Character Competitive Impressions

[GeneralLedge]

I think I've stumbled on to the simplest denominator for tier listing at the moment, so long as the game is undergoing patches.

Simply three tiers: "Balanced", "Unbalanced (advantage)", and "Unbalanced (disadvantage)".

For example, characters like Sheik and Rosa (and custom Brawler, to some extent), would fall under 'Unbalanced (advantage)' due to the explicit things that make them top-tier characters, such as needles or stupid powerful knockback.

Characters like Zelda and Mewtwo (and default Palutena?) may fall under 'Unbalanced (disadvantage)' simply due to their tools lacking any synergy, or strange design decisions rendering them difficult to play competitively.

Everyone else would fall under "Balanced", if only because nothing is wrong with them one way or the other.


ie. Diddy has fallen out of 'Unbalanced (advantage)' into 'Balanced' recently.

ie2. ZeRo has the tendency to play 'Unbalanced (advantage)' characters exclusively, and will drop them if they fall into 'Balanced' tier.


Granted this idea opens the argument as to whether or not S tier characters are inherently 'unbalanced'. But that's always a matter of discussion.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I still think Toon Link is the strongest sword character but with Ike, Marth, MK and Link all receiving tremendous buffs the competition definitely has gotten a lot tighter and Shulk also has a lot more room to go up than down. All of these characters have their own niche in which they can perform well unlike Roy who doesn't seem to have anything that puts him clearly above Marth now [or Captain Falcon with whom he's often being compared]. I think once the hype is over and the dust settles Roy will be left behind and just ... exist.

People totally underrate Lucas though.

Anyhow when it comes to sword characters, to push a bold claim, I actually think Link is top 15. I don't think he has a single unwinnable matchup anymore. Yes he has some clear weaknesses, but he can swing any game really quickly with his new grab game (especially against fastfallers, like the pesky Fox and Sheik who invalidated him previously).

I'm not entirely sure how Link is supposed to beat Sonic but I agree with the rest for the most part. It looks like Link actually became the versatile, jack of all trades character that Nintendo always failed to make him in previous smash games.

 

[Flamecircle]

@ Shaya
Can you elaborate on why the jab is so good? It looks like a very good setup for placing people right in front of you, but It doesn't seem to guarantee anything? I'm not really sure.

 

[Smog Frog]

@ Shaya
Can you elaborate on why the jab is so good? It looks like a very good setup for placing people right in front of you, but It doesn't seem to guarantee anything? I'm not really sure.

one of the big things is that it traps into fsmash

basically, think of it like confusion(puts you in an awful position) but better.

 

[Angry Guy of DE]

Toon Link and Link have good, but different, tools that help them. Both are filed under, "pain in the ass" in my book as Toon Link has some pretty good hitboxes with moves while Link's increased range on his grab baffles me now as why that got buffed.

Roy might find a place in time since his run speed is better than Marth and his ability to kill shouldn't be overlooked. The reduced range that pretty much most of the FE crew got in this game hurts him but his punishes combined with rage can make him a murder king.

People totally underrate Lucas though.

Not sure how to feel about Lucas, he has good hitboxes, a tether, and kill throw options but his pk thunder recovery seems very finicky. If you don't aim it properly you'll just hit a wall and die. I also don't see his pk fire to be as good as Ness's.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Lucas isn't really comparable to Ness though despite their visual similarities. Lucas' PK Fire is a tool to follow-up to zair or to catch people upon landing and leads into a further follow up. Once people stop looking for Ness 2.0 in Lucas they'll probably realize that the character is fine the way he is.

 

[Smog Frog]

and pk fire arent really comparable. pk fire is a punish tool, pk fire is a space control/followup tool. the only move that has thats straight up inferior to is pk thunder 1.

 

[Jaguar360]

Yes yes, everything is about Greninja.
But I suppose "needs" is iffy for me to say fairly. I can look at diddy and go "Sakurai's right, those moves were abused while others neglected, they had to be taken back a lot". Greninja in a similar light. And I only noted 1 reversal for Diddy; it's less used moves that look to be a good place to buff for characters who we know were very close/were solid before.

With that notion in mind, Greninja is in a spot where nearly all of his normals are pretty usable/good. His specials are great at low/mid level, which hurts their chances of being graced. What's left of Greninja that is underutilised? Down Tilt? Some of his throws? I wouldn't really want to see reversals of some of Greninja's key nerfs at all; water shuriken and up smash spam was not cool, bug fixes are not real nerfs.

F-throw and D-throw are probably being underutlized for Greninja. Neither have guaranteed followups, but the former sets up into running U-smash, dash attack and shff n-air pretty and the latter can lead to followups like dash attack, f-tilt, shff n-air or shff f-air at low percents and Shadow Sneak, f-air or U-smash at kill percent. U-throw is nice and all, but the U-air/b-air followup stops true comboing fairly quickly, so it's nice to mix things up with the former two. The Greninja boards have been looking into D-throw some though.

The only other non-custom I can think of that's being underutilized is probably b-air. It's Greninja's fastest aerial at frame 5, but it's kind of difficult to use on-stage since you have to get the third hit in order for it to be safe, which is difficult to do on most characters because of Greninja's high jump height. It's a great option for edgeguarding though, especially after a ledge trump. Another possible thing it could be used for is fast-falling it to get the spike for combos like with U-air, but with the low hitstun of the first two kicks, that likely won't lead into anything useful.

