Character Competitive Impressions

[ParanoidDrone]

Well, Ganon isn't 14th (lower), Luigi and Mario aren't close together, the gap between Marth and his boyfriend is far too huge, as it is with the Pits, MM should be higher, Mac is not the worst in the game...

No. Sorry. There is so much nope in this. Just so much nope.

He said there's no real order within tiers, so that particular point is moot.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

There might be a disagreement on where people are on a tier list, but there never will be on what they are actually for.

I can't say I've ever been to gamefaqs myself, but thank you for the recommendation! You must have tons of experience to give such a recommendation! A true credit to their... Ahem... Community.

ah no doubt i have an eye for talent.

 

[InfinityCollision]

I see the Xanadu effect hasn't diminished in SSB4.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

I see the Xanadu effect hasn't diminished in SSB4.

while i know what xanadu is and activly watch it. what is this effect u speak of?

 

[InfinityCollision]

while i know what xanadu is and activly watch it. what is this effect u speak of?

People tend to rate characters highly when they see them perform highly. S@X has a relatively high viewer count for a weekly, so performance in MDVA tends to have a disproportionate effect on a character's perception by the general public.

Case in point, the Boss/Luigi comments come up like clockwork every week around this time.

 

[Trifroze]

I feel like Falcon has some insane potential. As soon as people start implementing perfect pivot into their gameplay and figure out his combo game he is going to be serious threat. I haven't seen a lot of Falcons do good though, kind of wondering why that is.

None of the really good players main him, while basically everyone uses him as a secondary. Hence you see him doing decent but never really winning anything big. I wish we got a better access on more than a handful of Japan's videos to see how he's doing there.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

People tend to rate characters highly when they see them perform highly. S@X has a relatively high viewer count for a weekly, so performance in MDVA tends to have a disproportionate effect on a character's perception by the general public.

Case in point, the Boss/Luigi comments come up like clockwork every week around this time.

yeah all that matter this the come up results Xd.
dk boys.

 

[dragontamer]

People tend to rate characters highly when they see them perform highly. S@X has a relatively high viewer count for a weekly, so performance in MDVA tends to have a disproportionate effect on a character's perception by the general public.

Case in point, the Boss/Luigi comments come up like clockwork every week around this time.

Not enough discussion around that Lucario win vs Shiek if we're gonna talk about Xanadu effect.

Combo characters definitely are going to have a bad matchup against Lucario. If you can't KO Luke before 130%, you're basically toast. Unblockable Force Palm KOs at 65% are serious.

 

[Ffamran]

Not enough discussion around that Lucario win vs Shiek if we're gonna talk about Xanadu effect.

What happened? I joined the stream late...

 

[dragontamer]

What happened? I joined the stream late...

Oh, it was last week's match. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKFyOs2TTmg

Yeah, Lucario Side-B KOs Shiek at center-stage at 65%. Its a thing.

 

[Locke 06]

Not enough discussion around that Lucario win vs Shiek if we're gonna talk about Xanadu effect.

What's there to talk about? Sheik has trouble killing, Lucario gets incredibly high rewards at +160%. This is nothing we don't already know. With aura, a grab w/pummels is like... 20% on its own. Force palm grab kills at 60% center stage, but it's range is worse than a normal grab (although it can be used in the air).

Did I miss anything?

 

[InfinityCollision]

In fairness, Lucario's aura bull**** is kind of a staple topic around here. Pretty sure there was a similar Lucario comeback vs Sheik in early 3DS days that got a bit of discussion here, because I remember a Sheik dying to Force Palm at ~60% on Omega Boxing Ring.

 

[Ffamran]

What's there to talk about? Sheik has trouble killing, Lucario gets incredibly high rewards at +160%. This is nothing we don't already know. With aura, a grab w/pummels is like... 20% on its own. Force palm grab kills at 60% center stage, but it's range is worse than a normal grab (although it can be used in the air).

Did I miss anything?

Force Palm is apparently a projectile. I'm dead serious or Falco's Reflector treats it as one - it makes the "shing" sound when it makes contact with Force Palm. It's really weird; I don't think it gets reflected, but I'm not sure since I mostly hit Lucario with Reflector.

It probably just cancels it out like Zelda's Din's Fire.

