Character Competitive Impressions

[Amazing Ampharos]

Here's where I think we are about now that the patch has had some time to play out... This is assuming EVO rules and characters are indeed ordered within the tiers.

A+:
A:
B+:
B:
B-:
C:
D:

A characters are the characters I feel are good enough to represent the heart of the metagame.
B characters I feel are viable contenders.
C characters I feel are significantly flawed but close enough to viable to be an occasional threat.
D characters (or character as it turns out) are cleanly not viable.

Here are my thoughts about select characters to provide some explanation for the character of the list. This ended up really long so I'm going to drop it in collapse tags:

Spoiler

As much as I hate to put Sheik at #1 since she's pretty massively overrated so often (she's not significantly better than the rest of A+ tier), she can deal with everything and has an easier time mixing up her playstyle than the other top characters which gives he a slight edge. Her killing problems are very, very real, but it's just the nature of this game that every character who is good has large weaknesses other than probably Yoshi who just has less extreme strengths than all of the other tops (part of this being a balanced game).

Given how allegedly broken Villager's customs are, I'm surprised I've yet to see a tier list put him #1. I put him at #9 which I think is about right; he's really obnoxious, really oppressive, and really shuts down a lot of characters lower on the tier list than he is (all of this is true even without customs; Villager is so stupid). However, his ability to set up for kills is very poor (especially if he has single turnip uairs and dairs a lot) and is actually made worse by going full custom (giving up default Timber is giving up two kill moves) so attrition is pretty much what he has to do to win (it's much better to be able to do attrition but not have to), and he tends to flounder when he's forced out of control. He's definitely a very strong but also very flawed character.

Dr. Mario is not that much worse than normal Mario; stop putting him in bottom. With customs Doc's recovery isn't necessarily worse than Mario's, and while his inferior combo game is not a fair trade-off for the extra power, it's not like it drops him half the tier list. No one will ever use Doc because Mario exists (caveat: I think Doc has niche counterpicking utility for a Mario main), but if Mario didn't exist, Doc would be a pretty good character.

Peach and Wario are two very hard characters for me to place. Intuitively I feel both are strong, but both are really underplayed to the point that it's hard for me to get a good read on just where to put them. I erred a bit on the low side since I feel really good about a lot of characters, but I can easily see myself being proven wrong and these guys needing to move up a lot.

Shulk I feel is really slept on; his downsides are pretty big (I think he has a few really bad MUs), but his upsides are also enormous. He's the kind of character people don't want to have as a pocket character since he's so complex and difficult, but I think time will show that his natural MU spread and gameplay dynamics make him really, really good as a pocket character. My Shulk is still not really ready for prime time, but I can see the power and can see that this character really is a character who will matter in the long run for sure.

I just want to give Kirby a shout-out for being the subtly most improved character by the patch. It definitely did matter for him.

I think Marth is underrated. Yeah he has problems, but his sword normals are still pretty good so he has a core "solid" gameplan that doesn't leave him stuck without something to do. That's not inspiring and would be bad enough to leave him in low tier, but then he has Crescent Slash which I feel is fundamentally powerful enough to shoot him up a lot. When you grabs do 15% and you have tons and tons of early kill set-ups while simultaneously controlling insane space, your character deserves respect. Lucina is still clearly worse but the gap has shrunk with the patch and I still don't think she was ever that much worse to begin wtih (tippers are great, but they're not why Marth works; I actually think Marth and Lucina would be equal if not for that stupid "Lucina is less safe on block" thing which is kinda awful for her).

