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Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

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DelugeFGC

Smash Stick Space Cowboy
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Plant apparently has a very solid MU spread against some of the top-tiers.
Ness is gimped and outranged, Plant can easily get rid of grenades and better disadvantage + grenade trade isn't favorable (Snake) and Olimar loses solely because of the cloud and spike ball kills Pikmin.
That are the main points. The Olimar MU was discussed a bit more further down.
None of which is really applicable, though. I can't speak for Ness, someone else did that, but Olimar slaughters Plant in the MU for the reasons I mentioned. I mean you can have two purples on deck at once to assure you can easily clank Patooie shots, and the projectile is so slow and predictable as-is it's barely a threat in neutral. People respect poison cloud waaaay too much and it's not really a threat if you know how to jump and roll. Side B alone makes Plant lose this MU, because Olimar can literally just Side B % camp plant until it builds to like 120 or so, then go in for an easy kill or wait for a free punish by making them approach. Olimar can outcamp Plant in every which way, and Olimar can outapproach plant in every which way. Olimar beats the plant BADLY offstage, I DAir spike more PP's than I do most other characters because of how linear his recovery is when going low. Plant doesn't have good juggle tools to keep Olimar off the ground for long periods, but Olimar can literally ladder juggle the Plant into the BZ with UAir's.. it's just.. no. Plant loses.

There is literally nowhere within PP's range PP can sit without being at risk for getting stuck with Side B Pikmin, more than just Whites too. From there, Plant can either take the Pikmin %, or Plant can try to try getting them off and potentially get trapped in one of its laggy moves which results in an easy punish from Olimar. Plant gets BEAT UP BAD in this MU, I spent the entire night (drunk, granted.. so this was NOT for science lmfao) playing my practice partner's PP because this subject was fresh and he likes the character. My opinions only strengthened. I kept PPY or PYB in my Pikmin lineup for 90% of the matches, it worked well, my favorite was PPY as it let me easily clank Patooie shots while not losing my only Purple, and gave me another Purple to use for Side B setups, USmash and such.. and a yellow to use for Side B, FSmash and aerials. Plant didn't stand a chance.
 
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NuzTheMonkey

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Apr 10, 2017
Messages
147
Diverting the discussion a bit here, what is the general opinion on the Links? Who do we think is the best Link? I don't know enough to contribute but I'm sure there are many people who are quite knowledgeable on the Links, and I'm really curious about this one. Is :ultlink: better than :ultyounglink:?
 

DelugeFGC

Smash Stick Space Cowboy
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Tennessee (US)
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Diverting the discussion a bit here, what is the general opinion on the Links? Who do we think is the best Link? I don't know enough to contribute but I'm sure there are many people who are quite knowledgeable on the Links, and I'm really curious about this one. Is :ultlink: better than :ultyounglink:?

I'd put Link in lower A Tier or high B Tier, Young Link somewhere in low-to-mid B Tier and Toon Link in mid-to-high C Tier. They're all viable, but Toon by far has the least to work with of the three. The only one that genuinely feels well-rounded across the board (Range, kill power, combos / follow ups, space control.. the whole shebang) is Adult Link though, so I'd say he's by far the best of the three imo.

But Young Link is far better as a counterpick and is way better in the MU's he excels in than the other three Links. So I'd say if you're looking to solo main a Link, go Adult Link, if you're just looking to have a Link on deck as a secondary for certain MU's.. Young Link all the way.
 
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Glerma

Smash Cadet
Joined
Apr 3, 2019
Messages
37
Plant apparently has a very solid MU spread against some of the top-tiers.
Ness is gimped and outranged, Plant can easily get rid of grenades and better disadvantage + grenade trade isn't favorable (Snake) and Olimar loses solely because of the cloud and spike ball kills Pikmin.
That are the main points. The Olimar MU was discussed a bit more further down.
You are a saint

You miss a little you miss a lot around here..
You are not wrong...


As for my opinion on the links, I think toon link is better than people place him, but he is still a worse version of young link and adult link so there is no real reason to play him. And between the 2, I think adult link is better with a higher skill ceiling. You can only do so much with young link in my eyes while adult link has difficult mechanics like bomb recovery that can make him more of a force to be reckoned with.
 

ARISTOS

Smash Ace
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That said, I think the nerfs were a little more harsh than you make them sound and were a bit needlessly much, though mostly I'm concerned about the effects they might have on the character's scene going forward.

I may be projecting a bit though, so for now I'll spare everyone here a long(er) winded post from me about the "why's" that I'm a bit pessimistic about Mega Man's scene going forward and just hope that I'm wrong. While also not looking forward to future balance updates.
Leaf Shield cancelling was hella lame lol, the rest of the kit is still very good
 

Lacrimosa

Smash Lord
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Mar 31, 2019
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I honestly can't say that much about Toon-Link but I guess you can still say he's competitively viable. Ri-Ma beat Zackray at Umebura with a Toon-Link but it was a very close match and it seemed Zackray couldn't find the kill move, though. Nonetheless, he was beaten with Toon-Link.
Thing is that there are very few Toon-Links around but the ones that are around do pretty well but that's true for nearly every character, except Mac, Plant. Even Ganon (who I think is severely overrated) had his shine.
And then, it was Umebura, yes, but one should take into account multiple tournaments of that tier. If we do that then Toon-Link is clearly behind the other two Links.
 