 

[dragontamer]

What's there to talk about? Sheik has trouble killing, Lucario gets incredibly high rewards at +160%. This is nothing we don't already know. With aura, a grab w/pummels is like... 20% on its own. Force palm grab kills at 60% center stage, but it's range is worse than a normal grab (although it can be used in the air).

Did I miss anything?

Yeah. Like what a Shiek player is supposed to do about that.

In the earlier matches, Shiek used Up-B effectively to solidly KO Lucario at 130%ish. I know Shiek has trouble killing, but perhaps looking at the earlier matches to see what Shiek did correctly would give some insight into the match. After all, the Shiek won the first set 2-0.

Emperically, that means the matchup can't be too tilted in one direction.

EDIT: KOs were:

Set 1
1. Shiek BAIR into stage spike (Lucario 120%)
2. Lucario Forward Throw
3. Offstage Bouncing Fish (Lucario 127%)

Set 2
1. Shiek Vanish (Lucario 120%)
2. Lucario Force Palm
2. Shiek Bair (Lucario 141%)

So basically, Lucario never got up to 150% or above. I feel like Lucario's hitboxes get better and better the higher he is. So maybe the key is to KO Lucario before he gets to his max aura.

Which means matchup discipline to use killing moves almost exclusively at higher percentages vs Lucario. Perhaps the Shiek should use riskier moves (like Smash attacks) more often.

 

[Locke 06]

Yeah. Like what a Shiek player is supposed to do about that.

In the earlier matches, Shiek used Up-B effectively to solidly KO Lucario at 130%ish. I know Shiek has trouble killing, but perhaps looking at the earlier matches to see what Shiek did correctly would give some insight into the match. After all, the Shiek won the first set 2-0.

Emperically, that means the matchup can't be too tilted in one direction.

EDIT: KOs were:

Set 1
1. Shiek BAIR into stage spike (Lucario 120%)
2. Lucario Forward Throw
3. Offstage Bouncing Fish (Lucario 127%)

Set 2
1. Shiek Vanish (Lucario 120%)
2. Lucario Force Palm
2. Shiek Bair (Lucario 141%)

So basically, Lucario never got up to 150% or above. I feel like Lucario's hitboxes get better and better the higher he is. So maybe the key is to KO Lucario before he gets to his max aura.

Which means matchup discipline to use killing moves almost exclusively at higher percentages vs Lucario. Perhaps the Shiek should use riskier moves (like Smash attacks) more often.

Sounds like something to bring up in the Sheik matchup discussion thread on the Sheik character forums. You have very valid questions and how a character does in a matchup is very relevant to how competitively viable or what "impression" people have of the character. But asking those questions here just seems redundant when you can go to the character forums. If you find something new and interesting that might change how people think about a character, then I would encourage the discussion, but it's kind of like discussing how a Ganondorf got camped out by a Villager in a tournament match. Nothing to really discuss other than a matchup playing out like it usually does.

(IIRC, only the range of his smash attacks and specials are affected by aura. However, I'm no lucario player.)

Edit: if you're saying empirically the MU can't be too tilted in one direction due to 2 sets being split, I'd love to introduce you to baseball statistics. "Empirically, this rookie can't be as bad as everyone says he is. He struck out 3 times in one game, but went 2 for 3 with 2 home runs in the other!" Sample size is an issue.

 

[DanGR]

Maybe I'm alone in this, but to me all of those matches screamed that Sheik wins the neutral & her advantaged states so hard that you don't even have to fish for 50:50 kill setups at kill percent to win the matchup. Just don't take any risks (standard sheik play anyways) when lucario has rage/aura, and you're good.

 

[Nocally]

People should not be afraid of posting a tier list., just because they might be wrong in the long run. Tier lists just represents the current meta, and the only problem with these early lists is that they will change a lot in the beginning of a new game´s lifespan.

and by the way, is Rosalina still a thread worthy of a top tier placement after the 1.0.4 patch? haven't seen much of her.

 

[Karaoke Man]

People should not be afraid of posting a tier list., just because they might be wrong in the long run. Tier lists just represents the current meta, and the only problem with these early lists is that they will change a lot in the beginning of a new game´s lifespan.

and by the way, is Rosalina still a thread worthy of a top tier placement after the 1.0.4 patch? haven't seen much of her.

Nope. Tier lists represent an opinion of the metagame. The #1, absolute, and only reason tier lists change all the time is because they are always subjective to begin with.