On the Greninja boards at least, we've pretty much explored the uses of all our moves with the f-tilt buff bringing things full circle. It's nice that we don't have any lingering moves that aren't too useful anymore (aside from B-throw I guess, but that's still decent for positioning purposes).

 

[Asdioh]

Falco seems pretty amazing right now tbh. Just messing around on FG, I found a guy who knew how to play Falco (how rare!) and even though I can get some nice combos on him with Kirby for 40% or so, I very quickly find myself being comboed to high percents just from one grab followup. His Upair is very hard to avoid, and combos into Nair or Fair? His Jab's amazing as always, his throws are all very situationally good. All his aerials and tilts are good, he has pretty good combo breakers in Nair and Jab, and his smashes are at least ok. He's pretty scary :/

Daily reminder that comparing Current Diddy to the previous Diddy of the Broken Upair Gang will always make Current Diddy look bad. His Upair's still one of the best in the game yo! It just ... makes sense now.

On the Greninja boards at least, we've pretty much explored the uses of all our moves with the f-tilt buff bringing things full circle. It's nice that we don't have any lingering moves that aren't too useful anymore (aside from B-throw I guess, but that's still decent for positioning purposes).

His Uptilt could at least use a hitbox increase, that thing is so difficult to hit with..

 

[Shaya]

@ Shaya
Can you elaborate on why the jab is so good? It looks like a very good setup for placing people right in front of you, but It doesn't seem to guarantee anything? I'm not really sure.

It comboing into the second hit is good; 10% total, second hit sends like a good forward throw would, can chase and trap with that still
From what I gather at around 200% jab to fsmash true combos (if what I read was correct, didn't test myself). Rage impacts this (if Marth up throw goes from killing at 180% to 125%ish with full rage I'd guestimate it would be a similar scaling scenario here).
Otherwise it's reliably giving you aerials and tilts. At a pretty early point Sheik stops being able to fair first if you attack.

Any defensive action taken by the opponent is generally reactable and/or a terrible idea. Jump air dodge right in front of Marth's face? We're going to be able to get you from that. Everything else can get you killed.

 

[warionumbah2]

Daily reminder that comparing Current Diddy to the previous Diddy of the Broken Upair Gang will always make Current Diddy look bad.

Boy does that sound familiar.

 

[Jaguar360]

His Uptilt could at least use a hitbox increase, that thing is so difficult to hit with..

The reason I didn't mention it was because its reward is just so good. It's our scariest combo starter since it's the only moves that guarantees the U-air spike and it combos into sweetspot U-smash at low percents for good damage. A hitbox increase would be a significant buff (but I'd love it since it is difficult to hit with).

 

[NairWizard]

Fun Fact: Pika is the only one who doesn't wield sword.

Doesn't he? I wonder...

This is a mistake I see a good deal of other Pikachus making. They treat Pikachu as strictly a rushdown/pressure character like Mario because they think that he doesn't have the range/disjoint to play safely and reactively like most of the sword users, and then they struggle in certain matchups because of that restrictive mindset.

The tail is basically a sword. Up-air, up-tilt, and d-tilt, the most important moves in Pika's arsenal IMO, are all massively disjointed, like 3/4 of the tail or more; d-smash (for anti-airing) and f-smash (also for anti-airing out of a pivot, but can hit higher aerials) are great reactive, disjointed moves that have the same functionality as sword moves like Ike's f-tilt. Combined with Quick Attack (out of shield and from the air), these moves let Pikachu play a bait and punish game in neutral while poking safely. He can do what MK and Marth kind of liked to do in Brawl: walk around, space, punish any mistakes made at the click of a button.

Then you have two other interesting specials that let him play his game like ye olde sworde users: Thunderjolt because it's so slow acts less like a projectile and more like a poke that Pikachu can follow around on stage to achieve his ideal positioning while the opponent has to react to the jolt. Thunder is a contender for one of the most disjointed moves in the game and is a safe but commitment-based way for Pikachu to attempt a followup in advantage, like many sword attacks. It even kind of has a tipper in the cloud hitbox offstage--or if you b-reverse and graze someone with it onstage at high altitudes it will create a more vertical trajectory instead of bringing the character down toward Pikachu, which is another kind of tipper for killing off the top.

basically, Pikachu using his tail:

Pikachu using Thunder/Tjolt/QA:

 

[FullMoon]

Since it was mentioned earlier, all of Greninja's moves have uses to a certain extent now that F-Tilt got buffed.

The most useless ones being F-Throw and B-Throw, the former is kinda eh in general and the latter at least does the most damage out of his throws.

Greninja players still need to make the best out of his moveset though. Shadow Sneak, Substitute and Hydro Pump are still severely underutilized in this game despite all three of them being very solid moves and some moves like Up-Tilt (which is an excellent anti-air due to Greninja crouching when using it and also because it true combos into Up-Air at kill percentages) aren't used as much as they should.

Greninja has a very solid and unexplored moveset as it is right now, the only one of his moves that I would say really sucks is his standing grab. If it was made faster and thus giving Greninja a good OoS option, I'm pretty confident that he would be high tier.

 

[Radical Larry]

Top:
High:
Middle:
Low:
Bottom:

He's the first I have to explain, but he deserves at the least, top 20 beside Toon Link and Mega Man. His grab and throw buffs, as well as everything that's been reworked about him (attacks hitting earlier, better setups, etc.) has been a step in the right direction for Link. He also has an amazing edge-guard game with F-Tilt, Dash, D-Smash, F-Air, N-Air and D-Air all being viable options for his edge-guarding game. He also has good combo abilities that aren't deterred by the Rage mechanic, and it just adds on to his danger levels with it.