Lil Puddin

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I lothe the Links. I think they're all pretty good. Especially Link because he's got all kinds of tools to use to ease pressure (lingering Nair that can be used to combo or harass, lingering and powerful Uair/Dair, projectiles to harass with, killer UpB). Then the other Links aren't as good since they become more specialized in certain areas at the cost of others (namely less reach/power but more speed), but are definitely still viable since they share a lot of the same tools and they are faster moving even if their reach isn't the same. It's pretty hard for a character who can get a 2nd Up B to be low tier ofc lmao.

And I agree, Ganondorf is overestimated. He is soooooo much better than his Sm4sh version ofc and he's hella fast for someone so powerful with decent reach, but he still has his weaknesses. Not high tier, but definitely nowhere near bottom tier. I'm happy to say that Toon Link is most def the weakest of the LoZ characters at least.

Tink is still mid-tier, but it's nice that Zelda gets to be 2nd to last among just the LoZ cast instead of the entire roster. :secretkpop:

Hot Take: I’m going to be real, I think Plant is nowhere near bottom 5.
Bottom 5 would be characters with no kill setups, range, and so on. tbh any character who can FF Nair into another move is mid tier at the least unless they have horrendous weakspots in their kit.

Plant Gorl is definitely somewhere in mid tier. Decent ground game, clunky aerials but they're average reaching/power, great specials. Its a heavy character without the absolutely huge hurtbox. However since its hurtbox is pretty big and its body is its weapon without much intangible durations... It can get beat up pretty easily like any of the other heavies. Its throws are also pretty bad for kills, meaning it sometimes can't get kills on frail but fast characters.

Bottom 5 would be characters who just can't catch a break. With Bowser Jr being the prince of bottom tier because OOF that kit tho.
 

B_Burg

Smash Cadet
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May 1, 2019
Messages
54
Leaf Shield cancelling was hella lame lol, the rest of the kit is still very good
Eh, maybe. I would have liked to see what more could come from pellet cancelling beyond just leaf shield though.

Agreed the rest of the kit is good though, barring a few nitpicks.
 

Rizen

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Diverting the discussion a bit here, what is the general opinion on the Links? Who do we think is the best Link? I don't know enough to contribute but I'm sure there are many people who are quite knowledgeable on the Links, and I'm really curious about this one. Is :ultlink: better than :ultyounglink:?
:ultlink:'s overrated, or at least he was early on. People were putting him in top tier above characters like Snake. His usage, especially at top levels, has dropped off a lot but he's still a popular character.

There's no way Link's better than YL. They both have their strengths and weaknesses so it's somewhat comparing apples to oranges. A big reason YL exceeds Link is frame data. YL is much less punishable with better endlag on all his moves and better startup on most attacks except Utilt and Spin Attack (Hero's Spin is what Miis have). Some of the cases have significant difference like YL's DA is f8 and Link's is f20. Ftilt: YL f10, Link F15. Uair YL f5, Link f11. Link has a big sword but slow frame data, even for a swordsman. His jab is f8 making it one of the worst jabs in the game. Because this frame data difference Link is more limited to zoning with his sword and doesn't have a good GTFO plan. YL has a f4 Nair which makes MUs like Pichu much better.

YL's zoning is far superior to Link's. YL's arrows are f14 FAF 37 making them one of the best projectiles in the game whereas Link's are f16 FAF44 and don't go as far uncharged making them much less spamable. YL has a Zair which is (I think) transcendent so it's great for zoning sword characters. Link's bombs are amazing for edge guarding but worse in every other situation because he must manually detonate them. YL can act as his bomb explodes and combo one into Usmash/Fair or use them in disadvantage. Throwing a bomb down/z dropping combos into Dair giving YL a much better disadvantage than Link. YL's bombs deal roughly 11% and Link's deal only 8%. YL's boomerang combos into Fair longer than Link's.

YL's damage output is better than Link's because his moves combo so much better. Dtilt true combos for a long time, Fair 1 has 6f landing lag unlike Link's which has 11f landing lag so YL's Fair combos into Dtilt and smashes. YL's bow and bombs combo and Link's don't. YL's Dthrow combos into Nair/Uair for a longer time than Link's combos into Utilt.

Link does have his advantages. His attacks have great disjoint and kill better than YL's. Link's intercepting game with bombs and bow offstage are one of the best in the game and YL's projectiles all launch up and don't gimp. Link's grab is f6 and not a tether so he can tomahawk. Link's heavier. Link's also a less technical character and easier to play.
 

Repli.Cant

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With Bowser Jr being the prince of bottom tier because OOF that kit tho.
I genuinely don't understand how some people can think Jr. is worse than Mac tbh. You say this:

Bottom 5 would be characters with no kill setups, range, and so on
But do you know about Side B > Up B hammer (we call it RamHam for simplicity's sake) still killing at about 85-ish on most midweights (it scales up and down with weight, obviously). His range is middling despite the disjoints, but vs characters who lack disjoints or have shorter range, it allows him to space decently with stuff like fair and dtilt. He's got fastfall nair stuff, like late nair > grab > uthrow > uair strings. Side B > dair/fair/uair still works fine.

