Character difficulty

[snorman22]

I come from playing League of Legends where there is high skill ceiling champions and deadly once mastered but require great timing and execution. Then there is considered more beginner characters that are simple but very effective still. Is there a comparison to this in SSB4 and who would fall into this example

 

[MarioManTAW]

Easy and still good:
Good, but hard:
Easy, but bad:
Hard and still bad:

I may be stretching the definition of "good" a bit: those groups basically include mid-tier and higher (top 35 characters from a roster of 55, excluding Miis). Maybe that will at least give you a rough idea of what you're looking for.

 

[Aphistemi]

Game and Watch beats Villager, Luigi, Pikachu, and Ness, I don't consider him hard to use and bad, I'd consider him hard to use and pretty solid.

 

[snorman22]

Easy and still good:
Good, but hard:
Easy, but bad:
Hard and still bad:

I may be stretching the definition of "good" a bit: those groups basically include mid-tier and higher (top 35 characters from a roster of 55, excluding Miis). Maybe that will at least give you a rough idea of what you're looking for.

It's sure a hard thing deciding who to play

 

[MarioManTAW]

Game and Watch beats Villager, Luigi, Pikachu, and Ness, I don't consider him hard to use and bad, I'd consider him hard to use and pretty solid.

He's low-mid on most tier lists. I said I may have been stretching the definition of good, but I may have been stretching the definition of bad as well. can do well in some instances, but he is still not as good as any of the "good" characters. By your logic, and possibly would be counted as "good" characters, but I think calling low-mid "good" is a bit extreme.

 

[v3ga]

Easy and still good:
Good, but hard:
Easy, but bad:
Hard and still bad:

I may be stretching the definition of "good" a bit: those groups basically include mid-tier and higher (top 35 characters from a roster of 55, excluding Miis). Maybe that will at least give you a rough idea of what you're looking for.

Good, but hard:

?

Also Roy is much harder to play than Marth...

 

[JasonKaroshi]

Simple characters:

More complex:

 

[Axel311]

Unfortunately in smash 4 there's very few characters with a high learning curve that are worth playing from a strictly competitive standpoint. The only one might be . What I mean by that is there's several top tiers like that are very simple to play but also are a top tier character. So when you look at characters like there's no actual competitive reason to use them when you just can play some of the super easy top tiers and get better results with far practice time required.

 

[v3ga]

Unfortunately in smash 4 there's very few characters with a high learning curve that are worth playing from a strictly competitive standpoint. The only one might be . What I mean by that is there's several top tiers like that are very simple to play but also are a top tier character. So when you look at characters like there's no actual competitive reason to use them when you just can play some of the super easy top tiers and get better results with far practice time required.

I wouldn't say that this is necessarily true at all... I think smashers tend to stay in the mindset that just because god like players like Zero are able to beat more unconventional characters that they are just a waste of time to pick up learning. Any character has the potential to do well with a fair amount of practice time put into that character. Even "easy" characters like require practice. If you're a bad Cloud player, you're still going to get bodied by good players who use unconventional characters. Chances are you're never going to compete with players like Zero, MK Leo etc, therefore the element of surprise of being skilled with an unconventional character is a lot stronger than you think. Not to mention Zero has lost multiple sets to people with unconventional mains in the past. Don't put too much thought into what characters are easy to play...

 

[Aphistemi]

He's low-mid on most tier lists. I said I may have been stretching the definition of good, but I may have been stretching the definition of bad as well. can do well in some instances, but he is still not as good as any of the "good" characters. By your logic, and possibly would be counted as "good" characters, but I think calling low-mid "good" is a bit extreme.

Yes, Wario is good, and he was never considered bad in smash 4. not sure why you think that. and Regi has been doing amazing things with G&W, along side Koss, They aren't top 10 or top 15, but not considered "Hard to use and bad" by any means.

 

[MarioManTAW]

Yes, Wario is good, and he was never considered bad in smash 4. not sure why you think that. and Regi has been doing amazing things with G&W, along side Koss, They aren't top 10 or top 15, but not considered "Hard to use and bad" by any means.