Charizard, Ganon, and Wii Fit Trainer are not low tier despite how often people put them there. Charizard is just a bit too slow for his own good and some of his multi-hit stuff has trouble linking which hurts him a lot (if his run up up smashes always connected cleanly, it would do so much for this character), but he is still fundamentally solid. His Flamethrower is actually a really good move (it's a lot better than Bowser's version), Dragon Rush is amazing, he has an incredibly good set of pokes, either of his rock slamming moves (Rock Smash or Rock Hurl) force tons of respect, his grab game is flat out incredible, and he has one of the best jabs. Ganon is kinda a gimmick but is a really good one. If the Ganon player knows what his opponent is going to do, no matter which character his opponent is using, Ganon is the best character in the game and will win the match. If Ganon is failing to make reads, Ganon is losing badly. Default Ganon can kinda be boxed out by certain kinds of careful play, but Dark Fists and Wizard's Dropkick make that impossible (while also doing so much to fix his recovery) so he works. Certainly if your opponent is using Ganon, the whole match is super high stress since no matter how well things are going for you it's always possible for one moment of weakness on your part to let Ganon do something ridiculous and make a huge leap toward winning the game. As per WFT, I mostly just have to say watch the footage of John Numbers; it's just obvious seeing it in action that it's not a low tier character at work.

I'm not really on the MK hype train; MK isn't really played locally so I'm in a poor position to judge him, but his weaknesses seem pretty big while I'm not convinced his strengths, while clearly real, are actually special in the context of what the other characters can do. I could be made a believer, but I'd have to be shown.

RIP Link. I don't think most people even realize how badly he got wrecked by the patch; he was really good before and now he's really not. He's still playable, but it's just so much potential wasted.

Mii Gunner is the character I know the least about, and my placement of him is basically a wild guess. Sorry.

I personally see Greninja as a really linear character, and I think it's a big problem. For what it's worth, that's nothing like Sheik and I definitely view Greninja as a unique character, but I won't further pontificate on Greninja since he's not played much at all in my region.

Mii Swordfighter's neutral I think requires him to work too hard for too little pay-off to be a good character, and that hasn't changed. The patch did make him doing what he did all along twice as rewarding so that was really helpful; he definitely gained several placements because of it even if IMO it wasn't enough to make him truly viable. For what it's worth, this version of Swordfighter that does real damage with that nair is oddly fun to play, feels low tier through and through but oddly fun.

Every time I see Pac-Man played, I think he's lower and lower tier. He has a projectile game easily turned back against him, he has essentially zero options to escalate a conflict and pressure a shield so when he's being outcamped he just loses, and he's super vulnerable off-stage for so many reasons. It's really easy to root for Pac-Man for a lot of reasons (the character is really cool!), but everyone in Brawl rooted for Falcon so that doesn't really help his case.

I concur with the statement that Zelda is last. I think she's last by a non-trivial margin at that. This character's neutral is just depressing.

And... that's that. I said enough things and posted a full tier list so I'm sure everyone can agree that I'm horribly wrong about at least one thing though hopefully not everyone can agree on the same one thing!

Also, if we want a tier list that's vaguely "official" any time in the near future, I don't know that there's any way other than picking people we trust and having them vote. There are significant gaps in the knowledge of every player (the game is too big for anyone to know it all), metagame trends will likely carry too much weight no matter who is picked, and there's still a lot we don't know so even on topics we think we understand well this group would inevitably get some things horribly wrong. I personally suggest waiting until after EVO to try to get something like that organized (we'll have better data on multiple levels), and until then, we should just all share our personal opinions and accept that an independent collection of disorganized opinions is what we have for now. People should also not be shy to just put their thoughts out there. It gives the group a lot of food for thought, and there's not really a way for this to hurt people or anything (if I said your favorite character sucks, it's not like I've done anything to hurt your ability to win tournaments...).

 

[David Viran]

And Greninja's mobility is better than Sheik's lol. It's probably one of the best in the game, the only other ones I can think of that compare are Fox (mainly on the ground), ZSS and Sonic (again mainly on the ground).

Bruh zss has the same or better air mobility.

Edit: Wait I think I miss read that.

 

[Antonykun]

Mii Swordfighter's neutral I think requires him to work too hard for too little pay-off to be a good character, and that hasn't changed. The patch did make him doing what he did all along twice as rewarding so that was really helpful; he definitely gained several placements because of it even if IMO it wasn't enough to make him truly viable. For what it's worth, this version of Swordfighter that does real damage with that nair is oddly fun to play, feels low tier through and through but oddly fun.

Its even more fun when you do stuff like up tilt to up air of approximately 23% :^)

 

[FullMoon]

Bruh zss has the same or better air mobility.