Nobody should be afraid of posting an opinion, I whole-heartedly agree. Though, (and I'm not implying that you're saying this) when it comes to deciding on a character a person wants to play, tier lists should never be taken seriously.


Just sitting here having fun watching other people brainwash each other with terms like "good" or "bad". "better" or "worse" like they are actually some sort of analyses, but it's not; It's a perception.

 

[Vengeance_NS]

Well tonight proved me wrong. Sonic looked great at Xanadu. I've been saying he's over rated but I do think he's worthy of people saying he's top 10. A patient sonic is very hard to fight and is extremely annoying. nakat was lucky to win tonight.

 

[Nysyr]

What's there to talk about? Sheik has trouble killing, Lucario gets incredibly high rewards at +160%. This is nothing we don't already know. With aura, a grab w/pummels is like... 20% on its own. Force palm grab kills at 60% center stage, but it's range is worse than a normal grab (although it can be used in the air).

Did I miss anything?

Yeah, you missed the part where its actually rest range for the grab portion and the command grab does not work in air. The projectile also whiffs in-between the grab and the start of the flame.

Only Side-B (projectile portion) and Up-B get range with aura.


Also Sheik has absolutely ******** frame and range advantage with true combos VS Lucario, so what looks like outplaying really isn't; its formality. When you incorrectly space a forward air on shield and end up getting Side-B'd for it, should we feel bad? Jigglypuff rest would have punished you just the same, except earlier.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Greninja is still a solid character overall and people ARE being overdramatic. The nerfs he got didn't somehow make him unviable but it did make him a little trickier to use. Greninja is also one of the only characters (don't know if any are left) who can cancel hitstun. Shadow sneak can cancel hitstun and punish moves like Mega Man dash attack, Sheik fsmash, DK up B and so on before they're able to do any other inputs. The back kick from shadow sneak is a good KO move on top of that which makes the particular punish a strong asset in his favor which is also added to the fact that shadow sneak now has less ending lag. His offstage game is pretty good with ledge drop bairs/hydro pump harassment and he can go relatively deep with his great recovery. Meanwhile, edgeguarding a Greninja is difficult because of his fast fall speed, good horizontal speed, and fast hydro pump recovery which can be angled in two ways for mixups. Not to mention he can shadow sneak to the stage as well and either reappear on the edge or on the stage itself. Fully charged water shuriken has transcendent priority and it's been found that substitute directed upwards, while situational, KOs earlier than sweetspotted usmash which was already pretty good numerically. Greninja doesn't have as big a problem getting KOs as people are led to believe. Hydro gimps are still a thing (albeit less effective), sweetspot usmash is still amazing, and fsmash isn't bad either for quick punishes. Also, his perfect pivot distance was 5/6 IIRC which is really good.



1. The cooldown is on the usmash/water shuriken and nothing else. Greninja still has a decent combo game with the uair spike, utilt, dtilt, and grab followups.
This combo thread from the Greninja boards has an exhaustive list of strings.

2. That's an oversimplification. He has a fast jab, a good projectile still, and amazing mobility. His fsmash works well for roll reads and he can easily make the opponent uncomfortable with his weaving ability. Nair approaches, while not amazing, are decent if not overdone. RAR bair is decent too and is safe on shield provided it isn't a tether grab.

3. He's not struggling too much. The back kick from the shadow sneak, upwards substitute, usmash, fsmash, hydro gimps, bairs offstage, and well placed fairs give him much better KO potential than say, Sheik.

So you have a character with a small hurtbox, not too shabby KO power, amazing mobility, a serviceable projectile, a good recovery, good offstage/gimp game, good grab followups, and quick punishes. Against him, he has a startup mediocre grab, KO power isn't amazing (but still not bad), medium-ish weight, OoS issues and some trouble with approaches (though can poke well). I think the former outweighs the latter here overall. I don't think Greninja is top 3 in the game but people are discrediting him way too much after 1.0.4.

I think you're giving greninja tok much credit and kinda glossing over his negatives. His ground game is pretty bad. His aerial game isn't much better. His spacing tools are lacking and his aerials are slow. As are his smash attacks and grabs. The fact that he can't cancel eater shuriken is a huge negative. He's fast I'll give you that but his ground tools don't complaint his speed. If we were to look at a marth and his dtilt would be a perfect example. Marth's fair is also a good tool that greninja lacks to complaint his air game. His nair is slow (compared to other characters nair) As is his fair. They would need to make some pretty drastic changes for him to be viable. I don't see mich reason to run him over any of the current speedy characters.

