yup! But many people will read it as bad, naturally. And that's the problem: The interpretation of what it means is left to the audience, to an extreme degree.

this is also somthing i dont like about teir lists. and part of the reason i had my rant some 20 pages back.
i just feel people jump bandwagons that are generally misinformed. leaving alot of other potential metas stagnating.

 

[A2ZOMG]

@ Amazing Ampharos

At first, I thought Pac Man was probably terrible because of that grab. But honestly...his Trampoline and Hydrant are really really good for forcing people to play on his terms. Trampoline is like Diddy Bananas, except it forces you to JUMP and is basically instant. Even can be used as an out of shield option! Who designed such a broken move? Hydrant allows all sorts of nonsense for getting out of traps, spacing aerials in positions where they shouldn't be allowed, and more.

That grab though does legitimately hinder him a lot. He would be broken with a good standard grab probably when factoring how much he's able to control his opponent's mobility options.

Also I don't get how you're so confused about Gunner. He plays a nice, solid traditional spacing game that is complimented by safe trap setups. Swordfighter imo is the worst character. Just generally has the most useless movepool in the game, with moves that aren't really safe, and don't cover good options.

 

[Alacion]

Din's Fire is not even an option since it can be canceled just like in Brawl.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

soo i just gunna some up how information seems to turn here in this thread.


its basically
"bad till proven otherwise"
even though some of these so called bad charcters have more results at tournys than others.

cough ganon cough

iv seen no decent lucina in tourny but seen plenty of good ganons and dks. i just cant argue with results as to why these decent charaters are out wieghing the ones with actual results.
what greninja at have we seen since patch? would it be uncouth of me to say hes bad?

dunno i just dont think we can be making teir list with theory craft. we need results and not this on paper mumbo jumbo alot of people like to write down.
and while i like falco and think hes good. whats to stop anyone from saying hes bad? he has no tourny representaion so hes obvioulsy not going to be considered good just cause.

so if i would be making a tier list right now i would be looking at results before craft.
therefore we can say such and such are great but if they are so great wherr are they?

not to say opinions dont matter its just that results are results. and if character like mario are consistantly making top placements. there obviously somthing wrong with our on paper home work than whats actually occuring.

alright pointless rant is over good night lol.

(this post is just food for thought not much else dont dig to deep)

 

[KuroganeHammer]

I'm curious as to why greninja is 4th in your opinion id like to hear about it! and also palutenas perceived strengths and weaknesses(and bad MUs due to the weaknesses too in your opinion)

Greninja imo is so high because he's very fast, Water Shurikan is amazing, solid damage racking options (usmash does 19% uncharged!), great recovery, an up throw that acts as a combo starter OR kill throw, forward air is fairly fast for how much damage/knockback it does.

Honestly, pre 1.0.4 the character was glitchy as, they fixed the glitches which hurt him a bit but he's still an incredible character.

Regarding Palutena, I think her main problems (no customs, I think she's pretty much top/high tier with customs) lie in that she does very mediocre damage, unusual hitboxes, auto reticule is bad when used improperly, she has literally no ground game aside from jab 1 and grab. She also lacks KO options outside of uair (her smash attacks are quite strong but if you miss or it gets shielded there's an eternity of ending lag that can be punished).

On the plus side, she has probably the best reflector in the game (lol 100% up time, lol deals damage and has a windbox), her counter is also one of the better ones (although it's not like counters are amazing). Solid recovery, fantastic aerials (minus dair), but that's about all she's got going for her.

With her matchups, any character that relies on camping she has a decent matchup against imo, Villager, Megaman?, but she gets bodied by fast, grounded characters because she doesn't have any options on the ground that take less than 8 frames

 

[Thinkaman]

Anyone who bans Palutena customs should also ban Luma, along with most of Diddy's moveset.

 

[Ffamran]

Anyone who bans Palutena customs should also ban Luma, along with most of Diddy's moveset.

Fox only, no items, Final Destination.

 

[Nocally]

All of these tier lists with letters, what do they really mean?

S - supposed to win
A- Tournament viable
B- Tournament Viable but with some key losing match-ups

???
Just asking, since tier lists are supposed to tell who is best in the current meta / Tournament viable and what not.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

@ Amazing Ampharos

At first, I thought Pac Man was probably terrible because of that grab. But honestly...his Trampoline and Hydrant are really really good for forcing people to play on his terms. Trampoline is like Diddy Bananas, except it forces you to JUMP and is basically instant. Even can be used as an out of shield option! Who designed such a broken move? Hydrant allows all sorts of nonsense for getting out of traps, spacing aerials in positions where they shouldn't be allowed, and more.