He's a great character deserving of top 20, yes, but projectile-based and disjointed characters give him an extremely tough time. His aerial inertia is like Shulk's, but faster, and his jumping height is sub-par at best, so using his aerials off stage could be a KO sentence if you're not using him properly. However, he does have a slew of primary and secondary attacks that are sure to give you unpredictability. If you do find yourself off the edge, Tatsumaki and FADC will help a lot to get you back. Very solid character, but funny fact, Link's N-Air shuts down almost all his attacks; go test it out.

I don't really think he's deserving of even top 20. He's got the speed, yes, he's got the extreme power and great frame data, yes, so what does he lack in? Well, a good grab game, due to his grabs having weak base knockback, and he suffers the same aerial inertia problem as Ryu does, but it's worse for Roy with his sub-par recovery. Of course, Roy has higher jumps, so that may help. Roy does have a good combo ability coupled by great range with his sword and an amazing edge-guarding game with F-Air, B-Air and D-Air, so in capable hands, he's reliable at best.

I've been playing around with him and this guy is underrated. He's actually a fantastic character with the best ground game in the game, and actually has some great combo abilities. His D-Smash Down applies tremendous shield pressure and provides great space for Little Mac if he hits them, since he'll make the opponent slide; it also could potentially break shields if properly utilized. While we might think he has a bad aerial game, you probably haven't used F-Air on moderately damaged opponents yet. There's so much to this character that's unexplored and he has a lot of potential, and is quite a solid character. Oh, and don't pick a stage with a high platform and low blast line. D-Throw > U-Spec will early KO.

Those are the four I feel I should explain the most, because the rest don't need much explanation. Then again, it's not like I can't share my own opinion here.

 

[Vincent21]

So I kind of took a break from this game around the time the pre-DLC character meta short of stopped moving and since only kept up with the news. Having recently been brought back to active interest and attention by the influx of interesting DLC (Mewtwo and the hype/discovery was a write-off for me day 1, I was pretty sure he had no hope, shots fired I suppose) my natural response after playing some new Smash on my own was to come here and both compare findings and assess community opinions. I started somewhere around page 500-something... and now I'm here x.x

Now I'm not going to go quoting posts from +200 pages ago like anyone cares anymore (though at first I nearly considered it), but I will touch on a few subjects spanning that far back and moving slowly forward.

It was vindicating, during all of the politic customs debate and whatnot, that someone finally touched on a point that was rather brushed off and ignored pre-Evo confirmation but is really important, and that's the layman-competitive separation created by customs.

Lil' story time: I"m in SoCal, but the local local scene is barely existent. I can think of two relevant players. One is a G&W and one is a Falco. Anyone else in the area I can bop, stop, n drop with little effort. That's not even bragging, that's just being sad. The many players I've connected with here to collect relevant mu data so I can hold confident conversations on this board were so much more consistently engaging that I grew as a player for each person I took on and so how lacking my local scene was in comparison became more and more glaring.

Now the reason this matters is because this is true for a lot of people, for a lot of fighting games. Dems da breaks. Local scenes are more of a gift/blessing than a standard and back in the day a lot of really good players of all kinds of games remained completely undiscovered, or at best became local legends.

That is until the birth of the online warrior. Actual, reasonably stable internet play was birthed into the world and players who would otherwise have never grown or evolved and become competitive names suddenly became real members of their competitive scenes (top of head example is Marvel's own Viscant, though maybe people forget that).

We Smash 4 players, unfortunately, are at an impossible crossroads in this field. Customs are not part of For Glory, and any man or woman who adopts the online warrior lifestyle is simply playing an incomplete game. This is alienating a lot of players, even with the advent of custom ladders. We always sort of were aware those systems were not enough close to enough, but I wonder if after having actually recognized and starting to talk about the problem more openly if we've made enough progress since then...

In other news, when everyone was sort of discovering Mac things mains already knew waaaay before then when this thread was moving through April 2015, the fact that I was seeing non-mains and big voices actually start saying with confidence the things about his match-ups we would assert with much less backing previously, it was quite liberating. And I don't mean it in an "I told you so" way. I mean it in a "the community is suddenly becoming way more open-minded about the roster since our meta is being turned topsy turvy" kind of way I couldn't be happier about (though to admit total bias finally seeing the Villager mu be talked about as LM's favor was super vindicating I was totally just like "all those villy singles where I ran the mu 1 by 1 over and over again finally paid off in some small way ;v; ). And holy crap people finally realized around then how crazy Wario is like thank you please. Character's are actually getting explored now. There was a sort of unspoken air of "this portion of the cast can remain in theory-craft world now, let's talk about Diddy, Sheik, Falcon, Rosa, and Luigi (and I guess Pika and MK though not quite as much and surely I'm missing some others) some more because clearly this incredibly young game and it's meta are already solid. Discovery? Bah!
Good to see the shift.

Then again there was a lot of rigidly and defensiveness of established ideas when people were in a Smash environment very invested in politic conflict over customs, huh? Maybe I shouldn't talk about it like a completely closed case, though.

MOVING ON TO THE RECENT GAME:

When did sword characters become so this much more consistent? Link actually feels good enough that while Tink is still markedly better I feel rather justified in making mu distinctions and placing my character coin down! Marth and Roy are just... ouch. I kinda feel like they're basically holding home run bats instead of swords now. Poor Lucina. Throw her a bone, huh? SwordsMAN is apparently the operative title you need to get into the spotlight around now.

