Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[DelugeFGC]

That Tier List is.. no. There's too much I disagree with to even go into it all, every tier has problems imo.

 

[Arthur97]

Chrom and Roy higher than Lucina? Seems...odd. Remind me again why anyone takes these lists remotely seriously?

Also, just about every pro tier list manages to make me angry (maybe a strong word; sometimes might just be annoyed) for always going for Female Robin.

 

[SwagGuy99]

Chrom and Roy higher than Lucina? Seems...odd. Remind me again why anyone takes these lists remotely seriously?

I don't know, Mii Swordfighter's placement especially feels suspect. He has probably the best kill confirm in the game which alone should make him a mid tier at least. I figured it was worth discussing though.

 

[Arthur97]

I don't know, Mii Swordfighter's placement especially feels suspect. He has probably the best kill confirm in the game which alone should make him a mid tier at least. I figured it was worth discussing though.

I know very little about Miis especially.

Still, I hope when an official list is finally made, "pro" lists don't have too much impact. Pro info should probably be mostly limited to their areas of expertise.

 

[SwagGuy99]

I know very little about Miis especially.

Most people don't TBH. I honestly don't know much either but I know that Mii Swordfighter has at least one very strong kill confirms off of Gale Tornado or whatever special move it is. It kills at really early percents.

 

[Lavani]

Regardless of how Blank's tier list lines up with your own, there should be some appreciation for her having tiers labeled in a manner that gives you an idea for a character's ranking rather than simply ordering everyone and calling it a day. For example, Blank clearly values Luigi's explosive advantage state, and sees more overall value from Corrin's matchup-specific niches than characters such as DK or Mewtwo as a whole. That said, I'm not sure what he meant by "viable if you don't play lame as heck" in a tier with some characters who want to abuse their range advantages when able. Perhaps meaning outplaying the opponent instead of the usual slang usage?

She expanded on her Inkling reasoning in a following tweet:

They suck getting off ledge because they can't use bair as part of their "good" mixups, and they aren't great at landing in disadvantage in general, their neutral is too linear and grab is still really committal. Only really insane when up throw up air is online

That said, without any additional justification for it, Mii Swordfighter in particular feels more like a sweep-under-the-rug placement based on the previous game.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Riddles got 13th at GOML with solo , beating Anti's Mario and Mr.E's Lucina. I still think Belmonts are the most polarizing characters in the game; they probably have the best advantage state but it's balanced by a terrible offstage game. IMO they're better than mid tiers and are lower high tiers. Despite their weakness they're extremely oppressive and have a lot of safe pokes and zoning in neutral.

I'm curious what makes you think they have the best advantage state in the game. I know they're phenomenal at ledge trapping, but what about simple followups and juggles? Are they really better at pressing an advantage than, say, Pichu or Joker or whoever? (Names pulled out at random.)

EDIT: Regarding the tier list posted, I have no strong opinions about specific character placements but want to reiterate Lavani 's statement about how the descriptions of the tiers are worthwhile in and of themselves. Better than simply labeling everything S, A, B, etc. and calling it a day -- having an actual definition of each tier to work from makes things a lot better for everyone involved.

 

[Rizen]

I'm curious what makes you think they have the best advantage state in the game. I know they're phenomenal at ledge trapping, but what about simple followups and juggles? Are they really better at pressing an advantage than, say, Pichu or Joker or whoever? (Names pulled out at random.)

EDIT: Regarding the tier list posted, I have no strong opinions about specific character placements but want to reiterate Lavani 's statement about how the descriptions of the tiers are worthwhile in and of themselves. Better than simply labeling everything S, A, B, etc. and calling it a day -- having an actual definition of each tier to work from makes things a lot better for everyone involved.

Belmont can ledge trap harder than anyone else including characters like Pichu because by the time you get to the ledge they've got a Ness' PKFire hitbox burning and axe overhead, which can break shields, and are ready to react with whips longer than Shulk's sword. The same basic scenario applies to landing vs them; their option and space coverage far exceeds anyone else's. Pichu is quick and can juggle hard but he's still one little rat. Belmont's a minefield.