 

[Nocally]

Nope. Tier lists represent an opinion of the metagame. The #1, absolute, and only reason tier lists change all the time is because they are always subjective to begin with.

Nobody should be afraid of posting an opinion, I whole-heartedly agree. Though, (and I'm not implying that you're saying this) when it comes to deciding on a character a person wants to play, tier lists should never be taken seriously.


Just sitting here having fun watching other people brainwash each other with terms like "good" or "bad". "better" or "worse" like they are actually some sort of analyses, but it's not; It's a perception.

I guess I worded myself wrong, you are indeed correct, Tier lists are about the Perceived (current) meta. Thanks for correcting me.

 

[Spirst]

I think you're giving greninja tok much credit and kinda glossing over his negatives. His ground game is pretty bad. His aerial game isn't much better. His spacing tools are lacking and his aerials are slow. As are his smash attacks and grabs. The fact that he can't cancel eater shuriken is a huge negative. He's fast I'll give you that but his ground tools don't complaint his speed. If we were to look at a marth and his dtilt would be a perfect example. Marth's fair is also a good tool that greninja lacks to complaint his air game. His nair is slow (compared to other characters nair) As is his fair. They would need to make some pretty drastic changes for him to be viable. I don't see mich reason to run him over any of the current speedy characters.

...What?

I didn't gloss over his negatives. In fact, I even listed them overtly so it's known. The negatives just aren't enough to render Greninja unviable.
His ground game is bad? What? He has a fast dash speed, frame 3 jab, a frame 5 dtilt that combos into other things like usmash (27% and can KO at higher percents), frame 12 fsmash (not bad), and a good projectile that has transcendent priority when fully charged. I'm not even sure what you mean by "cancel eater shuriken" no matter how many interpretations I try to draw.

As for Greninja's air game? He has a fast air speed. The fair's slow on startup but RAR bair is good, uair is great for juggles and combos from uthrow for an easy 14%, nair is auto-cancelable (or has minimal landing lag) and can combo into usmash/jab/fsmash/ftilt and so forth. Greninja doesn't need Marth's fair nor does he need drastic changes since he's already a solid character.

And like I said before, Greninja offstage is dangerous with a frame 5 multi-hit bair, shadow sneak, timed fairs, and hydro pump which is good for gimps as well as recovering at the same time.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

...What?

I didn't gloss over his negatives. In fact, I even listed them overtly so it's known. The negatives just aren't enough to render Greninja unviable.
His ground game is bad? What? He has a fast dash speed, frame 4 jab, a frame 5 dtilt that combos into other things like usmash (27% and can KO at higher percents), frame 12 fsmash (not bad), and a good projectile that has transcendent priority when fully charged. I'm not even sure what you mean by "cancel eater shuriken" no matter how many interpretations I try to draw.

As for Greninja's air game? He has a fast air speed. The fair slow on start up but RAR bair is good, uair is great for juggles and combos from uthrow for an easy 14%, nair is auto-cancelable (or has minimal landing lag) and can combo into usmash/jab/fsmash/ftilt and so forth. Greninja doesn't need Marth's fair nor does he need drastic changes since he's already a solid character.

And like I said before, Greninja offstage is dangerous with a frame 5 multi-hit bair, shadow sneak, timed fairs, and hydro pump which is good for gimps as well as recovering at the same time.

His dtilt is severely lacking in range and attempting to use that as a comvo starter is suspect. Yeah he has a great jab but how far is that going to take you? 14 frame grab is prettt bad. What are his OoS options? He nothing on the ground that you really need to respect his options or really slow fo4 a character of his type. Even if comparing his dtilt to Marth's is a bit unfair. You can pick a different character and compare maybe shiek's ftilt? Fox's utilt? Yoshi's utilt ? The list goes on and on. Also correct me if I'm wrong but aren't dtilt and jab his only moves ln the ground thats under ten frames? That's going to be a problem I believe.