Just gunna say... Be careful where you place any of the new 3, this is a little (a lot actually) early and I already get the feeling Ryu's slightly overestimated and Roy's slightly under....

 

[Djent]

CEO pools are finalized, and we now have the final bracket seeding too.

Notable players in each pool:

Spoiler

1: ZeRo, DKWill
2: falln, NAKAT
3: Shaky, Fatality, Wizzrobe
4: 6WX, NickRiddle, Stingers
5: ESAM, Ryo
6: Phuzix, Trela, Player-1, Seibrik
7: Larry Lurr, GimR
8: Dabuz, Kai, True Blue
9: Nairo, Stockfield, Xaltis
10: 8BitMan, Mew2King, Logic
11: Reflex, Bloodcross, Master Raven, Azen
12: StaticManny, ANTi, JJROCKETS
13: Mr.R, Myran
14: Tyrant, Seagull, Dath
15: Vinnie, MJG, Poltergust, Pink Fresh
16: MVD, ScAtt, GDX, Hungrybox

Early MUs to watch for:

Spoiler

6WX vs. NickRiddle (pool 4)

A MU that Sonic probably loses and in which Nick has a lot of experience. 6WX has also been taking a bit of a break.​

ESAM vs. Ryo (pool 5)

I think Ike poses a problem with his recent buffs. If these guys haven't played yet, MU inexperience will favor Ryo.​

ESAM vs. Trela (R1 bracket)

ESAM is a bit unlucky having to fight all these unusual sword-wielders early. I hope he takes @ NairWizard 's advice.​

Larry vs. Dabuz (R1 bracket)

Two otherwise-shoe-ins for top 8 playing to get into top 16 winners side. Rough break, but that's CEO.​

Vinnie vs. MVD (R1 bracket)

I kind of think Vinnie will demolish this MU, but MVD is such a quality player that you never know.​

​

And for the hell of it, my top 8 predictions:

Spoiler

1) Zero
2) Nairo
3) Dabuz
4) Mr.R
5) ESAM
5) Vinnie
7) Shaky
7) NickRiddle

 

[Quickhero]

Daily reminder that comparing Current Diddy to the previous Diddy of the Broken Upair Gang will always make Current Diddy look bad. His Upair's still one of the best in the game yo! It just ... makes sense now.

I agree Diddy Kong isn't overpowered, (though I never really thought he ever was, I just thought 1.04 Diddy Kong was the definite best character) but Diddy Kong's u-air is pretty bad, to put it bluntly. They didn't need to nerf Diddy Kong at all, but IF Sakurai had to nerf u-air, he should've either nerfed the frames of u-air OR nerfed the power of u-air (not as nerfed as it is currently though) of it so it was still either a safe option with average reward or it got nerfed to the point of it being only a combo move but still a rewarding move. The problem is Sakurai did BOTH so now Diddy Kong's u-air does almost nothing when you combo it and it's not the safest of options now so it's just a bad aerial.

Diddy Kong is still a great character; he still has bananas, f-air, b-air, and f-smash, and Diddy Kong mains should just utilize the stuff he has now and roll with it, but saying that his u-air is one of the best is just incorrect lol.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Marth now living up to his name of the Hero-King.

Also Jab 1 is basically the most braindead easy mode trap starter in the game. Marth can cover any defensive option on pure reaction. The best thing to do is jump away from him and thats just not even a good idea really.

Jab to d-tilt covers alot of stuff and is generally safe.

So...****ing...dumb

IDK if I should be happy cuz yall know big ELLY loves his traps, but this stuff is not only really good but not remotely difficult to do or set-up.

Was Sakurai trying to give Marth an easy trap because...Roy?

If so he can eat a bag of *****.

 

[outfoxd]

It's disheartening when people are putting Duck Hunt lower and lower and I find myself agreeing with them. Puppy is crippled by issues. It just blows really hard considering the fun of the playstyle and his damage racking ability/stage presence.

 

[Zelder]

Duck Hunt Dog is such a weird character, because I feel like he was designed with 1 v 1s in mind (I can't imagine his tricks working well in FFAs), but he's not good in 1v1s.

 

[outfoxd]

Duck Hunt Dog is such a weird character, because I feel like he was designed with 1 v 1s in mind (I can't imagine his tricks working well in FFAs), but he's not good in 1v1s.

I have a suspicion that little Macs super armor, power, and dhds ability to hold real estate is a good combo, but I'm not the dog walker to test it.

 

[GeneralLedge]

(I can't imagine his tricks working well in FFAs)

Honestly Duck Hunt is my go-to character to troll the hell out of FFA. You kind of just wait for other players to focus on one another and then you chuck cans and frisbees at them.

DH's sideB is infinitely more useful in FFA than 1v1 since commitance is ignored when another player can capitalize off of following it up, better than punishing you.

This just makes me continue to wonder if it's possible to put together a professional-level FFA tournament of some sort.

 

[Radical Larry]

@ Djent It would be absolutely astonishing if a Link player won, wouldn't it? Or if ZeRo pulled a new character out of his bag?

Also, unrelated topic: Link is a juggle god. I just caught video of Link just juggling and juggling and juggling Roy to near oblivion. I think I scored around 90% total on Roy.