Oh, but I feel like I'm annoying everyone by spewing my same nonsense... but for the record, I don't think Jr. is bottom 5 or bottom 10 but it's whatever. He has good stuff. But he also does have some stuff that definitely could use a push. But I'll revel in my slightly added hitstun on Jab2 for now. :secretkpop:
 

Glerma

Smash Cadet
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Oh, but I feel like I'm annoying everyone by spewing my same nonsense... but for the record, I don't think Jr. is bottom 5 or bottom 10 but it's whatever. He has good stuff. But he also does have some stuff that definitely could use a push. But I'll revel in my slightly added hitstun on Jab2 for now. :secretkpop:
You are fighting an uphill battle here and I wish you luck good sir. (I agree that he is better than little mac though).
 

SwagGuy99

Smash Ace
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Dec 28, 2016
Messages
713
Toon by far has the least to work with of the three.
That may be true but I have two things to say on that:

1. What :ulttoonlink: does have is pretty good, and even if he doesn't have as many strengths. He's fast and his projectile/camping game is pretty good.

2. I don't think his weaknesses are as noticeable as the other Link's. :ulttoonlink:'s biggest issue is his lack of range and landing, both of which can be worked around in some situations using his projectile. Meanwhile, :ultlink: is really slow, has a poor recovery, is combo food, and has bad frame data, and :ultlink:'s weaknesses, unlike :ulttoonlink:'s are much harder to work around. :ultyounglink:'s weaknesses aren't nearly that bad, but he struggles to kill until ludicrous percents and he gets comboed pretty easily as well which can be worked around, but not as well as :ulttoonlink: IMO.


With that being said, here's how I'd rank the Link's:

:ultyounglink: is the best Link. He's really good at what he does, has the best MU spread, does well vs the top tiers, and even though he can struggle to kill, his combos and projectiles are good enough to get opponents to high enough percents where he can kill. His speed is pretty average but it's not bad, however he's light and can die early. I'd put him at a very very low top tier or a high high tier character.

:ulttoonlink: is the second best and is a very good example of a decent all-rounder character. Not excellent at much, but doesn't have too many weaknesses. He's mostly the same as Smash 4 and I discussed him a bit already so there's not much to say about him. He's a solid high tier.

:ultlink: is the worst Link IMO but he's by no means a bad character. He just is a lot more exploitable than the other Link's and has more weaknesses (easy to combo, bad recovery, poor frame data). However, his strengths are really good (high kill power, high survivability, good camping) which makes up for it a bit. A solid High Tier like :ulttoonlink:, but possibly on the lower end.
 

$.A.F.

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None of which is really applicable, though. I can't speak for Ness, someone else did that, but Olimar slaughters Plant in the MU for the reasons I mentioned. I mean you can have two purples on deck at once to assure you can easily clank Patooie shots, and the projectile is so slow and predictable as-is it's barely a threat in neutral. People respect poison cloud waaaay too much and it's not really a threat if you know how to jump and roll. Side B alone makes Plant lose this MU, because Olimar can literally just Side B % camp plant until it builds to like 120 or so, then go in for an easy kill or wait for a free punish by making them approach. Olimar can outcamp Plant in every which way, and Olimar can outapproach plant in every which way. Olimar beats the plant BADLY offstage, I DAir spike more PP's than I do most other characters because of how linear his recovery is when going low. Plant doesn't have good juggle tools to keep Olimar off the ground for long periods, but Olimar can literally ladder juggle the Plant into the BZ with UAir's.. it's just.. no. Plant loses.

There is literally nowhere within PP's range PP can sit without being at risk for getting stuck with Side B Pikmin, more than just Whites too. From there, Plant can either take the Pikmin %, or Plant can try to try getting them off and potentially get trapped in one of its laggy moves which results in an easy punish from Olimar. Plant gets BEAT UP BAD in this MU, I spent the entire night (drunk, granted.. so this was NOT for science lmfao) playing my practice partner's PP because this subject was fresh and he likes the character. My opinions only strengthened. I kept PPY or PYB in my Pikmin lineup for 90% of the matches, it worked well, my favorite was PPY as it let me easily clank Patooie shots while not losing my only Purple, and gave me another Purple to use for Side B setups, USmash and such.. and a yellow to use for Side B, FSmash and aerials. Plant didn't stand a chance.
So much misinformation. Purple would only stop Ptooie if already in a position not to hit Olimar. That being f smash. If a purple up smashed Ptooie, it would still drop and hit Olimar and kill the purple. Side b gets stopped by Cloud man. If you do a Ptooie drop with Plant it invalidates jumping and rolling towards him.

And who has trouble offstage? First of all Olimar’s recovery has no hitbox (unless he wants to go into free fall) and Plant has quite a few ways to hit it and great ledge trapping. He actually has a spike of his own with great knockback and is the fastest in the game not to mention knocks Olimar into an edge guard situation even if it misses. Yeah, I’m gonna have to nope the heck out on this one.
Olimar’s up air is slightly better than Plant. He isn’t laddering him with his two up airs out of a full hop or 4 where the last two are descending. Plant has the same amount of Up airs out of a full hop, and only one less in the latter situation I mentioned (as in Fullhop Up Air, DJ up air, and a descending up air or two depending on the characters mentioned). Also Ptooie is great for juggling as it can catch airdodges, does crazy damage, kills hella early, and has an even bigger hitbox now. He does have the juggle tools. I already went over half of this in my last response. Did you read it? I swear I covered almost all of this.