As for his air game i think its important to be able to weave out of your aerials. Also if your aerials are only good during rdge guarding they're not that good. What aerial are you going to use for spacing that's difficult to punish and allows you to weave in and out? Something like a ness fair would be a good example of this. However spacing with greninja isn't about that. Let me guess shff nair?

Putting all of that aside greninja imho is far from a solid character. His tools are underwhelming and lackluster. He has an interesting design but nothing that really makes him come together as a character. Also one of the things you've listed as a plus for greninja ko ability is his counter....really? Really? Who is he shulk?

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Edit: Disregard

 

[Spirst]

His dtilt is severely lacking in range and attempting to use that as a comvo starter is suspect. Yeah he has a great jab but how far is that going to take you? 14 frame grab is prettt bad. What are his OoS options? He nothing on the ground that you really need to respect his options or really slow fo4 a character of his type. Even if comparing his dtilt to Marth's is a bit unfair. You can pick a different character and compare maybe shiek's ftilt? Fox's utilt? Yoshi's utilt ? The list goes on and on. Also correct me if I'm wrong but aren't dtilt and jab his only moves ln the ground thats under ten frames? That's going to be a problem I believe.

Dtilt is something that actually does combo into usmash so it's not suspect as a combo starter (or did you mean convo...?) if it works. Range may be lacking but it's not like Greninja has a very hard time being able to get close. 14f grab is meh but the recovery isn't as bad as the other long grabs and a dash grab is frame 9. Utilt is also frame 9 and combos to usmash/bair/uair/nair/fair and isn't hard to get if you read an airdodge from an uthrow after conditioning them with the uair followup. That's 3 moves that come out under ten frames (with jab actually being frame 3 and not 4 like I accidentally said last post) and 4 if you include the dash grab.

As for his air game i think its important to be able to weave out of your aerials. Also if your aerials are only good during rdge guarding they're not that good. What aerial are you going to use for spacing that's difficult to punish and allows you to weave in and out? Something like a ness fair would be a good example of this. However spacing with greninja isn't about that. Let me guess shff nair?

I literally just went over his aerial game in my last post and it was more than just being able to edgeguard. The fact that he can set up reliable damage/KOs with an aerial is not something to be overlooked. You shouldn't cherry pick. Additionally, spaced fair might be safe on shield like RAR bair but I haven't tested this one out yet.

Putting all of that aside greninja imho is far from a solid character. His tools are underwhelming and lackluster. He has an interesting design but nothing that really makes him come together as a character. Also one of the things you've listed as a plus for greninja ko ability is his counter....really? Really? Who is he shulk?

And...once again...you're not exactly reading what I'm saying and taking things out of appropriate context. I specifically said that Greninja's upwards substitute KOs earlier than his sweetspotted usmash which was good and his best otherwise best vertical KO move by far. If you want some perspective, upwards sub KOs D3, the hardest to vertically KO, at 108%. Jigglypuff dies from it starting at 69% and everyone else falls in between the range of those two values. With something as strong as this, why wouldn't I list it as part of his KO potential? Something else to keep in mind is that substitute has a targeting system in that if it's activated by a projectile/Luma within a certain range, it'll target the user hurtbox rather than the projectile hitbox.

Also, he can cancel hitstun with shadow sneak and actually punish/KO characters for landing multihits. This one, in particular, is pretty big.

 

[Chuva]

Greninja's Fair is safe on shield if properly spaced

 

[Z'zgashi]

Greninja's Fair is safe on shield if properly spaced

Still punishable at all ranges by Shulk's up b out of shield and similarly ranged+speedy moves.

 

[meleebrawler]

Force Palm is apparently a projectile. I'm dead serious or Falco's Reflector treats it as one - it makes the "shing" sound when it makes contact with Force Palm. It's really weird; I don't think it gets reflected, but I'm not sure since I mostly hit Lucario with Reflector.

It probably just cancels it out like Zelda's Din's Fire.

Force Palm's blast is indeed a projectile, and an energy
based one at that, so it can be reflected and absorbed.

It was this way in Brawl too, but reflecting was pointless
since it never managed to hit Lucario.

 

[madworlder]

Well, Ganon isn't 14th (lower), Luigi and Mario aren't close together, the gap between Marth and his boyfriend is far too huge, as it is with the Pits, MM should be higher, Mac is not the worst in the game...

No. Sorry. There is so much nope in this. Just so much nope.