I do admit other characters are better at offstage intercepting.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Roy higher than Lucina? Probably.
Chrom higher than Lucina? Uhh, I don't think so.

Really though. Why do keep people rating Chrom that high? His recovery is garbage² (Shoyo James's Chrom got exploited really hard by Leo at GOML because of that) and on-stage he isn't all that much better than the other FE-swordies, although he hits the hardest.

 

[Sean²]

So Blank just made a tier list. https://twitter.com/BlankSmash/status/1130867989899669505

View attachment 222873

There's some interesting opinions here that may be worth discussing:

• Luigi is pretty high considering many people seem to think of him as a low mid/low tier.
• Capt. Falcon is (again) very high up compared to where people usually rank him.
• Duck Hunt, Bayonetta, and Ice Climbers are ranked in B+ Tier which is much higher than I normally see people rank them.
• Pirahna Plant isn't low tier.
• DK is quite low although that's kind of a recent trend that I've noticed in other places as well, not just here.
• Roy and Chrom are higher than Lucaina in the highest tier.
• Villager and Isabelle are ranked right next to each other in C Tier.
• Mii Swordfighter is in the lowest tier. Not sure if this is meant to reflect 1111 Mii Swordfighter but either way, I can't really see him being that low.

I don't understand. What is with that Chrom and Roy spot. Everything else IDC about but you can almost expect to gimp Chrom at the very least once per match. This guy is making some really hard reads.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Alright, I guess I'm gonna take a stab at it anyway.

Joker is about a tier or two too high up at the least. Chrom is about two tiers higher than he should be, Roy at LEAST one tier if not two. Lucina is too low. Palutena is imo slightttttttly too low, Megaman is too high (about a tier and half imo), Wario is at least a tier too low, Inkling is at least a tier too low if not two tiers, Luigi is about two tiers too high up, Falco is about two tiers too high up, Duck Hunt is abysmally high up compared to where he should be, Diddy is about a tier too high, D3 is about a tier too high, IC's are 1-2 tiers too high, MK is about half a tier higher than he should be, Bayonetta is far, far higher than she should be, Yoshi is about two tiers higher than he should be, Doc's placement and Mii SF's placements are almost laughable..

That actually may be one of the most controversial / polarizing tier lists I've ever seen put out, to be honest.

 

[Gleam]

I feel a majority of Tier Lists are negated by simple stat data.

in Low Tier despite ranking #36 on Orion. Which is kind of surprising, most people do the opposite and put him in High Tier.

Regardless this tells me one of two things.

1.) The Smash community is garbage and can't beat this weak POS Gorilla.

2.) is a decent character and gets these results because of his capabilities.

Personally, I think it's #1, Maybe if you clowns got better at the game, would drop down to #59 where he belongs. (He also has dropped quite a bit, so you stop that now Ridley)

 

[Rizen]

(Shoyo James's Chrom got exploited really hard by Leo at GOML because of that) and on-stage he isn't all that much better than the other FE-swordies, although he hits the hardest.

This is kind of cherry picking. You could also say solo Chrom beat Myran and got 7th of 847 people at GOML.

For now there isn't a definite answer to who's better, Roy or Chrom? They both are getting results and it seems to be player preference.

Roy's recovery's better but Chrom's goes higher vertically from eyeballing it on training mode? Is this correct?

 

[Lacrimosa]

This is kind of cherry picking. You could also say solo Chrom beat Myran and got 7th of 847 people at GOML.

For now there isn't a definite answer to who's better, Roy or Chrom? They both are getting results and it seems to be player preference.

Roy's recovery's better but Chrom's goes higher vertically from eyeballing it on training mode? Is this correct?

I think most people are actually quite afraid of dealing against Chrom off-stage. One wrong move and you get an upB suicide. Leo showed that you have to get him when he airdodged. In that time window, he can't act at all. Since it gives him the aerial drift he needs, it's pretty much guaranteed that he airdodges.

I actually wonder how this will develop. Not too many players are that active off-stage, yet. But players like Leo or ESAM are going off-stage quite often and it really pays off against characters like Chrom. The question is how to get Chrom off-stage because his ground game is really damn good, no doubt there. But I think he will eventually fall out of top-tier, maybe even high-tier when people are less afraid going off-stage with their characters. Even a Wolf should be able to hit Chrom once during that airdodge window and make it back safely.