Perhaps I wasn't very clear. My incredibly loose definitions are:
"Good": Top (roughly) half of the cast - Top 35
"Bad": Bottom (roughly) half of the cast - Bottom 20
If you look at the 4BR tier list (I know it's not the most accurate, but for as rough as I am being, it's close enough), you will see that tiers S-C are listed in my categorization as "good", and D-F are listed as "bad", with the only exception being Ike (who I believe should be higher and is still in the Top 35).

TLDR: I'm not saying that those characters aren't good, or that they can't do well, but they are significantly less (enough to be in a separate tier) competitively viable than everyone above them, and you have to draw the line somewhere. Would you put the line even lower?

 

[Frihetsanka]

MarioManTAW I disagreed with some of your placements, so I'm providing an alternative.

Easy and still good:
Good, not sure if hard:
Good, but hard:
Easy and decent at lower levels, but not great at higher levels:
Suboptimal (takes more effort to do well with):

 

[MarioMeteor]

Easy,

Not true at all. Jigglypuff and Roy take a good deal of skill to use effectively.

 

[Axel311]

I wouldn't say that this is necessarily true at all... I think smashers tend to stay in the mindset that just because god like players like Zero are able to beat more unconventional characters that they are just a waste of time to pick up learning. Any character has the potential to do well with a fair amount of practice time put into that character. Even "easy" characters like require practice. If you're a bad Cloud player, you're still going to get bodied by good players who use unconventional characters. Chances are you're never going to compete with players like Zero, MK Leo etc, therefore the element of surprise of being skilled with an unconventional character is a lot stronger than you think. Not to mention Zero has lost multiple sets to people with unconventional mains in the past. Don't put too much thought into what characters are easy to play...

And I'm not disagreeing with you for the most part. You do have to practice to do well with them. But you don't have to practice near as much as the other characters I mentioned to get the same results - which is what my point is. Why put in a year of work with when you can get the same results with 3 months of work with ? You're right that there's some value in maining an unusual character because matchup knowledge advantage, but from my experience that's not going to help you long term. People will eventually at some point learn the MU, especially on a local level where you face the same people constantly. At nationals it could be more helpful though. This was my experience from maining Wario for so long, and being the only good wario in my area. After a while everyone learned the MU and I lost that advantage. MU knowledge also helps you much less with good players. Top players in most scenes are serious about the game and they will absolutely research, practice and learn the obscure MU if they feel you're good enough a player to be a threat.

 

[MarioManTAW]

Not true at all. Jigglypuff and Roy take a good deal of skill to use effectively.

Jigglypuff should be easy, if not, it's because of how bad she is. Roy may not be super easy, but I would say that he is far easier than, say, Marth.

 

[MacSmitty]

Jigglypuff should be easy, if not, it's because of how bad she is. Roy may not be super easy, but I would say that he is far easier than, say, Marth.

Naw. Marth's sword has better knockback than Roy's on sourspots, (IDK about the Tippers,) not to also mention that Roy has more laggier and less range than Marth, so he is definitely not easy to use compared to Marth.

For the record, we're talking about competitive play and not just straight casual play right?

 

[MarioManTAW]

Naw. Marth's sword has better knockback than Roy's on sourspots, (IDK about the Tippers,) not to also mention that Roy has more laggier and less range than Marth, so he is definitely not easy to use compared to Marth.

For the record, we're talking about competitive play and not just straight casual play right?

That just makes Roy worse, not harder (or only harder by virtue of being worse). Roy is a lot simpler to control and maneuver (and comes more naturally to many with a rushdown-esque playstyle), and you don't need as much precision to land a strong hit.

EDIT: Also, yes. This is competitive play.

 

[MarioMeteor]

Jigglypuff should be easy, if not, it's because of how bad she is.

Well, she isn't. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

Roy may not be super easy, but I would say that he is far easier than, say, Marth.

Roy is easy for a beginner to pick up and play, but mastering him is difficult and requires lots of time and skill.

