Dealing with the stress of playing non-top tier

[NGUY (guitarstage)]

you can be tyhe guy to make him a mid tier or even high tier

 

[Dr. Bread]

most top players consider meta knight mid-tier. not sure if he's better or worse than kirby but people do better with MK than any kirby mains rn so dunno

meta knight honestly just feels kinda sluggish in this game, just the right amount of lag to make it feel like you can't really get a rhythm going tbh

 

[LightLV]

Stress? I think the knowledge that you're playing handicapped is much less of a stress on you.

Playing top-tier vs. top-tier is probably the most stressful, there are no excuses to your losses.

I walk into a tournament with Zelda and lose? Oh, uh, everything's going as expected. Carry on...

 

[GhettoNinja]

I Main Kirby and I've mained plenty of characters such as Samus, Doc because they simply felt right. If you want to improve your chances of winning you need to improve your tech skill, learn MU's and look for new combos, setups, etc. For example if you go on the Kirby Boards you'll see many posts about new throw combos, spike set ups/true combos. You need to talk with other people who main your character and push him.

 

[Mizzy Moe]

i dont think meta knight is low tier at all i dont know what you guys are talkin about. he has an amazing recover, great kill combos, fantastic off stage game, combos for days. i definately think hes high tier if not high mid tier. and to op if you feel that way get a secondary or try and learn every matchup.

one of the matchups that i consistently have a problem with is rosalina. honestly i was kinda mad that she got a buff in the patch cuz honestly why did she need it? i woulda been alot happier to see her with the diddy nerf and diddy with the buff cuz i dont see diddy as much of a problem (especially now after these huge nerfs hes taken the past patches). so sometimes you just HAVE to learn the matchups and a secondary wont cut it but thats just my thought

 

[nubilepoopile]

I'm in the same place, recently switching over from / to . It's really frustrating to just get sniped by Link all day, but I guess we've just gotta suffer for the characters we love. I keep Diddy and Fox on deck for really bad match ups, but I'd always rather be winning with DK so it's not really a solution.

At least you'll be notable. No one's gonna look twice at a decent Sheik, but a Meta Knight doing well in tournaments turns heads.

 

[Zylach]

I think one of the most inspirational things I've seen lately has been ESAM pulling out Samus, and winning a game with her, at CEO. As a Zelda main, I know what it means to be put off by facing high/top tiers as, what a lot of people claim, to be the absolute worst character in the game. I'm constantly having it shoved in my face that Zelda is absolute trash whether it be the reddit tier list or randoms online making fun of my character by making names like "Ragda" even as we go even in matches. At the same time, I'm consistently taking top 5 spots in local tournaments here in Wisconsin. That mainly comes from knowing my character's every nuance while understanding how my opponents play. Ultimately, you can know everything there is to know about your character but if you don't know your opponent, you'll probably lose. The mental game of smash is so much more important than the character select. Yeah, some characters have bad matchups against others that's a small part in the big picture of your matchup against your opponent. Know your characters options. Know your opponent's patterns. Together, these two things help you win, not your character's tier placement.

 

[Tito Maas]

I hate how characters like Pit have flaws and are made to be nothing better than middle tier when there are characters like Captain Falcon who just seem like they're made to be the best character in the game. It's incredible. I hate that I have to go the extra mile because they decide to balance my characters (Dark Pit, Pit, Lucas, Little Mac), while playing my friends who use Ness and Captain Falcon and Sheik and Luigi and Rosalina, y'no, characters who seemingly have no faults.

I wanted to pick up Mewtwo so bad but he's so horrifically balanced that I can't dream of competing against people with him when my friends use such good characters.

That's the real difference between top tier and everyone else. The "everyone else" part are just characters who were balanced.

But I love Dark Pit and will continue to play with him. He's received buffs that have eliminated a lot of complaints I had for him and Pit1 when I first started playing with him. I really don't complain about using either of the Pits, and I don't think anyone should because they're solid characters (just like Meta Knight tbh). It just astounds me how the Captain Falcons and Foxes of the game are just so far superior.