And again, side b doesn’t go through cloud and you can shield when it dissipates since Pikmin don’t do much shield damage, especially compared to Ptooie.

I’m not gonna lie, getting you to listen is hard. Every time I tell you anything I obligatorily say to myself “oh no he has AirPods in, he can’t hear us”. Because it seems sir that your hearing or vision is impaired, or you just don’t listen to me no matter what.
Yoyo's hitbox wasn't nerfed, the charge time nerf affected little to nothing you just need to time the release better. It still hits below the ledge just as good as it did before. The move also has mutlihits, if you are trying to clang leafs you would need to clang them all.

Also regarding juggles, Ptooie would be an effective way to stop them if Ness didn't have PKT but with PKT Ness doesn't have to be under his opponents to juggle them. If your on a platform stage Ness can sit under a platform and make landing very hard for Plant who lacks a good hitbox he can place below himself to clang the thunder ball, the tail is transcendent if you try to hit it you'll just get hit and then followed up into the thunder ball. Stalling in the air with Down B will just let the Ness get free damage and start another thunder while you are in lag before you begin descending again.

Again Ptooie in neutral isn't hard for Ness to get around. DJC PKF allows Ness to advance while throwing the fire out, at best for plant, Ness mis spaces and the fire doesn't hit Plant but Ptooie flies over head, at worst for plant Ptooie still whiffs overhead and plant is now stuck in PKF while Ness is close to him. If you've ever seen Ness vs Ivysaur, its a similar strategy to dealing with Razor leaf, DJC PKF punishes Razor Leaf very well due to the commitment of using it and allows Ness to completely avoid the leaf in return. Razor leaf being completely reactable much like Ptooie is helps with this. Ness also ha the option of just getting within Ptooie range making Plant uncomfortable, if you don't throw it it's likely you'll take a PKF, if you do throw it Ness just takes the time to go over it and get closer. Ultimately Plant's best option is to back off which gives up stage and is a net win for Ness. This isn't just Ness specific but rather anti-Ptooie counterplay. If you've ever seen Pichu or Pikachu chase after their thrown Tjolts to get grabs on opponents who shield them, it's the same concept. Don't shield it. Big difference being that the Chus are fast enough to actually capitalize if they read right after a Tjolt. Plant isn't nor can he advance once he's began a Ptooie.
Correct. I was referring to the timing. It does affect Ness pretty significantly actually in this regard since he has to do a smash attack far more often to actually to get the yo-yo hitbox back on ledge and during the smash attack he cannot have it on ledge leaving an opening more of the time. As for the leaves, they’re a multi hit too. As long as you fly them correctly the leaves should actually protect you from getting hit by the charge.

Plant gets put into a juggle situation if he recovers high no? But in this scenario since you should be either A. Just recovering from the lag of down smash or B. Doing a down smash, Plant could only really be caught by a juggle in scenario A. because of how slow PK Thunder is (frame 20, and has longer travel time than PK Thunder) so it won’t catch high recovery if Ness was using Yo-yo at ledge since there’ll be too much lag. You still actually descend using down b b and it takes the hit from thunder because armor. If you are at a range where long stem can’t hit Ness, Plant would have to be far enough away that Plant would have enough time to have gotten to the ground and shielded before Thunder would reach anyways and he wouldn’t have had to use down special because he wouldn’t have been put in a juggle. Also, the armor heavily reduces damage.

For the rest, like I said, can I get a video of the angle or something? Like for all I know DJC Pk Fire is a frame 1 warlock punch. I need answers on how it looks and what angle it travels at to see if some tech like Ptooie dropping could cover it. For now, I’ll leave this section blank. Seriously, please give me a video or place to look for one.
OK so the thing that makes Ness' recovery exploitable more than anything else is that characters with decent overall air mobility can cover everything he can do. The classic example is Marth, who has this + a disjoint and a counter. No matter how Ness moves/weaves, or when he uses his double jump, or when he uses PKT, Marth can position himself in ways that he can react and hit Ness 100% of the time pretty much.

I do not see how Plant does this.

Ness - unlike Little Mac, the original comparison - has a lot of flexibility in his recovery by virtue of his air acceleration (way more important than his top air speed here), bigass airdodge, and multiple angles on PKT2 (and PKT1).

If Plant could spit a ptooie quickly to cover the low and run off double jump bair to cover the alternative, then safe, he has a good edgeguard on Ness.

To my knowledge, Plant cannot do this. He is too slow, ptooie is too slow, and Ness is too flexible.
Either Plant needs a good read or Ness has to **** up for Plant's edgeguards to work. He has nothing special to swing the matchup in this regard like Marth or Chus for example, this totally relies on one player just outplaying the other.