 

[MarshieMan]

You guys need to differentiate "bad" and "difficult".
For example, jigglypuff is a relatively straight forward character, there are no advanced techniques or complicated set ups (rest setups dont count, they arent reliable). Her recovery is basic and she has no item play or trapping.
However, she is very very weak. So she is easy to use, but has very low potential and is difficult to win with.

For the sake of the OP, he should not even consider characters below top 35 for competitive purposes, regardless of how "easy" they are to use.

Id honestly recommend opting for an easy to use character who is also top/high tier. Easy characters allow you to gain proficiency faster, and good characters have high potential. Using a good character simply improves your chances of winning, which is the whole purpose of tournaments anyways.

Id recommend learning one of the following:
Mario, Diddy, Cloud, Mewtwo, Bayo, Sonic, or Marth. Theyre all relatively easy to learn and have the tools to do really well in tournaments (particularly when playing other top tier characters, which you will face very frequently)



One thing that hasn't been mentioned is to use the counterpick strategy. Learn multiple characters from top through mid tier and figure out which MUs you prefer each for, then opt for that char on a game by game basis. This is generally more effective in a Bo5 format and in top 8s but still useful in standard Bo3 or if you know your opponents char ahead of time. Dont let people know you counterpick though or theyll double-blind you before the match starts.


Also some people like to argue that low/bottom tiers can be a viable choice due to their novelty factor. But i generally disagree because novelty alone cant overcome the bad MUs all the bottom tiers face. If youre trying to take advantage of the novelty factor, you can still choose a high tier char as long as theyre uncommon in tournaments (ie: ryu, lucario, metaknight)

 

[MarioMeteor]

You guys need to differentiate "bad" and "difficult".

You should take your own advice. Even if Jigglypuff were better, she still wouldn't be easy to use. Do you even play the character?

 

[Baby_Sneak]

You should take your own advice. Even if Jigglypuff were better, she still wouldn't be easy to use. Do you even play the character?

Every character is hard is master, this is a given.

What sets some characters apart is when their mechanical requirements exceed beyond other characters and requires more lab time to practice techs and different things. Jigglypuff is straight forward and Is mostly based on fundamentals in contrast to Meta knight who requires you to have strong familiarity with his strings, percent follow ups, and to have great execution skills to do his kill combos.

I'd also like to take the time and say that as long as the character you choose can adapt to most situation that you'll be fine. Playing someone that appeals to your playstyle is more important than picking a top tier. Unless you can find a top tier character that can do both.

My opinion:

Easier execution:

Harder execution:

???:

 

[MarshieMan]

Diddy kong is a relatively simple character to learn if you know the few ATs he has and understand the neutral.

Also you need patience like a god

 

[Nemesis561]

Jigglypuff is hard to do well with, but by no means is she a difficult character to play. She's pretty straightforward and intuitive to play

 

[Dralro]

This was not a place to have an argument about characters, he asked for characters that are generally easy to play, not each of you dummies' personal tier lists about character difficulty, if you want to know, as a general idea people accept , , , , , and Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe as more straightforward characters to play, I believe no character is easy to master or even get reasonable with, but some characters have simpler goals and are more fundamentals based, and I'd say those are my top picks, and ones that are usually agreed upon by a wide range of people across the community.

 

[MarioManTAW]

This was not a place to have an argument about characters, he asked for characters that are generally easy to play, not each of you dummies' personal tier lists about character difficulty, if you want to know, as a general idea people accept , , , , , and Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe as more straightforward characters to play, I believe no character is easy to master or even get reasonable with, but some characters have simpler goals and are more fundamentals based, and I'd say those are my top picks, and ones that are usually agreed upon by a wide range of people across the community.

Don't forget

 

[Dralro]

Don't forget

is often in there yes but I would not consider on the level of straightforwardness of those characters previously named.

 

[Bigbomb2]

and maybe are all great for easier to pick up and practice, and great for learning fundamentals. Once you have solid fundamentals, you can branch out if you so choose.