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

No character that is as good at the other states of the game will fall out of high tier unless their disadvantage is truly unsalvageable and Chrom's isn't. Despite how exploitable he is in that game state he does well enough in the other game states to be useable enough. High tier characters usually are good characters they just lack in one area enough to be exploitable but a good player can work around those limitations well. As you get towards mid tier the characters weaknesses start to even out with their strengths and I don't think Chrom fits that bill or will, atleast for a while.

 

[Arthur97]

Plus, Chrom seems to make people forget that Roy's recovery still isn't great.

 

[DunnoBro]

Belmont can ledge trap harder than anyone else including characters like Pichu because by the time you get to the ledge they've got a Ness' PKFire hitbox burning and axe overhead, which can break shields, and are ready to react with whips longer than Shulk's sword. The same basic scenario applies to landing vs them; their option and space coverage far exceeds anyone else's. Pichu is quick and can juggle hard but he's still one little rat. Belmont's a minefield.

I do admit other characters are better at offstage intercepting.

This, and also their 'juggle/onstage advantage' state, while perhaps not as immediately rewarding as say Joker, Pichu, etc. Is extremely non-committal, and varied.

Pichu Ftilt and Grabs still have a semblance of commitment. Axes and Holy Water do not.

 

[Minordeth]

Really though. Why do keep people rating Chrom that high? His recovery is garbage² (Shoyo James's Chrom got exploited really hard by Leo at GOML because of that) and on-stage he isn't all that much better than the other FE-swordies, although he hits the hardest.

1.) Recovery is probably the most overrated factors when it comes to a character’s capability. How many top tiers in Smash, as a series, have or have had relatively bad recovery?

2.) Shoyo James’ Chrom didn’t get exploited because of his bad recovery. He got rolled because Leo adapted incredibly fast to James‘ pressure game, and exploited his tendencies.

He became clearly flustered given that he mistimed and miss-spaced Soaring Slash a few times, which led to stocks being taken. He also didn’t capitalize on his ledge game, where Chrom excels (to his credit, James recognized this), or set up the tech-chasing game that he normally plays so well.

3.) Roy hits harder than Chrom does given his sweetspot.

This is kind of cherry picking. You could also say solo Chrom beat Myran and got 7th of 847 people at GOML.

For now there isn't a definite answer to who's better, Roy or Chrom? They both are getting results and it seems to be player preference.

Roy's recovery's better but Chrom's goes higher vertically from eyeballing it on training mode? Is this correct?

Yes. If you are good with your spacing, Chrom can go rather deep and make it back without encountering counter shenanigans and make it almost impossible to hit him while he is vulnerable.

I think most people are actually quite afraid of dealing against Chrom off-stage. One wrong move and you get an upB suicide. Leo showed that you have to get him when he airdodged. In that time window, he can't act at all. Since it gives him the aerial drift he needs, it's pretty much guaranteed that he airdodges.

I actually wonder how this will develop. Not too many players are that active off-stage, yet. But players like Leo or ESAM are going off-stage quite often and it really pays off against characters like Chrom. The question is how to get Chrom off-stage because his ground game is really damn good, no doubt there. But I think he will eventually fall out of top-tier, maybe even high-tier when people are less afraid going off-stage with their characters. Even a Wolf should be able to hit Chrom once during that airdodge window and make it back safely.

Uh. I don’t know exactly what you mean to say here, but the reasons people don’t want to go off and edge guard Chrom are:

1.) If you miss an edge guard, you potentially give up the ledge to one of the best ledge-trappers in the game.

2.) Directional air dodge mix-ups aren’t easy to intercept, and given their necessarily close proximity to the stage, you run into the above risk.