... Yes? That's why I only said Fox and Sonic were mainly better on the ground?

ZSS has slightly better air speed than Greninja, however he has a higher jump and fall speed so he has more vertical mobility than her. On the ground ZSS runs faster but Greninja walks faster.

ZSS and Greninja are probably tied for best mobility in the game really, not counting the Miis because I don't really know much about them.

 

[Antonykun]

... Yes? That's why I only said Fox and Sonic were mainly better on the ground?

ZSS has slightly better air speed than Greninja, however he has a higher jump and fall speed so he has more vertical mobility than her. On the ground ZSS runs faster but Greninja walks faster.

ZSS and Greninja are probably tied for best mobility in the game really, not counting the Miis because I don't really know much about them.

Mii Brawler (tiny) goes at breakneck speeds on the air or ground

 

[wedl!!]

this man moves faster than mc ride spits rhymes

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Every time I see Pac-Man played, I think he's lower and lower tier. He has a projectile game easily turned back against him, he has essentially zero options to escalate a conflict and pressure a shield so when he's being outcamped he just loses, and he's super vulnerable off-stage for so many reasons. It's really easy to root for Pac-Man for a lot of reasons (the character is really cool!), but everyone in Brawl rooted for Falcon so that doesn't really help his case.

His Up-B beats shields, period, and on a whiff they prevent many characters from punishing. His projectile is best used as an extension of his fist rather than as a full-fledged projectile, and as such it's a lot harder to catch than when used as a keep-away projectile. I don't think you're giving him enough credit.

 

[Antonykun]

this man moves faster than mc ride spits rhymes

He's ironically faster than sonic, the fastest thing alive.

 

[warionumbah2]

B:

I'm not really on the MK hype train; MK isn't really played locally so I'm in a poor position to judge him, but his weaknesses seem pretty big while I'm not convinced his strengths, while clearly real, are actually special in the context of what the other characters can do. I could be made a believer, but I'd have to be shown.

MK isn't viable in customs.

The meta hasn't moved since launch,silly grab releases,Mii brawler and lack of dumb customs he can fall back on to fight this chaotic mess. Katakiri was able to do well in his custom tourney with MK previously but that's because he outplayed them and worked 3 times harder than say Marths silly tipered crescent slash set up.

Its not that he's bad, he's still hella good but everyone gets that much better. He's low mid at worst and if you wanna overrate him maybe high mid, either way that meta isn't good for him. There is definitely no hype train for custom meta(knight) and i have yet to see this hype train go by.

MK isn't getting hype in defaults more like people actually look at his kit/played good MKs instead of asking for results.

 

[GeneralLedge]

@ Antonykun Clearly Miis are soulless, lifeless, breathless abominations. [citation needed]

 

[wedl!!]

He's ironically faster than sonic, the fastest thing alive.

who? mc ride or ?

i don't get why people just don't get . he's basically with a good disadvantage and a plastic sword.

 

[meleebrawler]

Spoiler

Every time I see Pac-Man played, I think he's lower and lower tier. He has a projectile game easily turned back against him, he has essentially zero options to escalate a conflict and pressure a shield so when he's being outcamped he just loses, and he's super vulnerable off-stage for so many reasons. It's really easy to root for Pac-Man for a lot of reasons (the character is really cool!), but everyone in Brawl rooted for Falcon so that doesn't really help his case.

Why pressure shields with Pac-Man when you can just force them to drop it with a trampoline?
And if we're talking customs, On-Fire Hydrant is difficult for the opponent to use against you unless you drop it right
in front of them. His grab is unsafe but far from slow when used correctly, and if he's being "outcamped" he can
block with pellets to regain health. Freaky Fruit also lets him set up things.

 

[Ikes]

I personally think Lucina is the worst character in the game

not because she's actually worse than some other characters

but because there's simply NO reason to play her.

if you're going to play in a competitive environment, it only makes sense to play Marth simply because when the user knows how to space his attacks, he's simply a better character entirely.

The fact that Lucina is entirely 100% outclassed by another character is what makes her the worst in my opinion

like characters like charizard and wii fit trainer may have worse matchups and be worse in the meta, but they've still got reasons to be played because they're unique characters with their own playstyle

Lucina is just Marth, but worse.