IMO the best thing Plant has in this (and most?) matchups is his back air. I swear they copied that move from Zard, and it has a similar effect on the mu. It stops Ness from whaling on Plant with his forward air, which is otherwise stupidly good in this matchup since plant does not have the angles, disjoint, range, speed, or favourable risk-reward ratios to seriously discourage Ness abusing it with anything else except his back air. It plugs an important weakness for Plant in this mu, and it actually plugs it rather well.
Literally run off and hold Ptooie near ledge alone covers air dodge towards ledge if ya use any of Plant’s horizontal (f and b) throws to lob him off past 25-30. It also covers a lot of angles of PKT as well and can catch Ness’s slow double jump. And if you have a stock lead and force a PKT, (usually achieved by conditioning with run off Ptooie) You can run off and Piranhacopter him into the Blast zone when you’re at (not on) ledge for a free suicide kill.

EDIT: As for my thoughts on Link, I personally think Young Link>Than Adult. However I don’t know much with Toon Link. Some have him as low, others high. Can somebody who plays the character give me an opinion and breakdown of why that is?
 
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KirbySquad101

Smash Ace
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Sep 7, 2015
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927
That does make me wonder: Should we compare :ultlink: to the other Links at this point? I feel that his toolkit deviates too much from :ulttoonlink: and :ultyounglink:'s (having a giant a** sword, using Remote Bombs instead of traditional bomb, having a regular grab instead of a tether grab) that it makes him hard to compare to the other two. His moveset seems to suggest a more mid-range-y playtsyle as opposed to a zoner. From what I can tell, he controls the field with his disjoints and Remote Bomb/Boomerang, while he closes the gap against characters by using NAir/Bair.

I do kind of wish Salem kept using Link though, his Link was (and still is based off Round Robin performances) one of the few ones out there who made full use of his toolkit. He claimed that he still mains him, but I imagine he only uses him outside of competitive play.

T is also really solid with Link, but I feel he can be a bit too linear and reliant on his NAir sometimes compared to Salem, though I could be wrong.

That said, I do feel that people are underrating Toon Link just a tad bit here; I mean, two of them just got top 16 at a major Japan tournament, that has to mean quite a bit.
 
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Sean²

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Link has evolved into more of a trap/setup character in the vein of Duck Hunt and (sort of) Snake, while the other 2 seem to remain true zoners. Honestly he's arguably just a better Duck Hunt, if you compare how each of their traps are generally set up.
 

Lavani

Indigo Destiny
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All three Links seem pretty good to me. I'd say Young Link is better than the other two due to his combo game practically being imagination into imagination on top of good movement specs and low commitment, but I think they're all somewhere in the upper ~40% of the cast.

Toon Link is personally my least favorite despite boasting the best mobility specs, and it mainly comes down to moveset differences; every move Tink puts his own spin on, such as nair, fsmash, etc. I'd rather have the other Links' version. Whether I see him as better or worse than standard Link varies with my mood, though; they both have their merits, and I don't really see them being all that far apart unless one performs far better in key matchups.
 
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$.A.F.

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Can someone give me a breakdown on Toon Link? I have no idea what to think about his viability. Any Toon Mains, care to give insight to why he’s better/worse than public perception?
 

Browny

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So um... who is going to be responsible for making an 'official' tier list?

Since this site has died in popularity since Brawl, I don't think anyone considers this forum as any sort of authority on the matter. I can't think of a single top player who posts here anymore. I assume there's some secret group of top players who don't mention anything outside of wherever they discuss these things.

Do I need to consign myself to the fact the the 'official' tier list is just going to be a raw, unweighted average of top players' opinions?
 

NuzTheMonkey

Smash Apprentice
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Apr 10, 2017
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Is an official tier list even possible? For crying out loud, we have over 70 characters.
 

Roguewolf

Smash Lord
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Can someone give me a breakdown on Toon Link? I have no idea what to think about his viability. Any Toon Mains, care to give insight to why he’s better/worse than public perception?
He's not my main But he's one of the better charachters in my wheel house. I would put toon link in high tier and is very good his aerials link really fluently and his half zoning playstyle nixed with good mobility abdeaty attacks make him scary when played right and very fun to mess around with. I don't really like to compare the links cause I think there too different and have different playstyle so I'm not sure which one is the best. But I would say toon link is a very good character who suffers from not enough people picking him.
 

Lil Puddin

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Is an official tier list even possible? For crying out loud, we have over 70 characters.
It is. But we need to be smart about how the tier is since a lot of the characters are viable this time around.

So have a High+/- Mid +/- Low +/- or perhaps even more, but have no particular order for the characters on each separate tier. This is the one time that dummy-huge ABCDEFGHIJ Tier List size might actually have a purpose lmao.
 

Arthur97

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So um... who is going to be responsible for making an 'official' tier list?

Since this site has died in popularity since Brawl, I don't think anyone considers this forum as any sort of authority on the matter. I can't think of a single top player who posts here anymore. I assume there's some secret group of top players who don't mention anything outside of wherever they discuss these things.

Do I need to consign myself to the fact the the 'official' tier list is just going to be a raw, unweighted average of top players' opinions?
But even top players may not know much of what they're talking about outside of their areas of expertise. How many times has a professional tier list been mocked for some ludicrous choices?
 