3.) Chromicide, which can be combo’d into from Fair, which has low FAF.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

So Blank just made a tier list. https://twitter.com/BlankSmash/status/1130867989899669505

SNIP
There's some interesting opinions here that may be worth discussing:

• Luigi is pretty high considering many people seem to think of him as a low mid/low tier.
• Capt. Falcon is (again) very high up compared to where people usually rank him.
• Duck Hunt, Bayonetta, and Ice Climbers are ranked in B+ Tier which is much higher than I normally see people rank them.
• Pirahna Plant isn't low tier.
• DK is quite low although that's kind of a recent trend that I've noticed in other places as well, not just here.
• Roy and Chrom are higher than Lucaina in the highest tier.
• Villager and Isabelle are ranked right next to each other in C Tier.
• Mii Swordfighter is in the lowest tier. Not sure if this is meant to reflect 1111 Mii Swordfighter but either way, I can't really see him being that low.

Meh, I'm not a fan of this list.

Honestly the biggest offender to come out of this is Blank's crummy behavior towards any posts questioning his placements.
Although I don't encourage anyone start anything with him, I am kind of okay with how many "why is X in Y tier" replies he's been getting out of it.

 

[Arthur97]

It is kind of ironic that Chrom does take a bit of care when recovering given how reckless he is as a character.

Still though, given Roy's recovery is not great, Soaring Slash's utility offensively, Chrom's greater ability to space with greater effective range (and in a case or two, potentially greater actual range) while still hitting really hard and fast, why shouldn't he still be in the running compared to Roy? Plus, he doesn't have to deal with those sourspot sound effects. Ugh.

 

[Anomika]

At first glance, it looked alright... but the more I look at it, the more confused I get...

 

[KirbySquad101]

As of now, it seems rather hard to determine which one's the better of the two atm. Both have really solid results, as well as strong reps backing them up: Chrom has Shoyo James and Mr. R backing him up, while Roy has Goblin and now Tweek on his side (there's a few others for both, but I'm too lazy to name them atm lol).

I am gonna defend a little here: The dude hits like a freaking truck. His sweet spots are about as powerful as Marth's tippers, and while Chrom's consistent blade is strong overall, I feel the differences in their power is a bigger factor to consider than in the Marth/Lucina comparison. Mainly for 2 reasons: 1. Landing Roy's sweetpots isn't nearly as much of a struggle, nor is it as inconsistent as landing Marth's tippers, and 2. Unlike Marth, Roy has legitimate confirms into sweetspots (anyone who say the GF of Tweek against Marss knows how ridiculous Jab + BAir is). Jab is ridiculous for this, but NAir is a solid KO confirm, and I remember hearing about the weak hit of UAir being a KO confirm.

Now, I'm not saying that Roy is better than Chrom by any means, because Chrom has a lot going for himself as well: Chrom can hit hard while having better juggling and spacing capabilities, and his recovery is not that much worse than Roy's in all honesty. His consistent blade also makes his cover options against opponents in disadvantageous states pretty scary as well (most particularly forward tilt).

I do think the gap between the two is much closer than between Marth and Lucina, however.

 

[Rran]

Has this been posted?

(MEGAPOST) Smash Ultimate Statistics Driven Tier List (Data collection from PGR Events)

Honestly, I don't know enough about the fanbase's analytical insights into Ultimate's rankings to say one way or the other how favorably this tier list matches up, but it's interesting to see a list based purely on empirical data.

 

[PK Bash]

Aight I seem to have missed some Belmont discussion, but I'm going back to it anyway because this is by far my favourite character in this game to play as and I'll be damned if I miss the one time people want to talk about him.

Belmont's problem is really not his matchups. It's easily his recovery and even if you literally never go off the level, you can still abuse this weakness to hell. Essentially, in any position where Belmont is currently off the level but close to the edge, or can be put in a position where one more hit will put Belmont far off the level (for examples of this, you can imagine Ness' forward air strings into Nair, Joker Forward Air > Dash Attack, or Fox going for a back air off of a throw) Belmont is often forced to either airdodge to centre stage or jump over your head. His attacks are too slow or otherwise flawed to help him here except Uppercut (which doesn't get him out for free every time obviously) and with his bad air mobility (and subsequent recovery), he can't rely on a weave and he definitely cannot risk taking that hit under the vast majority of circumstances because he just won't make it back. (Janky tether coding only exacerbates this problem further.)