 

[Luco]

Do they, though? I think I can confidently say we don't know every MU in the game (and probably never realistically will), plus many characters who are overlooked or ignored place poorly in the tier list merely due to being overlooked or ignored.




I think tier lists are the lowest denominator of the sum of all parts. It's one-dimensional, but it's one-dimensional as a result. It's a list, and a list goes along one axis.

However, do we have the branches that lead to this summary, for people to explore why the tier list is as it is? If a tier list is the sum of all the things we believe, where can I concisely find those things we believe?

@ZarroTsu brought this up on the previous pages. There're so many factors that could be considered that, while a tier list is a viable result of all its parts, it's useless. Just because high-tier characters do better 'in general' than the low tiers really doesn't mean they do better when fighting against these low-tiers, directly.

Sheik may be S tier, and Kirby may be (B~C?) tier. But (for sake of argument), Kirby could have the advantage over Sheik. In this perspective, the tier list is incorrect. Arguing that this perspective doesn't matter makes the prospect as a whole fall apart.

As a summary of its parts, the parts themselves need to be available, or the summary itself is useless. The game isn't so black-and-white.

Right, we don't know every MU, but as time goes on I think we'll know a good amount of them reasonably well (already we're starting to see some famous (or infamous) MUs like vs. and vs. ), enough to provide 60-90% of the information needed for a tier list. Sheik might lose to Kirby in your example, and the tier list doesn't show that, but I don't think it needs to.

It's like saying "I'm from Australia." I've grown up with certain surroundings, political and social, been exposed to certain cliques and stereo-types and am more likely to adhere to certain things an 'aussie' may or may not know, but that doesn't necessarily mean I know all of them/have been exposed to everything that's 'Australian' just because I'm from that country... And on the flipside, this doesn't mean that national identity isn't important. Sheik is considered a top tier and will usually have the upper hand in MUs she goes into but it doesn't necessarily mean she wins all of them, and I think it's fine to say she's 1st or 2nd best as a result, y'know?

In other words, a tier list will never fill the same niche as a MU chart, but I think it's important enough as a general sketch of the meta to be useful, and definitely the more common Mus will definitely be taken into account on a tier list ("why is x character top 4 when he/she loses to 3 of those characters? Why should y be ranked above x when they're more likely to run into these bad MUs..." etc. ). Because of that, I would say the summary itself isn't useless.

@NachoOfCheese - Well fair, however I believe ZeRo in this case will be releasing the rest of his tier list in the foresee-able future so I'm not too bothered by it. Even then though, I'm not sure I'd say 'top 5 vs. top 10' rhetoric doesn't matter (after all, the majority of us are OCD nerds that spend all of our spare time playing video games ) but I agree that there can be more useful discussions (though seeing as a lot of people here respond more to discussions about their mains, sometimes general discussions like these open up the floor for everybody a bit more and are seen as a little more 'fun' as a result. I certainly have fun. )

 

[TheReflexWonder]

I personally think Lucina is the worst character in the game

not because she's actually worse than some other characters

but because there's simply NO reason to play her.

if you're going to play in a competitive environment, it only makes sense to play Marth simply because when the user knows how to space his attacks, he's simply a better character entirely.

Not true. There are matchups where it's actually quite difficult to adequately space. Marth doesn't have the dominance at mid-range that he used to in relation to other characters, and so having reasonable KO potential with any swing of the sword can be actively better in many real situations.

 

[Luco]

It's also something to consider that some of Lucina's buffs in the last patch have closed this gap more than ever before, meaning what Reflex is talking about becomes more of a reality.

I'm not sure she'll escape being lower than Marth anytime soon but I think she has enough merits to actually be used sometimes... At least I'd argue she's no worse than Zelda.

 

[BSP]

@ Amazing Ampharos who are you seeing play Pac-Man? As far as I know, there's still only 2 that are relevant, and I haven't seen/heard much about them in a while.