 

[Zylach]

I hate how characters like Pit have flaws and are made to be nothing better than middle tier when there are characters like Captain Falcon who just seem like they're made to be the best character in the game. It's incredible. I hate that I have to go the extra mile because they decide to balance my characters (Dark Pit, Pit, Lucas, Little Mac), while playing my friends who use Ness and Captain Falcon and Sheik and Luigi and Rosalina, y'no, characters who seemingly have no faults.

I wanted to pick up Mewtwo so bad but he's so horrifically balanced that I can't dream of competing against people with him when my friends use such good characters.

That's the real difference between top tier and everyone else. The "everyone else" part are just characters who were balanced.

But I love Dark Pit and will continue to play with him. He's received buffs that have eliminated a lot of complaints I had for him and Pit1 when I first started playing with him. I really don't complain about using either of the Pits, and I don't think anyone should because they're solid characters (just like Meta Knight tbh). It just astounds me how the Captain Falcons and Foxes of the game are just so far superior.

I guess, to play devil's advocate a bit, those best characters you mentioned are "balanced" but not to the degree of a lot of other characters. Cfal suffers from having an ok recovery at best and no projectile which is actually what keeps him from being in top tiers currently. Fox also suffers from a pretty exploitable recovery and no true projectile (His lasers have no knockback so they're only good for tacking on a percent or two when the opponent is far away rather than zoning like projectiles ought to do). I will agree though, that lower tier characters have many more flaws than the high tiers (ergo, the tier displacement) for seemingly no reason. Where Cfal has no projectile and a mediocre recovery, characters like Samus have poor approach options, ****ty projectiles that are punishable, a terrible up-close game, a jab combo that isn't even a combo, etc etc. It's almost like Sakurai thinks the "benefits" these characters get are so extreme that they need to have tremendous weaknesses as well whereas higher tier characters are just "jack-of-all-trades" rather than almighty warriors like some of them are *cough cough Mario cough*. When you look at MU's between top/high tiers, their weaknesses seem like big deals but when you compare them to lower tiers, those weaknesses don't seem nearly as bad. Oh, Cfal has poor recovery? Sounds like a great balance when, for example, I wanna play as Doc Mario (In case you can't hear the sarcasm, this is major sarcasm). Those weaknesses aren't even comparable at that point.

 

[Tito Maas]

I guess, to play devil's advocate a bit, those best characters you mentioned are "balanced" but not to the degree of a lot of other characters. Cfal suffers from having an ok recovery at best and no projectile which is actually what keeps him from being in top tiers currently. Fox also suffers from a pretty exploitable recovery and no true projectile (His lasers have no knockback so they're only good for tacking on a percent or two when the opponent is far away rather than zoning like projectiles ought to do). I will agree though, that lower tier characters have many more flaws than the high tiers (ergo, the tier displacement) for seemingly no reason. Where Cfal has no projectile and a mediocre recovery, characters like Samus have poor approach options, ****ty projectiles that are punishable, a terrible up-close game, a jab combo that isn't even a combo, etc etc. It's almost like Sakurai thinks the "benefits" these characters get are so extreme that they need to have tremendous weaknesses as well whereas higher tier characters are just "jack-of-all-trades" rather than almighty warriors like some of them are *cough cough Mario cough*. When you look at MU's between top/high tiers, their weaknesses seem like big deals but when you compare them to lower tiers, those weaknesses don't seem nearly as bad. Oh, Cfal has poor recovery? Sounds like a great balance when, for example, I wanna play as Doc Mario (In case you can't hear the sarcasm, this is major sarcasm). Those weaknesses aren't even comparable at that point.

lol exactly, man. I'm just like how do you keep giving these top tiers all these options. No reason Falcon should have that kind of grab range when you look at all of his devastating options. Give that to someone else to make them not so terrible. Meanwhile, Sakurai apparently thought they had a SS-tier on their hands with Mewtwo, since the only way to make him "fair" was to make him even lighter than he was in Melee with situational defensive options. Crazy, I don't get it.