Of course, there is a fair bit more nuance than this, but this is the basic principle. It's sort of a 50-50 where Belmont winning it resets neutral at best (this best case scenario is far from a certainty) but Belmont losing it basically guarantees his death regardless of %. Unusually for this game, Belmont doesn't get second chances. This is what holds him back the most and there is nothing character dependent about it, it's just a basic principle of playing the game that Belmont is exceptionally vulnerable to.

For the record, Wolf is indeed an especially bad matchup but it's not because of Shine. Its mostly a combination of the above principle (I know I said it's not an MU thing but thanks to his fall speed, Wolf is very good at abusing this flaw as he can threaten to cover jump and then just land and down smash the airdodge, and that down smash is nasty for Simon) and Wolf just having better hitboxes, being able to reliably attack Simon on his diagonal up-forward blindspot, Blaster really being a massive ballache for everything Simon wants to be doing... things like that. It is definitely not Shine that people should be talking about for this mu.

With regards to his advantage state:
I think people may have confused a strong general advantage state with an extremely powerful win condition in Holy Water > FSmash.

However, it is probably worth saying at this point that the advantage state of zoners tends to be underrated, which I would attribute to people treating the relationship between advantage state and neutral as like an on-off switch sort of thing. As we all know but haven't really articulated, there is a lot more going on in the "middle", and this kind of middle ground of establishing the opening that will let you segway into our more concrete ideas of advantage state is what zoners in particular are very good at taking advantage of: safely poking the shield (zoners are great at conditioning shields in the first place too) and then covering OOS options, as one example. (Young Link in particular is super good at this.)

Regardless, it's safe to say Simon will never be meta. Partially due to certain matchups, but there's definitely a bigger problem than that.

 

[DelugeFGC]

All said the Belmonts seem to be fairly prevalent as at the very least a CP from what I've seen, seeing them isn't anywhere near as rare as other characters and the MU's they DO manage to steal (like the Olimar MU) are far too valuable to call them 'not meta'.

Disagreed.

 

[Terotrous]

The more I watch MkLeo's Joker, the more I am convinced Smash 4 Sheik players should just switch to him.

Honestly, I don't really see why everyone thinks he's new Sheik. Is it just because of Uair? I mean sure, it's similar, but it's just one move.

Personally, I see Joker as being one of the best characters in what I'd call the "Hybrid Zoner" class, these are characters that can zone to some degree but can also go in. It generally requires a strong, flexible projectile (like Eiga), good movement speed and dash options to quickly close space (Joker has a good DA, and Dtilt and Ftilt are also both good options out of dash), and some good up close options. I've personally used Joker as a replacement for Yoshi, who IMO has lost the "dash options" part of this playstyle (his DA sucks now and Ftilt is too stubby to really work as a replacement).

I mean, I suppose Shiek could technically be played this way, but I don't feel like Needles really do the zoning job quite well enough, that's why she's almost always played as rushdown.

Another big difference from Shiek is that Joker doesn't struggle to kill. FSmash is very fast and strong, and his ground speed makes it a very potent whiff punish. When Arsene is out, most aerials also kill decently early.

 

[PK Bash]

All said the Belmonts seem to be fairly prevalent as at the very least a CP from what I've seen, seeing them isn't anywhere near as rare as other characters and the MU's they DO manage to steal (like the Olimar MU) are far too valuable to call them 'not meta'.

Disagreed.

Well, since you clearly put just as much if not more thought into this response as I put into the post you are addressing, I thought it would be an injustice to you if I didn't take time to properly assess the argument you present using data and evidence. I mean, god forbid I totally and unequivocally dismiss a reasonably-argued hypothesis with just two lines of text that have barely any relevance to the contents of your post. Right?

All said the Belmonts seem to be fairly prevalent as at the very least a CP from what I've seen, seeing them isn't anywhere near as rare as other characters

So you may remember at the start of the month I wrote a big big sheet of character representation at Umebura Japan Major (which, may I remind you, was less than a month ago and had over 1,000 entrants) which for the sake of ease I will link again here.

Where are the two Belmonts here?
Seven Richters (only three solo mains) and two Simons (no solo mains).
For the sake of comparison, there were a similar number of Ice Climbers (who had more solo players), which I hope puts it into perspective.