Pac-Man's biggest problem is KO'ing people reliably. Up B beats shields, but it doesn't KO and he has to be on top of them. He can't afford to grab at high %, so sitting in shield is a good way to stay alive. His ledge trap game needs more looking into though. He's got some good setups.

I think he's around #15-#20, but I would say high mid at the very worst. Outside of his atrocious grab and raw KO problems, which are considerable problems, I think he's solid. His frame data is pretty good, he has some insane damage potential with some of his fruits, pretty free reset to neutral that can't be blocked or dodged and comes out frame 1, and a pretty flexible recovery.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Not true. There are matchups where it's actually quite difficult to adequately space. Marth doesn't have the dominance at mid-range that he used to in relation to other characters, and so having reasonable KO potential with any swing of the sword can be actively better in many real situations.

I agree. I feel like Lucina handles characters getting in her face better than Marth like Sonic and ZSS. For fast characters, sometimes the matchups for Marth feel like relying on dumb luck to land tippers.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I at the very least feel confident that Mario is one of the best characters in the game. Prior to the patch, Diddy outshone Mario significantly as a jack of all trades/option rich character, but now while Diddy averages slightly better range / diverse projectiles, Mario comes with better frame data, stronger aerial safety and invincible up smash.

For his size and range, he likely has the best mobility specs in the game. He out buttons basically everyone and everything (very good fairs give him some competition). He doesn't have the same "aggressive pressure" or dash ins as Diddy or Luigi, but he can spend a lot of time in the air while being mostly impervious to the cast's anti-airs games.

Mario doesn't have anywhere near Diddy's ability to land. The only remotely relevant characters that Mario seriously out-buttons are basically Yoshi and Wario.

Also, DK has a terrible F-air, but still is a very difficult matchup for Mario.

Just Up Air Up Air Up Air Up Air "Tornado" off the top of the screen, [dair] has killed me twice at sub 130% as ZSS in as many days :< ("wtf is this ****?")
Mario only has room to go up though in terms of acquiring kills. Up Smash is pretty stupid in itself and I think it's fair to practically say that's all he needs, it's that overloaded.
His tilts are all very low knockback (+ sour nair) and his jump specs are probably to blame for people's discomfort in hit confirming out of them right now.

You thought landing ZSS's Up-B gimp combo was hard? ZSS can airdodge out of Mario's D-air for that matter.

Mario's only "good" KO option being U-smash means he can't kill you for landing on platforms, grabbing the ledge, or refusing to airdodge at low altitudes.

The same things from previous games still counter Mario, and that's spacing, edgeguarding, and juggling. G&W was leagues worse than Mario in Melee but went about even when Mario basically didn't have a real answer to F-tilt and F-air, and in Smash 4 the matchup works about the same. Ganon like his melee days walls, eats a 70% combo, and then just wrecks Mario in like 4 hits and looks for the easy gimp or land trap. DK has his tilts and Up-B that Mario still sucks against (if Will vs Ally isn't enough evidence of that...). Oh and now in this game Mario hates short characters because you basically can't even do SH aerials against them anymore.

As for actual good characters, I have a very hard time believing Mario does well against Luigi or Rosalina. Luigi has his dumb Jab, F-air, and better fireball trap/grab game and does like 1.5x as much damage as Mario. Rosalina's spacing normals are gross, her disjoints and air mobility make her one of the more difficult characters for Mario to land trap with U-smash, and she's one of those characters who sorta like Ganon just gets free reign in the positive state given how many options her normals cover. Diddy while less terrible for Mario is still obnoxious for that matter. Also the Pits are heavily underrated and both are among Mario's hardest matchups.

Now obviously with Shocking Cape and Scalding FLUDD we have a completely different story.

 

[Ffamran]

For Zelda being last, whether or not it's true, she might end up being a weird counterpick character. Zelda vs. Rosalina was debated between either Zelda has a slight advantage or goes even of I remember correctly. Even though it was defaults only? It's still something. The only thing holding her back besides questionable design choices is her lack of representation that can push her metagame and the attitude towards her.

 

[Emblem Lord]

MK isn't viable in customs.