Lil Puddin

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But even top players may not know much of what they're talking about outside of their areas of expertise. How many times has a professional tier list been mocked for some ludicrous choices?
They could just look at very specific areas of a character utilizing their frame data. Checking things like:

1) Recovery range, recovery speed, safety of recovery.
2) Aerial to ground combos for neutral footsies.
3) Range and power of moves.
4) Other combos ofc.
5) Grab game/speed/potential combos.
6) Kill setups.
7) Aerial/ground movement speeds.
8) Short hop options.
9) Longevity/survival.
10) Ranged options/ranged harassment and their effectiveness.
etc

At the end of the day, the characters are just blops of hitboxes, hurtboxes, and plenty of numbers. So it's more gauging the character's actual raw potential and consistency. And since characters are ordered by tiers alone and not tiers and then placement within each tier, it's less about being TEH ABSOLOOT BESS TIER LIST PLS TREAT LIEK WORD OF GOD!!! and more about where a character stands in the game overall.
 

The_Bookworm

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This is the one time that dummy-huge ABCDEFGHIJ Tier List size might actually have a purpose lmao.
The first SSB4 official tier list actually had something like that. lol

Is an official tier list even possible? For crying out loud, we have over 70 characters.
It is possible. But the issue is that it is too early to place an official tier list. It took SSB4 2 years to make the first one, and even then, a balance update came literally two days later from that tier list to change up the balance and introduce 2 new characters (Corrin and Bayo).

The metagame is still in a pretty underdeveloped state. It took until recently for people to see the kind of things :ultgnw::ultsonic::ulttoonlink: and :ultduckhunt: can do at top level play, plus the recent rise of already established top tiered characters (that being :ultolimar: and :ultsnake:). At this point, having an official tier list is pointless.

He's not my main But he's one of the better charachters in my wheel house. I would put toon link in high tier and is very good his aerials link really fluently and his half zoning playstyle nixed with good mobility abdeaty attacks make him scary when played right and very fun to mess around with. I don't really like to compare the links cause I think there too different and have different playstyle so I'm not sure which one is the best. But I would say toon link is a very good character who suffers from not enough people picking him.
TLink is actually probably my favorite Link for me to play personally, but that is just me. The reason behind his below average representation is because of the mindset that he just "inferior YLink" and that he doesn't have the technical stuff YLink has. ZeRo claims that he simply "too basic" in comparison to YLink.

His playstyle also kind of changed. He got his zoning abilities slightly nerfed from SSB4, and got a much better sword combat moves to compensate (like the big buffs to his already good aerials). However, some fans of his previous playstyle, like yeti, switched over to characters like Snake instead (zoning into physical attacks, plus being top tier). The end result is that there is barely any top TLink talent in USA.

However, representation of TLink outside of USA is actually somewhat solid, and those players give TLink some pretty great results (arguably even better than YLink's results overall). But that is the issue: most majors are in the USA, so that means that the only way to get top TLink talent get recognized by the general public is if the majors come to their region (like with Umebura Japan Major 2019). Hardly any of the TLink players ever come to the USA (Sigma went over to the USA only for Hyrule Saga; Ri-Ma rarely goes to the USA outside of Hyrule Saga and CEO tournaments; Hyuga can't come for obvious reasons). The end result is that TLink is probably going to be a super obscure character by the general public until majors come to the top TLink players.
 
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Rizen

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The reason behind his below average representation is because of the mindset that he just "inferior YLink" and that he doesn't have the technical stuff YLink has. ZeRo claims that he simply "too basic" in comparison to YLink.

.
People need to stop using "Basic" as a reason why characters are bad. If that were true Lucina, Wolf and Palutena shouldn't be getting the massive results they are. Protobanham proved Lucina is still very much a top tier threat.

"Basic" is neither good nor bad. Some basic characters aren't very good and others are top tier. It depends on how strong a character is balanced. Lucina may be basic but she has amazing coverage with fast hitboxes and great power. You don't need a lot of flashy tricks when Fair zones so well.
 

Lacrimosa

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I agree it's way too early to make a good tier-list, yet. We still don't know what certain characters can really do at top play (I just saw a video of Zelda at 2GGaming and the guy there used techs that are currently not really used by the top-player of that character, being Ven and Mystearica), but I think they will slowly get into it.
But the bigger reason is that we still have 4 more characters to come by in this year. The next one probably releases around July or August and we know that we will get at least 4 more balance patches. And when the last character comes out, the game will be one year old when we know better which character are more towards low or high tier. Currently, most characters are still in mid-tier but there isn't much distinction between A and B tier and the characters are all over the place in all tier-lists except the top-tiers and bottom three or four with PP, Bowser Jr., Kirby ( ;_; )and Mac. Maybe a first attempt can be done next April....
 
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Roguewolf

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The first SSB4 official tier list actually had something like that. lol


It is possible. But the issue is that it is too early to place an official tier list. It took SSB4 2 years to make the first one, and even then, a balance update came literally two days later from that tier list to change up the balance and introduce 2 new characters (Corrin and Bayo).

The metagame is still in a pretty underdeveloped state. It took until recently for people to see the kind of things :ultgnw::ultsonic::ulttoonlink: and :ultduckhunt: can do at top level play, plus the recent rise of already established top tiered characters (that being :ultolimar: and :ultsnake:). At this point, having an official tier list is pointless.


TLink is actually probably my favorite Link for me to play personally, but that is just me. The reason behind his below average representation is because of the mindset that he just "inferior YLink" and that he doesn't have the technical stuff YLink has. ZeRo claims that he simply "too basic" in comparison to YLink.