If you want to research where these Belmont players placed and how much they actually used their Belmont during the tournament (or feel free to use any other major) to support your argument, go for it - I'd totally respect that angle of attack. You can find the tags of the Umebura Belmont players here and the smashgg page here.

the MU's they DO manage to steal

And what MUs would those be exactly? You seem to have pulled this out of totally nowhere as far as I can tell - and I keep up with the Belmont meta pretty closely.

'not meta'

'Not meta' does not necessarily mean a character is bad.

Disagreed.

Same.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Has this been posted?

(MEGAPOST) Smash Ultimate Statistics Driven Tier List (Data collection from PGR Events)

Honestly, I don't know enough about the fanbase's analytical insights into Ultimate's rankings to say one way or the other how favorably this tier list matches up, but it's interesting to see a list based purely on empirical data.

This is neat, but I kind of dislike solely results-based tier lists because they have a sort of built-in "selection bias." Top players choose characters they think are good naturally but could probably do well with a character several "tiers" below what they've chosen. Generally this leaves less popular characters in low or mid tier despite the fact that they could very well produce results if someone like Nairo, Light, Samsora, Awestin, or whoever, was playing them.

For an example of this, you need look no further than Melee Jigglypuff or Pikachu, who are characters capable of top level performance but weren't really represented until recently. Or Brawl ZSS, who was literally below Zelda on the first Brawl tier list but eventually won majors in the US and Japan and is considered top 5 or 6 these days by those still playing it. No one played ZSS at a level that could consistently beat other top players until the last two years or so of the game's life. Or SF4 El Fuerte, who was considered a low tier character by a lot of people until Pepeday started ruining everyone's life with him.

Top players are gonna win with whatever character they choose within reason, so it's not really "fair" to create tier lists that weigh so heavily to results, especially not so early on.

 

[Terotrous]

This is neat, but I kind of dislike solely results-based tier lists because they have a sort of built-in "selection bias." Top players choose characters they think are good naturally but could probably do well with a character several "tiers" below what they've chosen. Generally this leaves less popular characters in low or mid tier despite the fact that they could very well produce results if someone like Nairo, Light, Samsora, Awestin, or whoever, was playing them.

For an example of this, you need look no further than Melee Jigglypuff or Pikachu, who are characters capable of top level performance but weren't really represented until recently. Or Brawl ZSS, who was literally below Zelda on the first Brawl tier list but eventually won majors in the US and Japan and is considered top 5 or 6 these days by those still playing it. Or SF4 El Fuerte, who was considered a low tier character by a lot of people until Pepeday started ruining everyone's life with him.

Top players are gonna win with whatever character they choose within reason, so it's not really "fair" to create tier lists that weigh so heavily to results, especially not so early on.

I don't think this is actually that true anymore, Smash is so huge now that the competition is really fierce even among the top players. Do you remember when Nairo used to play Robin and Zero used to play Falcon? Even though they were pretty passionate about those characters they didn't get anywhere near the results they did with Rosa and Diddy. There's a reason so many pros go through "character crises", they're looking for characters that they like and can also get them the results that they want.

Of course, it's possible that some characters are slept on, especially those where there's not too much data, but for the most part I think you'd find the results are likely a pretty good estimate of what characters are good - it just might not be the best estimate of what characters are bad.

 

[Lacrimosa]

Plus, Chrom seems to make people forget that Roy's recovery still isn't great.

It still isn't the bottom of the barrel. You at least get horizontal distance, that's something you can forget with Chrom.
Notice that I compare Chrom's to Roy's recovery. Or rather, I think I want to focus on their recoveries. And in that regard, there is no denial that Roy's recovery is much, much bette. To an extent where I say he's probably top-tier and Chrom "only" a high-tier. Chrom may be more oppressive on stage but there is also a lot of off-stage play, much more than in Sm4sh.

 

[Gleam]

I find the excuse that a character's lack of results comes from being slept on or lack of popularity to be a flimsy excuse at best. IMO, it's a weak kind of excuse people used to make themselves feel fetter.

would get far better results if people played her more, she's being slept on.

Maybe the reason doesn't get jack for results is because she sucks and because she sucks nobody wants to play her.