 

[shadowmm151]

Honestly Duck Hunt is my go-to character to troll the hell out of FFA. You kind of just wait for other players to focus on one another and then you chuck cans and frisbees at them.

DH's sideB is infinitely more useful in FFA than 1v1 since commitance is ignored when another player can capitalize off of following it up, better than punishing you.

This just makes me continue to wonder if it's possible to put together a professional-level FFA tournament of some sort.

I've been hoping that would be a thing since Melee. The closest we got was 2v2, which is fun, but not FFA. FFA would use so many different tactics and would be fun to watch. The biggest problem though would be that it would be easy to screw a player in the lead over with a 3v1 temporary truce. Then again, it may not matter so much since the tiers would be different and players that excel in FFA would differ vastly from players that excel in 1v1. Not to mention how much backstabbing there would be during temporary truces. Man this would be fun to watch though.

 

[Ffamran]

Falco seems pretty amazing right now tbh. Just messing around on FG, I found a guy who knew how to play Falco (how rare!) and even though I can get some nice combos on him with Kirby for 40% or so, I very quickly find myself being comboed to high percents just from one grab followup. His Upair is very hard to avoid, and combos into Nair or Fair? His Jab's amazing as always, his throws are all very situationally good. All his aerials and tilts are good, he has pretty good combo breakers in Nair and Jab, and his smashes are at least ok. He's pretty scary :/

Falco's Smashes are weird, but it kind of makes sense for how fast they are except Side Smash which is a more "traditional", slower, and more powerful kill move. I say kind of since Lucina, Marth, Samus, Fox, and Yoshi have one or two fast Smash kill moves. Up Smash is more or less a stronger, more committal Utilt which combos, anti-airs, and kills (early than Utilt). Down Smash is basically a get off me option, roll catcher, and sometimes edgeguard move since it reaches over the ledge and makes Falco's legs intangible - I'm pretty sure Kirby's Down Smash does this too along with Fox's.

Falco has the weird niche of "I combo and I kill with the same moves". Oh, but every character does that, but when your entire moveset aside from jab, Dash Attack, Ftilt, Nair, F-throw, D-throw, Fire Bird - yes, it gimps and can stage spike and if it does, I'm very sorry -, Blaster, Reflector, and non-spiking Falco Phantasm, kills reliably and at similar percents, it becomes this weird, hilarious, and maybe even terrifying thing when you realize that this character who's comboing me with Bairs early on will eventually kill me with Bair at 120% center stage. Few characters do that and do it fast. Yes, Shulk can combo with his Fair, but compared to Falco's Fair, it's slower. Sheik kills with Bair - used to -, but her Bair is much weaker than Falco's. Ganondorf and Roy come to mind as other characters whose movesets are made up of kill moves, but they combo with those moves.

The other thing would be how each move has a purpose. There are characters who have one or two really good moves like say, Diddy's pre-patch Uair or Sheik's Fair, but that's good when other moves have purposes and function well like Diddy's entire moveset. The only issue for them is that sometimes players end up neglecting other moves since one move does so much. Diddy's Uair shouldn't have been the Swiss Army Knife it was and there were pre- and post-patch moves that Diddy has that are useful to his gameplay like U-throw, Dtilt, and Nair. Unfortunately, there are some characters who only have one or two good moves. Zelda for example on has like Nair, Dtilt, and Down Smash as notably good moves with Farore's Wind being a good kill move and Nayru's Love a useful, but sometimes predictable move. Patches fixed her Up Smash and Side Smash, but Ftilt, Utilt, even jab, the precision needed to use Bair and Fair, Uair could be a bit faster, the infamous Din's Fire, and Phantom Slash are all lacking. Having a moveset that force you to know every move and use every move might seem annoying and tedious, but it also means that every move is good in some way. That's the strength of Falco, Fox, Luigi, Mario, Dr. Mario, Mega Man, Peach, Toon Link, Ike, Marth, Lucina, Roy, Ganondorf, Captain Falcon, Villager, Charizard, DK, and more. It's just for some, some moves are lackluster or way too good they overshadow and mask the bad moves. Having a ton of options even with a bad character is still better than having little options with a bad character.

Also, I wished more characters had throws that do much more. Falco's got F-throw for early comboing and positioning, B-throw for killing and positioning, D-throw for early to mid comboing (and stage spiking Captain Falcon), U-throw for kills, comboing, and positioning. Fox's throws are like, U-throw and B-throw for positioning, F-throw and D-throw for comboing and positioning... Er... Could we let Fox combo out of B-throw? That would be pretty cool and make it so rage heavily affects his U-throw. We need more Marth, Lucina, and Roy rage U-throw shenanigans.

One last thing: the change to Falco's Dair so it doesn't spike grounded opponents. Let's say that all happens to everyone. Do you understand the hilarity that would be Ganondorf's Stomp? It's gonna be a one way ticket to heaven with an imprint of a large man's feet on your face. No more denying the King of Evil's Stomp! No more teching his Stomp! You get a Stomp! He gets a Stomp! She gets a Stomp! EVERYBODY GETS A STOMP! Removal of ground spiking I think - I need to check -, makes Falco's Dair kill like 100% earlier. It used to kill at 270?% while the late hit killed at 260?%. Now, imagine that with Ganondorf.

 

[Speed Boost]

Is it just me or do the heavies level up in a little bit of lag? I have trouble against good Ganondorfs online when there is even a little lag. I find myself getting hit by stuff I don't normally get hit by. It goes without saying Ganon is not a character you want to be sloppy against.