Ness has a speedy PK Thunder and a PKT2 that kills at 20%, and yet it barely has any endlag? It's so non-punishable but so lethal that the entire match stops while a PKT is hovering around Ness. But Lucas's (a slower PKT so easier to react to) doesn't kill until like 130% but has so much endlag that only an idiot would use it on the ground??? Alright, I guess...

I'm a mid-tier warrior and I'm fine with it but sometimes the balancing disparity between the characters just astounds me. I mean, a lot of the time the difference is just sound mechanics and it's like... why isn't one character more complete than the other? Mid-tier characters are fine, I just hate feeling like the 1 - 10 best characters have no disadvantages whatsoever over 11 - 50 or whatever the number is now.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

I think one of the most inspirational things I've seen lately has been ESAM pulling out Samus, and winning a game with her, at CEO.

As a Zelda main, I know what it means to be put off by facing high/top tiers as, what a lot of people claim, to be the absolute worst character in the game. I'm constantly having it shoved in my face that Zelda is absolute trash whether it be the reddit tier list or randoms online making fun of my character by making names like "Ragda" even as we go even in matches. At the same time, I'm consistently taking top 5 spots in local tournaments here in Wisconsin. That mainly comes from knowing my character's every nuance while understanding how my opponents play.

Ultimately, you can know everything there is to know about your character but if you don't know your opponent, you'll probably lose. The mental game of smash is so much more important than the character select. Yeah, some characters have bad matchups against others that's a small part in the big picture of your matchup against your opponent. Know your characters options. Know your opponent's patterns. Together, these two things help you win, not your character's tier placement.

It would be very helpful to other people if you would break up your messages into paragraphs x.X

There will always be limitations in how far you can go. Many would say it is impossible to start a fire by banging on a tree. If you somehow managed to do that it would be in a very specific way. In the end, the tier list placement to me is more of a measure of the general traits your character has over others. Different regions will end up having different skill level caps. When you go and put all of these players on a national scale the traits of your character stat to become more prominent.

I will use the comparison of MK to Ganon in Brawl. Ganon in a local area is in a more favorable situation to perform better because your control of your character compared to another person will almost always be the biggest factor and you have fewer pool of talent to source from. On a national level that skill pool is much larger and it becomes very apparent that Ganon is not going to get a person of some caliber to the top 4 placement in a national tournament. MK is more apt to doing such a thing.

Anyway, the thing I think to realize as a person playing a under 50% tier'd character (whenever that tier becomes more apparent) is that your character has a set trait of tools. Specifically a set of tool that cannot be copied to the same as the top 5 characters. You might be able to have similar traits to some, but not in as many regards. This will ultimately limit the potential you have a player. The less situations you can respond to properly the less effective your skill can be pulled out.

This is does not mean that skill is unimportant. You can leverage game experience, knowledge, and simply better execution to win out over a person playing a better character. But as I mentioned before you will ultimately have a handicap set before you. The question you have as a player is how far do you want to go? Do you want to compete on a national level and placing top 4? When facing people with good skill all around you are going to need the tools to compete otherwise they will simply respond to situations more easily than you and beat you out despite you playing possibly your best.

So, basically when you said that outplaying the other person is more important than the character I believe this to be true. However, this in my experience is only applicable when you have sufficient skill and experience to even be out playing the other person in the first place. When you can no longer leverage those advantages your are limited by the character you play. I think this is a fact that cannot be ignored and ultimately leads to the advice to any lower tiered character main to simply play your best and strive to go as far as you possibly can go. The game is still very new as well and there are always talented players in the past who have shown you can go pretty far with a limiting character. Realize there will be some limit to reach, but you should strive push the limits of your character as the best you can.

 

[Freezie KO]

Psychologically, it may help to relieve the stress thinking like this: You "should" lose against top tiers. Sheik, Rosa, maybe others all have "advantages" over you. If you lose, character choices were against you. So what? You'll try again next time. If you win, not only did you beat your opponent, you also beat the tier list.

If anything, you should have less pressure playing a lower tier because you're expected to lose in a pure theory environment.