This "popularity" excuse, while it might have some merit and some characters may certainly be hindered by such an excuse, just feels arrogant.

Imagine how arrogant it must sound if I said "The only reason went from #26 to #36 on OrionStats was because less people used him. If Ridley was more popular he'd jump back to #26 or higher! People just need to stop sleeping on him."

And while I think many do sleep on Ridley, that's more so because many people put him in places that are much, much lower than what his results, even if they have fallen, indicate. But perhaps it's more humble and better to say that the reason Ridley dropped isn't because of lack of popularity, but simply because he's been unable to stay around with the meta.

What makes or any of these "slept on" characters any different?

 

[Envoy of Chaos]

I find the excuse that a character's lack of results comes from being slept on or lack of popularity to be a flimsy excuse at best. IMO, it's a weak kind of excuse people used to make themselves feel fetter.

would get far better results if people played her more, she's being slept on.

Maybe the reason doesn't get jack for results is because she sucks and because she sucks nobody wants to play her.


This "popularity" excuse, while it might have some merit and some characters may certainly be hindered by such an excuse, just feels arrogant.

Imagine how arrogant it must sound if I said "The only reason went from #26 to #36 on OrionStats was because less people used him. If Ridley was more popular he'd jump back to #26 or higher! People just need to stop sleeping on him."

And while I think many do sleep on Ridley, that's more so because many people put him in places that are much, much lower than what his results, even if they have fallen, indicate. But perhaps it's more humble and better to say that the reason Ridley dropped isn't because of lack of popularity, but simply because he's been unable to stay around with the meta.

What makes or any of these "slept on" characters any different?

This is a long running franchise using some of the most storied characters in Nintendo and now even gaming history. Some of these characters are twice as old as the people playing the game and they all have their own storied franchises, histories and personalities. Heck smash bros only happened because the prototype wasn't deemed marketable until they slapped Nintendo characters into it. Popularity absolutely does matter. It matters far less the higher in level of play you get yes but unless the character is just straight bad or not worth the effort people will play them and can do just fine with them outside of higher levels of play. Wii Fit is often overlooked because she's not a top tier character with an odd playstyle who is even more odd of an fighter to include in an fighting game to begin with. It's completely plausible for people to overlook her because of this. She's never going to be the first, second or hell tenth character you think of when thinking of Smash unless you main her or have a main of her you play with often and that lack of exposure can lead to a slower growth of her meta and overall determination of her competitive viability.

You see how quickly people started to doubt the top tier viability of Chrom or the Belmonts from release date till now? The characters were super popular and highly requested additions and they got played out much at the very beginning people started to figure them out quicker. Don't be so dismissive of a non competitive factor such as popularity when it comes to a characters metagame. It makes sense why it shouldn't matter but it does.

 

[Arthur97]

It still isn't the bottom of the barrel. You at least get horizontal distance, that's something you can forget with Chrom.
Notice that I compare Chrom's to Roy's recovery. Or rather, I think I want to focus on their recoveries. And in that regard, there is no denial that Roy's recovery is much, much bette. To an extent where I say he's probably top-tier and Chrom "only" a high-tier. Chrom may be more oppressive on stage but there is also a lot of off-stage play, much more than in Sm4sh.

You're putting a lot of emphasis on the recovery then. Also, again, Roy's is undeniably better, but by putting them in a vacuum, you ignore the fact its still not good and Soaring Slash has its own advantages outside of recovery. Being better but still bad is still bad. Roy essentially has one more, relatively slow moving option to get back. Besides, Chrom can go lower offstage to edgeguard for what it's worth. It's not like Roy can go super deep and so long as you're within double jump range, Chrom's even sword may actually give him an advantage there. There's just more risk if you get caught or go too deep.

 

[Rizen]

Wii Fit is often overlooked because she's not a top tier character with an odd playstyle who is even more odd of an fighter to include in an fighting game to begin with. It's completely plausible for people to overlook her because of this. She's never going to be the first, second or hell tenth character you think of when thinking of Smash unless you main her or have a main of her you play with often and that lack of exposure can lead to a slower growth of her meta and overall determination of her competitive viability.