It was already covered that I did not order the tiers. I do not think that Mega Man belongs with characters as strong as Diddy, Sheik, Yoshi, etc., although I did think he was strong enough for A-tier. Who would you suggest for worst in the game if not Mac? More specifically, how many characters can Mac beat cleanly on two different legal stages? If there was even one permanent walk-off legal, I would agree 100% that Little Mac is not the worst in the game, but as it stands, it's too easy for him to be put in an unfavorable off-stage situation. Even if I believe Mac to be the worst in the game, he's still no worse than B-tier. If you think that Lucina or Dark Pit is good enough to be placed with the A-tiers, I could understand that, I just think they're in a bad spot since there are other characters that are basically direct improvements.

If you think that generally the characters I have in S-tier are stronger than the ones in A, and that the ones in A-tier are generally stronger than the ones in B, I would think that the list is pretty good. If you think a character in B-tier should be in the middle of another tier list, I would think that my list is pretty good.

 

[Nobie]

I think people will come up with better strategies for fighting Lucario, but the big thing is that I can see it being extremely counter-intuitive in the sense that, after a certain point, you might want to stop hitting Lucario, or at least stop hitting him so hard. If Lucario needs to get hit to keep him away or something, it might just be better to tap once and run away, rather than trying to follow up for a combo (following up for a kill is different of course).

A lot of characters will have powerful attacks that can KO early but have some sort of penalty, and it might just be better to fish for those when Lucario is below 100% (again something that is typically "bad" play), rather than doing the "normal" thing and tacking on damage.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Dtilt is something that actually does combo into usmash so it's not suspect as a combo starter (or did you mean convo...?) if it works. Range may be lacking but it's not like Greninja has a very hard time being able to get close. 14f grab is meh but the recovery isn't as bad as the other long grabs and a dash grab is frame 9. Utilt is also frame 9 and combos to usmash/bair/uair/nair/fair and isn't hard to get if you read an airdodge from an uthrow after conditioning them with the uair followup. That's 3 moves that come out under ten frames (with jab actually being frame 3 and not 4 like I accidentally said last post) and 4 if you include the dash grab.


I literally just went over his aerial game in my last post and it was more than just being able to edgeguard. The fact that he can set up reliable damage/KOs with an aerial is not something to be overlooked. You shouldn't cherry pick. Additionally, spaced fair might be safe on shield like RAR bair but I haven't tested this one out yet.


And...once again...you're not exactly reading what I'm saying and taking things out of appropriate context. I specifically said that Greninja's upwards substitute KOs earlier than his sweetspotted usmash which was good and his best otherwise best vertical KO move by far. If you want some perspective, upwards sub KOs D3, the hardest to vertically KO, at 108%. Jigglypuff dies from it starting at 69% and everyone else falls in between the range of those two values. With something as strong as this, why wouldn't I list it as part of his KO potential? Something else to keep in mind is that substitute has a targeting system in that if it's activated by a projectile/Luma within a certain range, it'll target the user hurtbox rather than the projectile hitbox.

Also, he can cancel hitstun with shadow sneak and actually punish/KO characters for landing multihits. This one, in particular, is pretty big.

The range on dtilt is pathetic as is the range on utilt. The su on fair is 16 frames. The problem with listing a counter as a kill move is it's a counter. Greninja isn't a solid character Marth is a perfect example of a solid character. If you compare his tools to other characters you'd understand how underwhelming his tools. Despite his run and air speed his moves are too slow and while you won't admit it hr doesn't stack up well vs the rest of the cast.

 

[meleebrawler]

I think people will come up with better strategies for fighting Lucario, but the big thing is that I can see it being extremely counter-intuitive in the sense that, after a certain point, you might want to stop hitting Lucario, or at least stop hitting him so hard. If Lucario needs to get hit to keep him away or something, it might just be better to tap once and run away, rather than trying to follow up for a combo (following up for a kill is different of course).

A lot of characters will have powerful attacks that can KO early but have some sort of penalty, and it might just be better to fish for those when Lucario is below 100% (again something that is typically "bad" play), rather than doing the "normal" thing and tacking on damage.

I really don't aura is as game-changing as it's made
out to be. You don't have to completely change your
strategy just to fight Lucario, aura is just something to be aware of.