His playstyle also kind of changed. He got his zoning abilities slightly nerfed from SSB4, and got a much better sword combat moves to compensate (like the big buffs to his already good aerials). However, some fans of his previous playstyle, like yeti, switched over to characters like Snake instead (zoning into physical attacks, plus being top tier). The end result is that there is barely any top TLink talent in USA.

However, representation of TLink outside of USA is actually somewhat solid, and those players give TLink some pretty great results (arguably even better than YLink's results overall). But that is the issue: most majors are in the USA, so that means that the only way to get top TLink talent get recognized by the general public is if the majors come to their region (like with Umebura Japan Major 2019). Hardly any of the TLink players ever come to the USA (Sigma went over to the USA only for Hyrule Saga; Ri-Ma rarely goes to the USA outside of Hyrule Saga and CEO tournaments; Hyuga can't come for obvious reasons). The end result is that TLink is probably going to be a super obscure character by the general public until majors come to the top TLink players.
Toon link honestly has my favorite aerials in the game maybe it the way they play off each other or maybe its that sound they make but they feel so very good in this game.
 

Daisycakes

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Lucina may be basic but she has amazing coverage with fast hitboxes and great power.
I wouldn't really say this. Lucina's aerials all have below average knockback power in comparison to the rest of the cast.
 

Hippieslayer

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I agree it's way too early to make a good tier-list, yet. We still don't know what certain characters can really do at top play (I just saw a video of Zelda at 2GGaming and the guy there used techs that are currently not really used by the top-player of that character, being Ven and Mystearica), but I think they will slowly get into it.
But the bigger reason is that we still have 4 more characters to come by in this year. The next one probably releases around July or August and we know that we will get at least 4 more balance patches. And when the last character comes out, the game will be one year old when we know better which character are more towards low or high tier. Currently, most characters are still in mid-tier but there isn't much distinction between A and B tier and the characters are all over the place in all tier-lists except the top-tiers and bottom three or four with PP, Bowser Jr., Kirby ( ;_; )and Mac. Maybe a first attempt can be done next April....
No. Biggest reason not to do a tier list is that a majority of the cast would be speculatively dumped into mid tier without a definitive internal order unless assumptions are made to the point that the list ends up with an accuracy level similar to what you'd get if you just took a bunch of top player lists and had them average each other out.
 
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Ziodyne 21

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People need to stop using "Basic" as a reason why characters are bad. If that were true Lucina, Wolf and Palutena shouldn't be getting the massive results they are. Protobanham proved Lucina is still very much a top tier threat.

"Basic" is neither good nor bad. Some basic characters aren't very good and others are top tier. It depends on how strong a character is balanced. Lucina may be basic but she has amazing coverage with fast hitboxes and great power. You don't need a lot of flashy tricks when Fair zones so well.
I think the only character considered "basic" that is falling of is Ike, and its not even because Ike is falling down terribly hard. Its just many of his previous big name(MKLeo, Marss) seem to have gotten bored with him for lack of a better explination
 
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The_Bookworm

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I think the only character considered "basic" that is falling of is Ike, and its not even because Ike is falling down terribly hard. Its just many of his previous big name(MKLeo, Marss) seem to have gotten bored with him for lack of a better explination
The case for MkLeo: it is because he believes that he should work on better characters, like Wolf and Lucina, despite his greatest successes coming from his Ike. I just realized that his results kind of fell once he switched off of Ike (aside from Smash Ultimate Boot Camp where he went pretty much all Lucina). With him getting interested on playing Joker as well, the dream of his Ike coming back seems kind of gloom.

The case for Marss: it is because his ZSS got much better ever since he picked him up. It seems like it is better to just invest in solo ZSS right now, although he does still use Ike a lot in doubles and in friendlies.

Fortunately, Ike still has a solid playerbase with players like Ryuga repping him. I don't really see Ike getting the same peaks like in the earlier Ultimate metagame, unless Leo suddenly decides to pick him up again.
 
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ParanoidDrone

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Another vote against making a tier list right now for the typical reasons. But also I'm worried about a tier list at this stage becoming self-fulfilling, in the sense of players bandwagoning away from low tiers and toward high tiers, stifling the development of the former and accelerating the development of the latter, which then becomes a feedback loop.

There are just so many factors that go into a character's perceived "goodness."
 

Captain Sa10

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I agree with no official tier list, let alone any in general, for a long time. Any assumptions towards tiers should honestly wait until after a year of play or at least the end of the major tournaments for the year. I haven’t 100% agreed with any of them since they’ve been coming( hell the game wasn’t even a full month out and tiers were popping up).

I also think top players input and opinions can be great, but should fall under the same umbrella of speculation/grains of salt as anyone else (I mean just look at some of the information that gets tossed around for content views click-bait discussion). It's been made evidently clear that there is still lots to discuss and evaluate on various characters before everyone agrees on at least half of the casts placements (some need a bit more convincing then others). Some of the past few pages of discussion in this thread should be plenty of proof:
-I think I saw at least a range of Mid-tier to bottom 5, (or the last spot), about :ultpiranha:. I honestly don't know jack squat about the character, but the amount of information and misinformation is pretty substantial (which makes any actual assumptions on the character rather difficult to track outside of general experience). I think the same could even be said for :ultbowserjr:, :ultdiddy:, :ultgnw:, :ultpacman:, :ultridley:, :ultdk:,:ultbowser:,:ultness:,:ultlucas:, and I'm sure more characters (these are just the ones that come to mind).