The meta hasn't moved since launch,silly grab releases,Mii brawler and lack of dumb customs he can fall back on to fight this chaotic mess. Katakiri was able to do well in his custom tourney with MK previously but that's because he outplayed them and worked 3 times harder than say Marths silly tipered crescent slash set up.

Its not that he's bad, he's still hella good but everyone gets that much better. He's low mid at worst and if you wanna overrate him maybe high mid, either way that meta isn't good for him. There is definitely no hype train for custom meta(knight) and i have yet to see this hype train go by.

MK isn't getting hype in defaults more like people actually look at his kit/played good MKs instead of asking for results.

On topic: Marth can grab release Crescent Slash everyone in the game.


Discuss.

Accidental post

 

[Ikes]

Not true. There are matchups where it's actually quite difficult to adequately space. Marth doesn't have the dominance at mid-range that he used to in relation to other characters, and so having reasonable KO potential with any swing of the sword can be actively better in many real situations.

most of lucina's attacks do only marginally more damage than sourspotted marth attacks though. She has poorer damage output and doesnt have the kill power of tippers.

and maybe it's me, but in no matchup have I had trouble landing tippers as marth, and I've played against the majority of the cast

 

[GeneralLedge]

And then next patch they'll give Lucina another +0.5% damage on everything. And then the next one.

Pretty soon she'll have exactly -0.5% damage vs Marth's tipper, but everyone will insist Marth still does more damage so Marth wins.

Lord knows Marth's opponents are universally oblivious and play right into Marth's spacing at all times.

 

[Trifroze]

who? mc ride or ?

i don't get why people just don't get . he's basically with a good disadvantage and a plastic sword.

?

The only thing common between them is that they have 2nd best and best dash grabs in the game respectively and good dash attacks. I was going to write up a list of their differences instead of saying this but then I realized there might be a character limit on SWF.

 

[PUK]

And then next patch they'll give Lucina another +0.5% damage on everything. And then the next one.

Pretty soon she'll have exactly -0.5% damage vs Marth's tipper, but everyone will insist Marth still does more damage so Marth wins.

Lord knows Marth's opponents are universally oblivious and play right into Marth's spacing at all times.

In france we have a great tradition of chivalry. There is nothing wrong with this

 

[Zionaze]

What characteristic best helps a character achieve top tier status?
Speed, power, height, weight, frame data, aerial mobility, fall speed, combo ability, disjoints?
Am i forgetting any? What do you think

 

[Antonykun]

What characteristic best helps a character achieve top tier status?
Speed, power, height, weight, frame data, aerial mobility, fall speed, combo ability, disjoints?
Am i forgetting any? What do you think

Mobility because that means a bunch of stuff

 

[Emblem Lord]

And then next patch they'll give Lucina another +0.5% damage on everything. And then the next one.

Pretty soon she'll have exactly -0.5% damage vs Marth's tipper, but everyone will insist Marth still does more damage so Marth wins.

Lord knows Marth's opponents are universally oblivious and play right into Marth's spacing at all times.

Several characters play at a similar optimal footsie range that Marth does actually.

Little Mac, Pit, Dark Pit, Donkey Kong, Ike, Little Mac, Rosalina, Ganondorf, Bowser, Shulk (Art dependent however), Lucina (duh), Jigglypuff, Peach and Zelda. That's just off the to of my head.

 

[Ulevo]

?

The only thing common between them is that they have 2nd best and best dash grabs in the game respectively and good dash attacks. I was going to write up a list of their differences instead of saying this but then I realized there might be a character limit on SWF.

I would probably nominate Meta Knight for having the 3rd best dash grab in the game, due to Sonic having a better run speed.

 

[Ikes]

Mobility because that means a bunch of stuff

with all these, wouldnt Toon Link be like, A tier?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

It's also something to consider that some of Lucina's buffs in the last patch have closed this gap more than ever before, meaning what Reflex is talking about becomes more of a reality.

I'm not sure she'll escape being lower than Marth anytime soon but I think she has enough merits to actually be used sometimes... At least I'd argue she's no worse than Zelda.

I will say for whatever it's worth that I'm terrible (and I do mean terrible) at landing tippers with Marth even on a stationary training dummy, so Lucina's consistent sword makes her flow a bit better for me. That said, I'm inclined to agree that she's nominally worse than Marth if only for her bad on-shield properties. (But then Shield Breaker?)