The moves that Lucario kills with at high aura (smashes, bair)
are very laggy and hard to land outside of reads and punishes,
so if you desperately throw out smashes to reset aura you may
just be playing into Lucario's hand.

 

[Chuva]

Still punishable at all ranges by Shulk's up b out of shield and similarly ranged+speedy moves.

Are you sure? Last time I tested his Fair at max range with the active hitbox frames just as you hit the ground it pushes Shulk too far away for Air Slash and shield stuns too much for him to reposition in time (even including Fair's ending lag). Same goes for Shuttle Loop and Dolphin Slash.

 

[Tainic]

Force Palm is apparently a projectile. I'm dead serious or Falco's Reflector treats it as one - it makes the "shing" sound when it makes contact with Force Palm. It's really weird; I don't think it gets reflected, but I'm not sure since I mostly hit Lucario with Reflector.

It probably just cancels it out like Zelda's Din's Fire.

you can reflect it, i once hit a lucario by reflecting his side b with ness' bat, you probably weren't close to him enough.

It was already covered that I did not order the tiers. I do not think that Mega Man belongs with characters as strong as Diddy, Sheik, Yoshi, etc., although I did think he was strong enough for A-tier. Who would you suggest for worst in the game if not Mac? More specifically, how many characters can Mac beat cleanly on two different legal stages? If there was even one permanent walk-off legal, I would agree 100% that Little Mac is not the worst in the game, but as it stands, it's too easy for him to be put in an unfavorable off-stage situation. Even if I believe Mac to be the worst in the game, he's still no worse than B-tier. If you think that Lucina or Dark Pit is good enough to be placed with the A-tiers, I could understand that, I just think they're in a bad spot since there are other characters that are basically direct improvements.

honestly the game is pmuch very well balanced and there's no "worst character" atm because most of the cast hasn't been explored enough, we could all of a sudden see, say, Robin have a sudden rise because a player showed all of his potential. (if i had to choose i'd say zelda but that's because i suck with her a lot.)

 

[ZombieBran]

(if i had to choose i'd say zelda but that's because i suck with her a lot.)

I'm an advocate for Zelda as bottom 5 but that's a very bad reason.
Her moves may be rigid but Zelda has a fairly steep learning curve this game (relatively anyway).

Actually this ties into something more.
Lots of people here are arbitrarily ranking characters based on their own perceptions and nothing else. That is a terrible idea, please stop it. I like the rankings that actually take into account the knowledge and findings of other people and their mains.

 

[Trifroze]

After being around the game pretty heavily for about a month now, I'll post an educated guess on what I think the tier list might eventually look like, also as something to look back at later to see how accurate/inaccurate it was:
S:

A:

B:

C:

Diddy and Sheik deserve their own tier because they both have massive strengths with no real weaknesses. Sheik's KO power isn't that bad considering how deep offstage she can go and how safe up b seems to be in many situations.

Yoshi similarly has no exploitable weaknesses but his strengths aren't as overpowering as the former two, while Sonic has a terrible aerial acceleration and, while annoying, fairly punishable approach options. Rosalina on the other hand is pretty much helpless without Luma when its capitalized. ZSS, Ness, Pikachu and Fox all have solid setups and projectiles that won't go away no matter how much the metagame develops, making them solid picks for characters as well, with some quirks to balance them out such as Ness' bad recovery or exceptionally light weight for the other three. This is where I'd draw the line if A tier was divided into A+ and A-, because this is where characters start to have more apparent weaknesses.

Villager is definitely A tier, and the only reason he's not considered better more widely is because of a lack of representation at tournaments (Salem or somebody pls change this). He has limited close combat options but in my opinion the most dynamic projectiles in the game and a strong offstage game with his great aerials and recovery. Lucario mains seem to be focusing on his nerfs while everyone else is focusing on what aura can do at its best. Disregarding both, I think he's comparable to how he was in Brawl compared to the rest of the cast. The focus moved slightly more into keeping him alive at high %s, and he lost some reach while gaining speed on his moves. Falcon has a bit of under-representation as well despite good players occasionally picking him, but once someone really focuses on him and puts his mobility and 50:50 traps as well as true combo Knee setups to good use people will see just why he really is so solid. He has an exploitable recovery, but he also has something where other high speed characters are lacking which is strong kill power.