-Lets not forget the constant downplay and over-exaggeration by players (especially rather vocal ones). One player putting :ultlucina: in High Tier, another downplaying her and calling her "basic"(which once again, if you've ever played any other fighting game you'd know basic doesn't mean they aren't among the best; see Fei Long, Chun-Li, Ky Kiske, etc). other characters that fall victim to this: :ultgreninja::ultchrom::ultike::ultjoker::ultpikachu::ultolimar::ultpichu::ultshulk::ultsnake::ultwolf::ultwario::ultzss::ultroy::ultpeach::ultpalutena::ultmario::ultfox::ultness::ultgnw::ultpokemontrainer::ultrob::ultrobin::ultrosalina::ultswordfighter::ulttoonlink::ultpacman::ultmegaman::ultinkling:-I think you get the picture here. While I also understand joking around being influential/being known comes with it's problems. Anything said can sometimes warp the minds of the less informed populous. So if your not particularly careful it might back fire on you( or you can just not care and speak your mind like me; it's a lonely road though-unless of course your doing it for the content, views, likes, click-bait, etc).

-There needs to be more concise and culminated data on the cast before anything concrete comes. From as much tournament results, footage, explanation, theory-crafting and application, actually agreed upon statements, etc. When you've got players complaining about a lack of consistent practice and lack of interest in competitive play then you know something isn't quite right (and that any information coming from them might also not be very credible). Of course there are two sides to every story and the truth is somewhere in the middle.

That's just my two cents on Tier's currently. Yeah I know, Smash players have been doing list since the creation of the very first one; it's something we should strive to improve instead of falling victim to it constantly. This could also be said about our tournament scene in general and "E-sports", but I'll save that for a different topic :mybodyisreggie:.
 
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$.A.F.

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IMO ParanoidDrone ParanoidDrone Captain Sa10 Captain Sa10 have the right idea. Too much stuff with characters is little known or altogether undiscovered. A tier list at this point only serves to discourage the advancement of characters ranked below a certain tier placement and we don’t have nearly enough information anyways to accurately rank a lot of characters especially mid tier which ends up as a blob with a lot of incorrect rankings that would get proven even more incorrect by the multiple advancements in character tech we haven’t seen. The only good thing that comes out of this is a false sense of closure.
 
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Rizen

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IDK why people are so afraid of making a tier list now. Yeah it's going to be inaccurate compared to future tier lists but aren't all they all? We can accurately represent the current meta even though it will change. Plus most of it is fairly obvious. We know who the top tiers, high tiers and low tiers are with few discrepancies. Tier lists are all over anyway. Might as well make one an official collaboration.
 

Frihetsanka

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The first official tier list in Smash 4 was February 1, 2016, around a year and a half after Smash 4 was released (September 13, 2014). For Brawl, the first was September 1, 2008, with it being released on January 15, 2008, so around eight months. For Melee, the first tier list was released October 8, 2002, with the game being released in the US on December 3, 2001, almost a year. I'm currently leaning towards 2020 or something like that for the first official tier list. Until then, we can make due with various top player and Reddit tier lists, I suppose. Rushing it might be a mistake.
 

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I'm not sure why there's a discussion about whether an official tier list should be made now or not when Browny was asking who would be responsible for making it, not if it should be made now or not. Is there even a UBR yet like there was a 4BR, BBR and MBR prior? If not then is there plans for there to be one? An official tier list could be made now but we know more characters and patches are coming and waiting longer gives us more time to gauge where characters should go. Top and high tier seem pretty easy to figure out right now but a lot of people seem hesitant to call many characters low tier so there'd just be a big blob that makes up mid tier. Granted, by the end of Smash 4's time, there were only 6 in low (F) tier and 4 in bottom (G) tier with the rest of the cast in lower mid (E) tier or higher, meaning a low amount of characters in low tier is possible for Ultimate.
 

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I wouldn't really say this. Lucina's aerials all have below average knockback power in comparison to the rest of the cast.
It's less about killing and more about harassing the other person and making sure they can't get a break. Her KB power is average, not below average, imo. And her ground game isn't bad and has KB on the higher side of average. She is a very solid character, but Marth is better since you should be spacing as far as possible anyway, meaning he gets rewarded for playing optimally while Lucina isn't rewarded (or penalized).
 

Arthur97

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It's less about killing and more about harassing the other person and making sure they can't get a break. Her KB power is average, not below average, imo. And her ground game isn't bad and has KB on the higher side of average. She is a very solid character, but Marth is better since you should be spacing as far as possible anyway, meaning he gets rewarded for playing optimally while Lucina isn't rewarded (or penalized).
Marth being better seems to be unpopular this time around. He can have better potential all day, but it doesn't matter if no one actually achieves it on a regular basis.
 

Rizen

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This player loses but he's quite good with lesser used characters like K.Rool and Isabelle, getting Seagull's Wolf to last stock, game 3.
 
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