I've had similar issues with Ike, Bowser and DK to a lessor extent. Do yall have the same issues against these characters in lag?

 

[bc1910]

Yeah I'm sorry, I don't wish to make everything about Greninja, but he is my main and if people are gonna be talking about reversing Diddy's nerfs already (not just you, I've seen many people talk about him being overnerfed) there's no way I'm not bringing up the frog. Gotta keep things real. Diddy was king of Sm4sh for ~5 months and is STILL viable, Greninja was barely top 5 at release and has done nothing for half a year.

Dthrow combos would be nice, just make it launch higher so Dthrow > Usmash isn't a thing at kill%, also increase the damage of his throws because they deal pitiful damage and aren't even very good except Uthrow. A faster standing grab would also be pretty good.

Up Smash was never safe on block. Totally reasonable counterplay, and not spammable vs someone who didn't jump around willy nilly. Was it really good, yes, was it broken, absolutely not. He couldn't even threaten kills out of a run like Fox, Pikachu and others with Usmashes just as good (for different reasons). I will defend that move to the grave. Regardless, the current range and damage can stay but the ending lag should be reduced, IMO.

As for Shurikens, what I actually want for them is to be dash cancelable at the old timing so that Greninja can use them to aid his approach, but not camp with them. I firmly believe the ability to be mobile with shurikens is what made Greninja good. His normals are okay, you wouldn't really pick him over a high tier for his normals, but with mobility + shurikens, everything starts to come together. That said, just giving them their old ending lag would be fine too. I never saw a problem with spam, shurikens are easy to powershield due to their fairly high startup, and there are a large number of more spammable projectiles that are harder to deal with. I think they were balanced before, and now they're below the level of balance they should be at for this character to make sense.

 

[Djent]

@ Djent It would be absolutely astonishing if a Link player won, wouldn't it?

Yes...yes it would. Especially since there are no really good ones who entered this tourney.

Or if ZeRo pulled a new character out of his bag?

Eh, this not so much.

 

[Speed Boost]

Yes...yes it would. Especially since there are no really good ones who entered this tourney.

Eh, this not so much.

Yeah, I see Zero using a combination of Sheik, Diddy and Falcon.

That said, I expect to see a Mario a go deep with the Diddy nerf. He has a better MU than most against Sheik and he has good representation with Ally.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I still think Toon Link is the strongest sword character but with Ike, Marth, MK and Link all receiving tremendous buffs the competition definitely has gotten a lot tighter and Shulk also has a lot more room to go up than down. All of these characters have their own niche in which they can perform well unlike Roy who doesn't seem to have anything that puts him clearly above Marth now [or Captain Falcon with whom he's often being compared]. I think once the hype is over and the dust settles Roy will be left behind and just ... exist.


I'm not entirely sure how Link is supposed to beat Sonic but I agree with the rest for the most part. It looks like Link actually became the versatile, jack of all trades character that Nintendo always failed to make him in previous smash games.

What does Toon Link even do against shield? Furthermore his juggle and edgeguard options as a whole are blatantly leagues worse than those of all the other sword characters meaning his positive state is generally below average, and he still has Link's old dead zone where he can't actually hurt you in midrange with anything other than his mediocre grab. The only thing Toon Link has is literally Bombs, and these still can potentially be caught.

While Sonic's spring edgeguard is pretty annoying for Link I actually don't think this matchup by design is bad for him. Arrows, pivot grab, and N-air are all good responses to many of Sonic's options, and from there Link's reward speaks for itself. Aside from his usual Jab and D-throw traps which are all perfectly viable for kills, he also does better edgeguarding Sonic and covering his landing compared to most characters (especially after the grab range buff). Link's hardest matchups are still Fox and Sheik where he's forced to approach and has to deal with strong midrange pressure, salvaged by grab reward.

 

[Speed Boost]

What does Toon Link even do against shield? Furthermore his juggle and edgeguard options as a whole are blatantly leagues worse than those of all the other sword characters meaning his positive state is generally below average, and he still has Link's old dead zone where he can't actually hurt you in midrange with anything other than his mediocre grab. The only thing Toon Link has is literally Bombs, and these still can potentially be caught.

While Sonic's spring edgeguard is pretty annoying for Link I actually don't think this matchup by design is bad for him. Arrows, pivot grab, and N-air are all good responses to many of Sonic's options, and from there Link's reward speaks for itself. Aside from his usual Jab and D-throw traps which are all perfectly viable for kills, he also does better edgeguarding Sonic and covering his landing compared to most characters (especially after the grab range buff). Link's hardest matchups are still Fox and Sheik where he's forced to approach and has to deal with strong midrange pressure, salvaged by grab reward.

How are Links MUs against Pikachu, Mario, Yoshi and Luigi? I would think Pikachu can just skip nuetral like he does againt every other MU with QA. Not sure about the other three though. Mario has the cape to send stuff back, but Luigi and Yoshi would be forced to approach...?

 

[Vincent21]

What does Toon Link even do against shield? Furthermore his juggle and edgeguard options as a whole are blatantly leagues worse than those of all the other sword characters meaning his positive state is generally below average, and he still has Link's old dead zone where he can't actually hurt you in midrange with anything other than his mediocre grab. The only thing Toon Link has is literally Bombs, and these still can potentially be caught.