For Zelda being last, whether or not it's true, she might end up being a weird counterpick character. Zelda vs. Rosalina was debated between either Zelda has a slight advantage or goes even of I remember correctly. Even though it was defaults only? It's still something. The only thing holding her back besides questionable design choices is her lack of representation that can push her metagame and the attitude towards her.

Don't even start on that again. The Rosalina vs. Zelda discussion was all over the place. IIRC people were bandying about ratios everywhere from 30:70 to 70:30. In both directions.

It doesn't help that I don't think I've seen a Zelda on stream since early 3DS days so IDK how she'd actually do against anyone. Her biggest strength seems to be the ability to penetrate zoning with Farore's Wind?

On topic: Marth can grab release Crescent Slash everyone in the game.


Discuss.

Only on an air release, right? Which means short characters only, or catching someone at the ledge.

 

[Antonykun]

with all these, wouldnt Toon Link be like, A tier?

His everything else is mediocre except his projectile game

 

[Ffamran]

Don't even start on that again. The Rosalina vs. Zelda discussion was all over the place. IIRC people were bandying about ratios everywhere from 30:70 to 70:30. In both directions.

It doesn't help that I don't think I've seen a Zelda on stream since early 3DS days so IDK how she'd actually do against anyone. Her biggest strength seems to be the ability to penetrate zoning with Farore's Wind?

There's Nairo's Zelda and Ven uses Zelda. Point is that she could end up being a niche character with counterpick uses. Her disadvantage is really volatile since she has quicker punishes than Ganondorf, but she takes much more risks if she screws up. Her Brawl MU spread was bad, but she did well against other characters that could translate to here and being last doesn't mean she goes 0:100 everyone. That would be horrible and a definite signal for a patch to make her somewhat decent which she is.

 

[Foie]

Thanks for the extensive write-up Esquire! Great info

Oh, a Tiny Mii Brawler discussion? Don't mind if I do!

...and here I was thinking that 13th at my first offline Smash 4 tournament was pretty good. ;_; Anyways...

Now, I've been reading the arguments on both sides, and quite frankly...each side is right on some accounts and misguided on others. I'm actually not sure where to start response-wise, so I think I'm just going to make general statements and let you sort through them to match your points!

Let's start with Tiny Brawler's weaknesses, since that seems to be the big contention point in the thread at the moment. Tiny Brawler does have weaknesses, even though its strengths are phenomenal. Reach has been pointed out time and time again, and it's a huge Achilles' Heel for Tiny Brawler. Characters with good disjoints will be able to play a mean zoning game against Tiny Mii Brawler. I really can't think of a character with worse reach at the moment, maybe WFT? (Although some of those issues are hitbox related and not necessarily reach.) However, reach was /always/ a weakness, and anyone who either plays as or has played against a competent Tiny Brawler (or hell, has even watched a competent Tiny Brawler) could have told you that. Besides reach, Tiny Brawler also struggles with pretty much every weaknesses Average Brawler has as well: lack of reliable kill options outside of UpB, average individual damage output (mitigated by combo potential and UpB), average recovery (incredible horizontal, below average vertical outside of second jump), grab range (but awesome dash/pivot grab). Everyone is aware, however, of the /bonkers/ mobility Tiny Brawler possesses.

To make a short list, here's what Tiny Brawler has over Average Brawler:

+ Has more (re: different) combo opportunities than Average Brawler, can connect off of more moves (including Dash Attack).
+ Has an easier time getting characters to the ledge thanks to true FAir combo strings, which push opponents even further horizontally.
+ Better mobility, probably the best in the game combination-wise.
+ Better vertical recovery, thanks to a higher second jump.
+ Smaller size, meaning harder to hit.
+ Better endlag and landing lag, although it's not like Average Brawler's move recovery is bad.