Also, everyone loves a low tier hero. Read any twitch chat. Nobody wants to see endless players switching to the top two characters. Even Diddy, who is a pretty offensive character and not a campy one, still got endlessly criticized when he took over the meta. People will appreciate you staying loyal to your character and be more understanding for your losses.

As for MetaKnight in particular, he's definitely not low tier. Watch Ito, who has been able to take some NorCal tourneys with MK. There's some potential there.

 

[Zylach]

I'll just reference Sheik here since she is the sovereign of this game. She has two general weaknesses. First, she has trouble killing and second, she is kinda light meaning she dies earlier than characters like Falcon and Fox. When we look at those two general weaknesses and examine the nuances of them, we find out that they aren't weaknesses at all. A) Sheik has trouble killing.

First of all, her sweetspotted usmash kills surprisingly early. If she ever baits an airdodge out of you when you're too close to the ground and you're above 100%, you're dead. Her fsmash kills as well though later than her sweetspotted usmash and her vanish kills at surprisingly low percents as well. Don't forget about bouncing fish. If she's conditioning her opponent to spotdodge her grab attempts (and she will be attempting to grab often so spotdodging often can become a habit when facing her), she can approach as if she's gonna grab and input vanish instead which will hit an opponent that is attempting to spotdodge a grab attempt because of its delay.

Furthermore, she racks up damage better than any other character because she can string together aerials, create frametraps, and punish really safe attacks because of her mobility and speed of attacks so getting the opponent to insanely high percents where safe attacks like ftilt will kill isn't a huge problem for her (I watched ZeRo kill people with ftilts at CEO when he was only around 90-120% and his opponent was at 170%).

B) She dies early. Yeah, she dies early to attacks that hit her. Her incredible mobility make it so that she won't be hit by these attacks in the first place. For example, Zelda's fsmash comes out on frame 16. This is enough time for her to land with a whiffed fair, bair, or nair and shield, roll dodge, spotdodge, SH airdodge, SH nair, SH bair, SH uair, or jab before my attack is even out. As a result, she very rarely does die early because she isn't hit by any attacks other than those that are ridiculously safe and quick. Those are also the attacks that generally don't kill anyone at any reasonable percent. Furthermore, her ability to lock down opponents with her arsenal of quick attacks means that they won't be getting many attacks off in the first place such that they can even get her to that supposedly low percent where she would die from an attack that wouldn't even land on her. With that frame of mind, does she really have any weaknesses? This is why she's god tier right now.

How much do you wanna bet that Sakurai thinks this is just fine btw? It's not a problem in online For Fun or For Glory mode apparently because she's not getting the Diddy nerf hammer right now. Besides, the nerfs he has given characters like Diddy don't even change the fact that Diddy is still the master of neutral next to Sheik because of bananas. Yeah, he's not god tier anymore because he doesn't kill people at 100% guaranteed off of a grab anymore but that doesn't change the fact that he's a very strong character that still overshadows much of the cast simply because he has so many tools that any amount of nerfs won't change unless Sakurai completely changes attacks instead of slightly tweaking them which he's not gonna do.

This would be the same thing with Sheik and has been in the past. He nerfs kill percents and damage output but that doesn't change the fact that Sheik is the safest character in the game while simultaneously locking down opponents in a wave of offense. Meanwhile, he thinks that a startup lag buff to Ike's ftilt is too much so the damage has to be reduced while he's still having trouble getting juggled by the likes of Sheik and Pika because he just doesn't have the tools that those characters do to stop that kind of thing.

Basically, while I admire the top players for using and succeeding with characters that are undeniably not gods of the game (ESAM's Samus, MVD's DHD, etc.), it's still bothersome that they get glaring weaknesses that other characters don't. It's for that reason that I agree with Vorena's Ire in that low tiers can take you far but don't expect to win nationals with them. Local and even regional tournaments can see you winning with these kinds of characters and that's why you shouldn't feel the need to switch to a "better" character unless you're currently having trouble with that character in which case I'd suggest rethinking how you play rather than switching characters first. Oftentimes, the problem lies there and not on the character select screen. Or, if you're going for national titles, you'll probably have to make a switch if your character isn't capable of standing up to the likes of Sheik or Rosa though I'd say MK has a better chance than a lot of the cast because I've seen Ito and he's proving that MK can do that.