While Sonic's spring edgeguard is pretty annoying for Link I actually don't think this matchup by design is bad for him. Arrows, pivot grab, and N-air are all good responses to many of Sonic's options, and from there Link's reward speaks for itself. Aside from his usual Jab and D-throw traps which are all perfectly viable for kills, he also does better edgeguarding Sonic and covering his landing compared to most characters (especially after the grab range buff). Link's hardest matchups are still Fox and Sheik where he's forced to approach and has to deal with strong midrange pressure, salvaged by grab reward.

"Only" bombs is kind of underselling it. You see, bombs make the mid so much more tolerable simply because of how predictable the responses are. Either they shield it or they grab it, and both of these actions require they commit to something Tink can then punish. Whether it causes them to make a SH spot dodge you can slap, throw up a shield you can grab (and hey if you're particularly stylish, you can throw them into the bomb they bounced off their shield if you're quick) or apply additional pressure, and any time the bomb flat out connects (like when you just chuck it to punish something) you're most likely going to get a follow-up.

Have a mid-range game based on a projectile actually isn't anywhere near as bad as it sounds.

 

[DungeonMaster]

One last thing: the change to Falco's Dair so it doesn't spike grounded opponents. (...) Now, imagine that with Ganondorf.

This change, amongst others in this patch, really profoundly pissed me off. Because it shows, that there's intent behind Samus and others not having guaranteed follow ups from her up-tilt and d-air. That and making Ryu, "the king of combos" have no stage meteor effects from his d-air. It's a clear, insulting, design decision, really. The combo windows are often so tight, you do not have any ability to react to a tech or not or you'll miss the combo. If I met the guy on the street, there would likely be violence.

 

[Ikes]

"Only" bombs is kind of underselling it. You see, bombs make the mid so much more tolerable simply because of how predictable the responses are. Either they shield it or they grab it, and both of these actions require they commit to something Tink can then punish. Whether it causes them to make a SH spot dodge you can slap, throw up a shield you can grab (and hey if you're particularly stylish, you can throw them into the bomb they bounced off their shield if you're quick) or apply additional pressure, and any time the bomb flat out connects (like when you just chuck it to punish something) you're most likely going to get a follow-up.

Have a mid-range game based on a projectile actually isn't anywhere near as bad as it sounds.

he also has boomerangs. dont forget about those

and in a customs environment, fire arrows are phenomenal

 

[A2ZOMG]

"Only" bombs is kind of underselling it. You see, bombs make the mid so much more tolerable simply because of how predictable the responses are. Either they shield it or they grab it, and both of these actions require they commit to something Tink can then punish. Whether it causes them to make a SH spot dodge you can slap, throw up a shield you can grab (and hey if you're particularly stylish, you can throw them into the bomb they bounced off their shield if you're quick) or apply additional pressure, and any time the bomb flat out connects (like when you just chuck it to punish something) you're most likely going to get a follow-up.

Have a mid-range game based on a projectile actually isn't anywhere near as bad as it sounds.

It's a problem when your grab leads to almost nothing and when it's punishable by a Smash when whiffed (people do go for reads). This is exactly why Link was bad pre-patch.

Also instant air item tosses don't really have commitment. I will give that this requires a read in neutral against TL, however the point I'm more getting at is TL's neutral game has holes, and his reward is generally really low. He's not a great character by any means.

How are Links MUs against Pikachu, Mario, Yoshi and Luigi? I would think Pikachu can just skip nuetral like he does againt every other MU with QA. Not sure about the other three though. Mario has the cape to send stuff back, but Luigi and Yoshi would be forced to approach...?

Link beats Mario 6/4. It's the same as Ganon vs Mario. Mario can't approach in the air against Link at all when Link destroys any air approach (including fireballs) with his N-air, and Link can cover Mario's ground approaches very easily with tilts. Throw in the massive grab reward Link has which actually exceeds Mario's (even factoring that Link sucks against juggles), AND the fact that Link has extremely consistent edgeguards against Mario while Mario is one of the worst edgeguarders in the game, Mario is countered by Link very convincingly as of this patch. The only thing that saved Mario previously was that Link's grab reward, and thus his midrange was complete garbage, which anyone could abuse to force Link to take unfavorable risks. Mario still can sorta win if he guesses right a lot more than Link, but assuming equal opportunity in guesses, Link beats Mario in every part of the matchup. Neutral, negative, and postitive state.

Dunno about Yoshi specifically. I don't think Yoshi dominates anyone by design given he's not great at footsies, and he's primarily a momentum oriented character.

Vs Luigi I think is probably close to even. Luigi's and Link's juggle games get pretty similar reward for damage dealing, while Luigi has better KO confirms out of grab. Luigi still has his dumb fireball trap that outspams Link's projectiles, however Luigi still has to respect and guess around Link's sword in neutral.

Outside of the gimps Pikachu has, I would argue Link is pretty annoying Pikachu. Pikachu CANNOT disrespect Link's N-air and D-air, which can be used to challenge QA (in neutral and offstage respectively). Link's U-tilt is also a very fast move that's a great KO option against Pikachu that can be set up out of Jabs or used as a poke/anti air in neutral. Especially since now Pikachu has a legitimate negative state against Link's grab, I would imagine it's a pretty fair matchup for Link.

 

[Vincent21]

It should also be mentioned that the safest thing to do when he tries to bomb you directly, roll backwards, is also the worst thing to do.

Because really. You want more distance between you and him so that he can be free to chuck rangs and launch arrows? A lot of the time Tink can end up gaining ground and advantage in the neutral just because someone doesn't want to deal with the bomb mix-up.