And another short list, what Average Brawler has over Tiny Brawler:

+ Has simpler, but more consistent, combo opportunities, can guarantee more basic combos (DThrow -> HK) thanks to increased hitstun.
+ Greater reach. This is a huge plus, probably worth two "+" marks. Competes better against certain characters because of it.
+ Does ~1% more damage and ~1% more knockback on moves. This really isn't that big of a deal...but it's still an advantage!

You would think, naturally, "6>3/4 Esquire, so Tiny Brawler is superior!". That's not really the case, however, since reach is a huge deal against some characters. The difference between Tiny Brawler's BAir and Average Brawler's BAir reach-wise is the difference between Palutena's BAir and Falco's BAir reach-wise. Pretty important, especially against the likes of Mario, Diddy Kong, and a decent number of other characters. You're not going to be spaced out as hard, simple as that.

However, some of the characters mentioned in this thread that do well against Tiny Brawler...aren't really so. I've never really had issues with characters like Jigglypuff or Luigi. Characters like Captain Falcon are ebb-and-flow MU's for Tiny Brawler, since Captain Falcon has a really poor defensive game that leads to a ton of juggle opportunities and allows Tiny Brawler to KO Falcon even at higher percentages (of Falcon). Even though I've both beaten and lost to Rosalinas in tournament, I'm not convinced that it's a bad MU for Tiny Brawler thanks to his mobility, amazing NAir which can interrupt Luma, and UpB options that kill extremely early (if it wasn't for OIP still being in the game but being ineffective [as opposed to it just being taken straight out], I'd have more kills against Rosalinas. That's a personal issue, not a Brawler issue.). There are better examples of characters (especially with Customs) that fare decently against both Average and Tiny Brawler, but I'll refrain from commenting about them until after EVO.

This is great and all, but what does it all mean?

You might want to sit down for this one: for all of their similarities, Average Brawler and Tiny Brawler have different MU spreads than one another. So in essence, the best Mii Brawler players are going to use both Average and Tiny Brawler to their advantage, depending on who they face. If you're looking for specific characters as to which character does well against specific characters, I could probably go on, but I'd rather wait for the Custom metagame to develop (especially with EVO around the corner) before making concrete suggestions. Examples, though: I personally think Tiny Brawler handles characters like Sheik and Sonic better than Average Brawler, but Average Brawler probably has the advantage against characters like Diddy Kong and Mario. Before I'm bombarded with "WELL I WENT TO XANADU AND FOUGHT X AND YOU'VE NEVER PLAYED X SO YOU'RE NOT QUALIFIED", I've played with Tiny Brawler for almost three months now and have entered both online and offline tournaments with him, so I'm speaking from both a personal understanding of the character and a practical understanding. One thing's for sure, for all the conjecture about Mii Brawler in this thread, I'm excited to see how this all actually plays out at EVO!

 

[Cassio]

(http://www.twitch.tv/rushhoursmash fyi)

...

QA OOS is so good yet no one uses it. Its very frustrating to see every pikachu get trapped in their shield (at least every pikachu Ive seen). Pretty sure its because all of them turn tap jump off, but up-b out of shield is the best OOS option in the game I can think of and no ones utilizing it.

Its weird to watch how pikas use QA now, I think they went from over abuse even in neutral to almost never using it even in clearly usable situations.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Is it invincible on start-up? What are its interesting properties?

 

[David Viran]

...

QA OOS is so good yet no one uses it. Its very frustrating to see every pikachu get trapped in their shield (at least every pikachu Ive seen). Pretty sure its because all of them turn tap jump off, but up-b out of shield is the best OOS option in the game I can think of and no ones utilizing it.

Its weird to watch how pikas use QA now, I think they went from over abuse even in neutral to almost never using it even in clearly usable situations.

I can see it being a good oos option but the best? If I recall it has like 14 frames or something before a hitbox comes out with no invincibility. It also doesn't have the most priority.

 

[MachoCheeze]

Pac's trampoline is the best OOS option in the game no question.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

If anything, I imagine the fact that the hitbox is enormous and quite safe on hit or shield and very unpredictable in terms of movement helps a ton.

 

[Nu~]

Pac's trampoline is the best OOS option in the game no question.

It would be perfect if it's range was a bit better.
Although, it is fast enough to make a sheik F-air unsafe on shield.