That grab though does legitimately hinder him a lot. He would be broken with a good standard grab probably when factoring how much he's able to control his opponent's mobility options.

Also I don't get how you're so confused about Gunner. He plays a nice, solid traditional spacing game that is complimented by safe trap setups. Swordfighter imo is the worst character. Just generally has the most useless movepool in the game, with moves that aren't really safe, and don't cover good options.

The thing with Hydrant is that once it's down it in theory doesn't do more for Pac-Man than for his opponent; water pushes both sides around indiscriminately, and both sides can take advantage of those situations. Now, he can choose when and where to deploy it and it is really disruptive on the match which if he had a really good camp game I'd see a vision of him working (disrupt everything to make his camp game super hard to deal with), but his projectile is catchable and generally a pretty telegraphed move which to me would seem to really kill the point. Like if it's Pac-Man vs Villager, Villager is up a stock, and Villager's gameplan is to hide behind the tree/run away as it suits him and shoot slingshot bullets all day until time runs out, what does Pac do? How does Pac-Man force the issue and make himself a problem? I mean, Pac can mess with the opponent's mobility options a lot which is nice, but everything he does also messes with his own options and it's not clear how he can transition a disrupted stage into a winning game state for himself since if the opponent doesn't care if the match is slow and boring it doesn't seem like it helps Pac-Man to make it that way even if he can do so easily.

I don't really find Mii Gunner confusing; I find his toolset just too incomplete. I mean, sure, you have a solid traditional zoning game with projectiles, very solid even. What is your fallback if they get past that first line of attack, especially a character like Fox who finds the idea of his opponents just running away throwing projectiles amusing? Gunner doesn't seem to have one. If you are successfully keeping them out with projecitle zoning, it takes forever to win too since he just doesn't finish stocks well; you have them living to 150-170% every stock knowing that if you ever lose momentum horrible things happen to you. If Gunner loses momentum and the opponent is rushing him hard and in his face, he has awful options to get them off, awful options to protect himself if they're only kinda out, and is in extreme peril off-stage with his poor recovery. He can't even shift gears if he sees zoning is wrong against a particular player; his non-zoning game is just so thoroughly incompetent he has to keep trying to play his one style of game all the time which is the kind of rigidity that tends not to speak well of a character (as a Brawl G&W main, I'm remembering my least favorite things about my old character right now). So yeah, Gunner is really oppressive when he's working; I just find it too easy for the game to go ways where he's not working, and he more than any other character lacks flexibility to handle match siutations in which his game isn't working and he has to claw back while playing the other guy's game. That makes me feel like he's the biggest risk to pick out of any character, and being a risky pick is for me the essence of being a bottom tier character in a well balanced game which this one is.

Swordfighter I think works. If you set the size right, his sword is long enough to let him stay safe if you're super tight on your spacing and movement; it's really more work than he's probably worth as a character, but it's doable which makes the difference. His damage in general is pretty high which is helpful (his risk-reward makes sense and he has to win a realistic number of exchanges to keep up), that tornado move is legitimately a very good projectile, chakram isn't even bad, and his spin attack is a very strong and useful kill move which complements his game a lot and leaves him with a complete gameplan. He even has a counter which in this engine is pretty much "I can deal with being in awful situations with at least some degree of competence" which I think is a very real virtue and is the main problem I had with gunner (not being able to deal with that). I'm not entirely convinced he's actually good overall especially in context of the other sword characters; in fact, I'm pretty sure he does belong in the bottom half overall, but I don't see him at the worst character and think his potential is being slept on.

 

[HeroMystic]

There exists the trend of Rosalina being 3rd on peoples' tier lists behind Diddy/Sheik, even though she loses solidly to virtually every fast character with a decent grab game. Not only this but the anti-Luma metagame is progressing increasingly more quickly every week since the Wii-U's release. Her lack of either a decent combo breaker or mobility option to get away from juggling + her floatyness + her weakness to Luma dying make for a volatile character in a tournament setting. As it stands now, her polarizing matchup spread against everyone who isn't fast makes her 7th on my list, right behind Sonic.

This. People are finally starting to get it. I called this even before the Wii-U version came out.

I suspect Rosalina will fall out of the Top Tier and into High Tier. She's a solid character, but people are starting to realize that killing Luma makes Rosalina a lot easier to deal with, let alone just knocking her away and putting her out of position. Granted, the Luma spawn nerf did help in balancing her out.