I'm just assuming Dark Pit and Pit will eventually have similar effective capabilities despite their attributes being tuned somewhat differently. Mario is an all-around good character with solid throw setups, while Luigi has awkward movement and aerial speed, but is a killing machine once he gets in with his throw setups, smashes and even up b. I feel like he's a Mario with more extreme pros and cons and no cape. Mega Man is probably the second best zoner in the game with better close-combat options than Villager thanks to his fair, bair and especially a solid grab. Wario is someone I haven't seen as much as I'd like, but he doesn't seem to have any considerable weaknesses and his overall aerial mobility is arguably the best in the game, as is his height/weight ratio. Rage also helps him more than anyone else in this tier, Falcon being 2nd in that and Ness/Mario/Luigi 3rd.

B tier I'm the most uncertain of compared to the other tiers. I basically drew the line where the seriously good grab games and setups end or where more considerable weaknesses begin. Aside from Diddy and Sheik, I think these characters can still easily compete with A tier, but just aren't quite as solid overall. I'm the most uncertain of Greninja, Peach, Pac-Man and Bowser Jr. in this category, but I have the perception that the first three are at least good, DHD is decent and Bowser Jr. isn't terrible. Meta Knight, Olimar, TL, Marth and Falco got nerfed quite hard and partially because of that are being slightly slept on. They aren't that bad. Rage helps Bowser, Dedede, DK and Ike a ton, but big frames and/or slow speed are very fundamental weaknesses, although Bowser moves really fast (and as a side note has great OoS option in up b), hence having the highest viability out of those. I feel like they gave Robin slightly too much weaknesses to balance out his/her strengths. A slow running speed, limited close-combat options and a short (although quick) grab aren't a good combination. I'm kinda still feeling out Shulk, but the control the player is given with him shows potential. He has slow attacks but a lot of range and some good autocancels to complement it.

C tier is where huge weaknesses or overall mediocrity begins, but they can still have plenty of good match-ups vs all of the higher tiers. Mac still seems decent for now, but this is one case I feel will change once people start to truly capitalize on his non-existent recovery and aerial options. He still has pretty much the best ground game of course, but that won't help him half the time. Ganondorf strikes the hardest hits in the game, but it doesn't matter in the match-ups where he simply can't get in. These two are above the rest because they have these niches, and the rest are basically the "mediocre" part.

 

[Nobie]

I really don't aura is as game-changing as it's made
out to be. You don't have to completely change your
strategy just to fight Lucario, aura is just something to be aware of.

The moves that Lucario kills with at high aura (smashes, bair)
are very laggy and hard to land outside of reads and punishes,
so if you desperately throw out smashes to reset aura you may
just be playing into Lucario's hand.

I agree and disagree with what you're saying, in the sense that I think some characters probably have to adjust their playstyles more than others when fighting Lucario. Bowser, Ganondorf, Little Mac, probably Shulk, and some others don't have to worry too much about adjusting themselves to Lucario. However, for characters that are light and/or have fewer strong or reliable kill options, if your move can kill at 90% it can be better to fight a 90% Lucario than a 150% Lucario unless getting them up to that percentage gives you more access to finishing moves.

 

[Locke 06]

S:

A:

B:

C:

Diddy and Sheik deserve their own tier because they both have massive strengths with no real weaknesses. Sheik's KO power isn't that bad considering how deep offstage she can go and how safe up b seems to be in many situations.

Diddy has no weakness? Sneeze at him off stage and he dies. Banana+pop gun loses to most projectiles. Poor airspeed outside of side-B. Diddy is far from perfect.

 

[Trifroze]

Diddy has no weakness? Sneeze at him off stage and he dies. Banana+pop gun loses to most projectiles. Poor airspeed outside of side-B. Diddy is far from perfect.

The fact that Diddy's recovery isn't great like most of his attributes doesn't make his recovery a weakness. It makes it average. Same with his aerial speed. It's important to distinguish weaknesses from imperfection, as the gap between the meanings of those two terms is quite large.

E: As an example I could say that Falcon lacking projectiles is a weakness, but it isn't because he has the tools (speed, jab, fast empty hops because of 5 frame jump and being a fastfaller) to deal with it. While Diddy is gimpable he has two recoveries, one of which is also a command grab, to mix it up and have increased options to recover high and challenge his opponents with his great aerials and cg.