 

[MarioManTAW]

and maybe are all great for easier to pick up and practice, and great for learning fundamentals. Once you have solid fundamentals, you can branch out if you so choose.

? He may be fairly straightforward, but his tippers aren't the easiest thing to learn. would be better for that purpose.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

? He may be fairly straightforward, but his tippers aren't the easiest thing to learn. would be better for that purpose.

Nothing is complex about his moveset and hitting tippers is literally nothing but pure spacing and reading.

 

[FamilyTeam]

Spacing isn't exactly something very straightforward to learn with Marth and his moveset isn't what I would call "complex", but it's also definitely not as easy as even your average moveset.
Marth and Lucina both take quite a reasonable amount of time to even get reasonably decent at. I was over 110 hours into my Lucina before I even started feeling comfortable with how to use her tools. That's why people who switched to Marth because they watched MKLeo or some crap like that have seen 0 success.
Lucina is quite a fair bit easier than Marth, but you can't exactly look at her and say she's anywhere close to being one of the "easiest" characters exactly.

 

[Bigbomb2]

Never said easy, more fundamental based learning is what I was getting. They're great for learning how to space. Advanced combos will come naturally

 

[Dralro]

I'm not gonna get into the Marth/Lucina argument but I would never say by any means that is easy.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Spacing isn't exactly something very straightforward to learn with Marth and his moveset isn't what I would call "complex", but it's also definitely not as easy as even your average moveset.
Marth and Lucina both take quite a reasonable amount of time to even get reasonably decent at. I was over 110 hours into my Lucina before I even started feeling comfortable with how to use her tools. That's why people who switched to Marth because they watched MKLeo or some crap like that have seen 0 success.
Lucina is quite a fair bit easier than Marth, but you can't exactly look at her and say she's anywhere close to being one of the "easiest" characters exactly.

I'm not gonna get into the Marth/Lucina argument but I would never say by any means that is easy.

Good for beginners =/= easy to use competently.

Marth isn't some melee fox, falco, brawl snake, Diddy kong, olimar. He's all about and is based on a fundamental part of fighting games; spacing. He's not a setup-heavy character (though he has some and is still developing). His moveset is pretty straight forward with no special execution requirements. Just basic fundamental requirements. Same with pit.

There aint many hard characters like that in smash 4.

 

[wedl!!]

I don't play this game much but I suppose my opinion's valuable.

High execution:
Heavy on fundamentals:
"Grappler mindset":
Mixture of fundamental/technical requirements:
Requires immense knowledge of character's idiosyncrasies (specialists, so to speak):
Simplistic:

As far as characters that are good at teaching you aspects of the game:

Utilitarians:
Engine intricacies and exploiting them (DI, ledge getups, airdodges):
Footsies:
Zoning and defense:

 

[v3ga]

I don't play this game much but I suppose my opinion's valuable.

Lol wut

 

[Ravengeance]

Hard and good characters are like and and that's about it. I think they are the two hardest to play characters and they are also both top/high tier. There are a plethora of good characters and most have a more relative ease of use. There are so many characters it's hard to Tier them all based on how good they are let alone how difficult. I can tell you for example is harder to play than but it also depends greatly on how a character is played.

 

[Crystanium]

I haven't been focusing on the tier list, so I could be wrong about the placement of characters. I'll also only present those I can recall trying.

Effortless-Good:
Basic-Good:
Difficult-Good:
Moderate-Good:
Moderate-Poor:
Difficult-Poor:
Basic-Poor:

That's all I can think of for now.

 

[snorman22]

I haven't been focusing on the tier list, so I could be wrong about the placement of characters. I'll also only present those I can recall trying.

Effortless-Good:
Basic-Good:
Difficult-Good:
Moderate-Good:
Moderate-Poor:
Difficult-Poor:
Basic-Poor:

That's all I can think of for now.

What exactly is the difference between Toon link and link that separates him in your brackets

 

[Crystanium]

What exactly is the difference between Toon link and link that separates him in your brackets

They have different properties and frames. I personally feel Toon Link is easier to play as than Link, although I'd rather play as Link than Toon Link.