 

[Chuva]

I don't really find Mii Gunner confusing; I find his toolset just too incomplete. I mean, sure, you have a solid traditional zoning game with projectiles, very solid even. What is your fallback if they get past that first line of attack, especially a character like Fox who finds the idea of his opponents just running away throwing projectiles amusing? Gunner doesn't seem to have one. If you are successfully keeping them out with projecitle zoning, it takes forever to win too since he just doesn't finish stocks well; you have them living to 150-170% every stock knowing that if you ever lose momentum horrible things happen to you. If Gunner loses momentum and the opponent is rushing him hard and in his face, he has awful options to get them off, awful options to protect himself if they're only kinda out, and is in extreme peril off-stage with his poor recovery. He can't even shift gears if he sees zoning is wrong against a particular player; his non-zoning game is just so thoroughly incompetent he has to keep trying to play his one style of game all the time which is the kind of rigidity that tends not to speak well of a character (as a Brawl G&W main, I'm remembering my least favorite things about my old character right now). So yeah, Gunner is really oppressive when he's working; I just find it too easy for the game to go ways where he's not working, and he more than any other character lacks flexibility to handle match siutations in which his game isn't working and he has to claw back while playing the other guy's game. That makes me feel like he's the biggest risk to pick out of any character, and being a risky pick is for me the essence of being a bottom tier character in a well balanced game which this one is.

Actually for a zoner Gunner has some decent tools to get away from rushdown characters, from Nair's wide active hitboxes to retreating dashing Fairs and Grenades because even if they trade with another move they help reset bad situations. You also have a relatively fast Dsmash that punishes rolls, fast tilts and a jab that does it job at disrupting momentum.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Mii Gunner Grenades shouldn't 2 shot shields imo

 

[Nu~]

Ungimpable, for those who don't know, Megaman gets to jump out of Rush Coil, also if you meteor him, he just bounces off Rush on his way down

Edit: I forgot to mention that Megaman is UNKILLABLE, that's a fairly big one.

Um...megaman's recovery is incredibly gimpable. Rush isn't like pacman's trampoline, it only lasts for so long underneath you, and if you're trying to recover horizontally, you're gonna have a bad time against any form of edgegaurding.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

No, Megaman's recovery is absurd, he can get back from anywhere, can save his double jump for after his Up B (THIS IS IMPORTANT) and just in case you thought you weren't going to get back to the stage, here, have a wall jump as well.

 

[Yoshi Kirishima]

All of these tier lists with letters, what do they really mean?

S - supposed to win
A- Tournament viable
B- Tournament Viable but with some key losing match-ups

???
Just asking, since tier lists are supposed to tell who is best in the current meta / Tournament viable and what not.

It depends on whatever whoever created the list wants it to mean. They are arbitrary letters unless if they define it; there is no set standard as to how to break up things into tiers, how many, letters, whether to use S or not, etc.

If they don't define such things, chances are they don't understand enough about the actual concept of a tier list to be giving any useful list.

About what you said at the end of your post, there's not even an universally agreed upon definition or purpose of a tier list. Even here on SWF, you will see throughout every tier list the changing opinions and criteria for which they rank the characters. Of course, it's always a mix of

1) Tournament presence
2) Character strength

But what exactly is presence? What is more important, the number of entrants using a character? How far they get? How high the percent of players who use a particular character get past X point in a tournament? The number of wins that character has? How can you judge whether it is the character that is strong, or just the players? Is this even a question, since every person is different and are simply more suited to certain characters?

What determines character strength? Potential? Is potential defined by the theoretical limit of the character, or some lower "realistic human limit"? How do you define the latter in concept? How can you say humans have a limit? Is there even a purpose for ranking characters by strength if you assume there is a human limit and ignore the full potential of the character if played to perfection?


These are the kinds of questions that are debated throughout time and this is why there is so much controversy, dislike, or misunderstanding of tier lists.


In SHI-G's case, the letters have no significant meaning. They just split up the characters, ranked by 11 judges from 5 to 10 points, into 6 "tiers" called S A B C D and E. Meaning if they are in A tier it simply means they are within the ~64th to 83rd percentile. In a sense they are just following traditional tier lists by finding a way to still use the SABCDE layout.

 

[zeldasmash]

Here is mine (Note: I don't think any character is a really bad character, there are just some characters that are more viable than others)

Top:
High:
Upper:
Upper Mid:
Middle:
Lower Mid:
Low:

 

[Nobie]

This doesn't account for everything, but online I've seen a lot of complaints about Falco's supposed lack of competitive viability from transitioning Melee players who just really love doing pillar combos, so a lot of the assumptions of Falco's supposed low tier status might come from that.

 

[Yoshi Kirishima]

Here is mine (Note: I don't think any character is a really bad character, there are just some characters that are more viable than others)

Top:
High:
Upper:
Upper Mid:
Middle:
Lower Mid:
Low:

Might wanna reread the OP