You see how quickly people started to doubt the top tier viability of Chrom or the Belmonts from release date till now? The characters were super popular and highly requested additions and they got played out much at the very beginning people started to figure them out quicker. Don't be so dismissive of a non competitive factor such as popularity when it comes to a characters metagame. It makes sense why it shouldn't matter but it does.

If WFT was actually good she wouldn't be overlooked. You could make the same popularity comparison about Bayonetta but she was amazingly good and ended up the best character in SSB4. Popularity has some influence in the short term but the cream rises to the top. People are going to play and get results with characters who can win regardless of their games.

Chrom was a top tier with kamikaze jank then he got nerfed. Belmont got counterplay to exploit their recovery weakness. But they're both still high tiers (although Belmont's arguable) getting 7th and 13th respectively solo at GOML. It's not like they dropped out of the meta.

 

[Idon]

Remember when Olimar was a character everyone was super hyped for and had millions of fans salivating over how he'd change going into SSBU?

Because I don't.

 

[Gleam]

According to the SSBWorld Character usage for tournaments in Ultimate...





All of these characters have less people people playing them then but all hold 10-20 spots higher.

Now Joker is a new character so he's the oddball but lack of popularity hasn't stopped these characters from getting results.

Being popular has not suddenly made win majors constantly.

is played only a bit more than and while I question the notion of him being "Top Tier" He is currently ranked #30 on OrionStat and has been improving and for me personally, Shulk being on the cusps end of High Tier is perfectly acceptable. Lack of popularity didn't stop him.

I find it funny that many of these unpopular characters still rank 10-20 spots higher than .

Popularity is nothing more than an excuse IMO. A good character will get good results regardless of their popularity and bad characters will remain stagnant and fall no matter how many people use them.

 

[Justin Allen Goldschmidt]

Remember when Olimar was a character everyone was super hyped for and had millions of fans salivating over how he'd change going into SSBU?

Because I don't.

I only remember him being in my top 5 least-favorite personal match-ups three games in a row. I should probably just learn to play him a bit to learn more concrete character weaknesses, which is a tactic that seems surprisingly under-discussed around here.

 

[Lancerech]

You're putting a lot of emphasis on the recovery then. Also, again, Roy's is undeniably better, but by putting them in a vacuum, you ignore the fact its still not good and Soaring Slash has its own advantages outside of recovery. Being better but still bad is still bad. Roy essentially has one more, relatively slow moving option to get back. Besides, Chrom can go lower offstage to edgeguard for what it's worth. It's not like Roy can go super deep and so long as you're within double jump range, Chrom's even sword may actually give him an advantage there. There's just more risk if you get caught or go too deep.

Even though I would call Blazer mediocre as a recovery, there's more mixup opportunity than you do with Soaring Slash, since at least you have the option to blow up B earlier to hit someone and catch the ledge or Up B high in certain scenarios. He can also play the horizontal offstage game much better and take risks that Chrom can't. You can even see it in the Tweek vs Marss GF where he uses his DJ to kill ZSS with Fair in the second game. If he missed that with Chrom, he would have lost his stock then and there, while with Roy the risks are much lower. Don't get me wrong, I don't think Roy is necessarily better, but people are treating his recovery like it's only one character spot above Chrom's which absolutely isn't the case.

 

[Arthur97]

His recovery is several spaces above Chrom despite still potentially being in the lower half, but at the same time, people might be overemphasizing it. Soaring Slash may not be universally better as an attack, but it does have advantages that need to be addressed like sheer damage output. Overall, despite Roy's recovery better, my argument is that it isn't enough to outright make him better. Especially not when Chrom has advantages of his own that counteract them.

 

[Daisycakes]

If it counts, I have found out that all of Marth's tipper hitboxes are unchanged from Smash 4 with the exception of fair, bair, nair, jab, and Dancing Blade.

Besides forward tilt, Chrom doesn't really have many advantages over Roy. The difference in feel comes from the hitlag modifiers. Roy's sourspots have additional hitlag so they feel heavier.

He has the no sourspot thing but the sword itself is so small and his movement unaccommodating for it, that you would rather pick Marth to do the job. Yes, I still think that Marth is the best out of the four.