It's a problem when your grab leads to almost nothing and when it's punishable by a Smash when whiffed (people do go for reads). This is exactly why Link was bad pre-patch.

Also instant air item tosses don't really have commitment. I will give that this requires a read in neutral against TL, however the point I'm more getting at is TL's neutral game has holes, and his reward is generally really low. He's not a great character by any means.

I always thought of his neutral less about gaining rewards off of punishes and more about establishing a war of attrition. Closing on him requires taking damage and giving him those read opportunities in neutral so he doesn't really have to do anything. He's just trying to constantly reset any momentum the opposing player builds on him back to a neutral state. Even if all he does by grab you is add some pummel % (peanuts, really) and toss you away from him you're back to square one trying to get in on bomb/rang/arrow/sword.

This would normally lead you to the Duck Hunt conundrum where you can go ahead and rack oodles of damage, but never kill anyone, but unlike DH Tink doesn't struggle with slower or bad kill moves.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Top:
High:
Middle:
Low:
Bottom:

He's the first I have to explain, but he deserves at the least, top 20 beside Toon Link and Mega Man. His grab and throw buffs, as well as everything that's been reworked about him (attacks hitting earlier, better setups, etc.) has been a step in the right direction for Link. He also has an amazing edge-guard game with F-Tilt, Dash, D-Smash, F-Air, N-Air and D-Air all being viable options for his edge-guarding game. He also has good combo abilities that aren't deterred by the Rage mechanic, and it just adds on to his danger levels with it.

He's a great character deserving of top 20, yes, but projectile-based and disjointed characters give him an extremely tough time. His aerial inertia is like Shulk's, but faster, and his jumping height is sub-par at best, so using his aerials off stage could be a KO sentence if you're not using him properly. However, he does have a slew of primary and secondary attacks that are sure to give you unpredictability. If you do find yourself off the edge, Tatsumaki and FADC will help a lot to get you back. Very solid character, but funny fact, Link's N-Air shuts down almost all his attacks; go test it out.

I don't really think he's deserving of even top 20. He's got the speed, yes, he's got the extreme power and great frame data, yes, so what does he lack in? Well, a good grab game, due to his grabs having weak base knockback, and he suffers the same aerial inertia problem as Ryu does, but it's worse for Roy with his sub-par recovery. Of course, Roy has higher jumps, so that may help. Roy does have a good combo ability coupled by great range with his sword and an amazing edge-guarding game with F-Air, B-Air and D-Air, so in capable hands, he's reliable at best.

I've been playing around with him and this guy is underrated. He's actually a fantastic character with the best ground game in the game, and actually has some great combo abilities. His D-Smash Down applies tremendous shield pressure and provides great space for Little Mac if he hits them, since he'll make the opponent slide; it also could potentially break shields if properly utilized. While we might think he has a bad aerial game, you probably haven't used F-Air on moderately damaged opponents yet. There's so much to this character that's unexplored and he has a lot of potential, and is quite a solid character. Oh, and don't pick a stage with a high platform and low blast line. D-Throw > U-Spec will early KO.

Those are the four I feel I should explain the most, because the rest don't need much explanation. Then again, it's not like I can't share my own opinion here.

Of all the places I could find a tier list I can get behind I did NOT see this one coming. I agree with this for the most part.

 

[Djent]

That said, I expect to see a Mario a go deep with the Diddy nerf. He has a better MU than most against Sheik and he has good representation with Ally.

Mario is a good character, but I don't think he'll make top 8 this time. Ally is not going, so there's that. ANTi seems to have more confidence in his Luigi than anything. And he has to get through some ridiculous players (Manny in pools, likely Nairo in QF, then NickRiddle or Shaky in losers).

 

[David Viran]

Yeah I'm sorry, I don't wish to make everything about Greninja, but he is my main and if people are gonna be talking about reversing Diddy's nerfs already (not just you, I've seen many people talk about him being overnerfed) there's no way I'm not bringing up the frog. Gotta keep things real. Diddy was king of Sm4sh for ~5 months and is STILL viable, Greninja was barely top 5 at release and has done nothing for half a year.

Dthrow combos would be nice, just make it launch higher so Dthrow > Usmash isn't a thing at kill%, also increase the damage of his throws because they deal pitiful damage and aren't even very good except Uthrow. A faster standing grab would also be pretty good.

Up Smash was never safe on block. Totally reasonable counterplay, and not spammable vs someone who didn't jump around willy nilly. Was it really good, yes, was it broken, absolutely not. He couldn't even threaten kills out of a run like Fox, Pikachu and others with Usmashes just as good (for different reasons). I will defend that move to the grave. Regardless, the current range and damage can stay but the ending lag should be reduced, IMO.

As for Shurikens, what I actually want for them is to be dash cancelable at the old timing so that Greninja can use them to aid his approach, but not camp with them. I firmly believe the ability to be mobile with shurikens is what made Greninja good. His normals are okay, you wouldn't really pick him over a high tier for his normals, but with mobility + shurikens, everything starts to come together. That said, just giving them their old ending lag would be fine too. I never saw a problem with spam, shurikens are easy to powershield due to their fairly high startup, and there are a large number of more spammable projectiles that are harder to deal with. I think they were balanced before, and now they're below the level of balance they should be at for this character to make sense.

Before Greninja's usmash got nerfed and dacus removed Greninja's dacus was ridiculous and covered like the entirety of FD.