Sorry, that got kinda rant-y.

*edit: I broke it up into a few paragraphs. Let me know if this is better or if more breaking would be better*

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

The ability to kill and survive I think matters a bit more for Sheik than some other characters after the damage nerf on several moves. I remember a 7 fair string from Zero on Nairo once. 12% -> 37% lol a whole 25% done. Okay, now just another 120% more before you can reliably KO with safe moves. If the person was good enough to do that it would be a sound strategy and KO potential would not matter at all. But, with how low hitting Sheiks moves are racking up that much damage is pretty dang hard, but she does not seem to have very good moves to lead into a flat out KO move at all.

Its hard to be able to perfectly execute your spacing and punishments against another person without making mistakes for say 130%-150% with moves that do less than 5% per hit. For each stock. Across a best of 5 match. In that regard, I think the weaknesses are relevant. At least more so in this one I feel with how low hitting her moves are compared to Brawl.

 

[warionumbah2]

Mfw Ito is literally the only MK user being named. He's the best but there's others

It really shouldn't take someone to body a scene back to back to notice how strong a character is, just look at MKs kit ffs we all own the game. Still think he's bad tho.

 

[GhettoNinja]

I think one of the most inspirational things I've seen lately has been ESAM pulling out Samus, and winning a game with her, at CEO. As a Zelda main, I know what it means to be put off by facing high/top tiers as, what a lot of people claim, to be the absolute worst character in the game. I'm constantly having it shoved in my face that Zelda is absolute trash whether it be the reddit tier list or randoms online making fun of my character by making names like "Ragda" even as we go even in matches. At the same time, I'm consistently taking top 5 spots in local tournaments here in Wisconsin. That mainly comes from knowing my character's every nuance while understanding how my opponents play. Ultimately, you can know everything there is to know about your character but if you don't know your opponent, you'll probably lose. The mental game of smash is so much more important than the character select. Yeah, some characters have bad matchups against others that's a small part in the big picture of your matchup against your opponent. Know your characters options. Know your opponent's patterns. Together, these two things help you win, not your character's tier placement.

Tbh zelda mains are few and far between, but almost all the ones I've seen are amazing. Granted I have a unhealthy amount of experience with her since my crew mate/best Friend mains her. Zelda definitely deserves more respect but at the same time...I mean I have hundreds of matches against her. She kind relies on gimmicks. That being said even if you understand her(which most people dont) she's still a good character.

 

[ArikadoSD]

Just remember MK goes even at worst or actually has an advantage against Sheik.

 

[Cougar Hunter]

i too have this probem. Friend

when i am using ness

 

[C0rvus]

MK has one of the better Sheik MUs in the game, how is he considered low tier? Maybe by Reddit or Eventscrubs standards lmao. Just ignore that ****. YOU figure out how good the character is. Don't bother with the tier list until you are good enough for it to matter. Knowing matchups is what matters more, and the best way to learn is to play them, so keep at it. You'll know if you need a secondary.

 

[warionumbah2]

Just remember MK goes even at worst or actually has an advantage against Sheik.

MK has one of the better Sheik MUs in the game

 

[KingJames]

I main dedede and know exactly what you going through. Get in the lab and figure out new ways deal with bad match ups. Good thing about mk is there are a lot of good ones to watch unlike d3.

 

[KatoRyusaki]

Well guys all the other MK mains said he's low tier so he's gotta be low tier.

Hey don't worry about what other people say. Just focus on what you do. Tiers and Matchups are ultimately just theoretical analogies. What's practical is your skill, experience and how you play each match up.

Smash Bros along with any other similar fighting games are like a game of chess. There isn't exactly a generic way to win every time you play. You make different moves every time depending on how you choose to react to your opponent.

In the end, how you perform comes down to your technical skills accompanied by your decision making on every move during a match. Precision and Patience will help you exploit and capitalise on your win conditions against your opponent.

Although we know that its easier said then done, but practice makes perfect.

I came across these videos the other day while browsing on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDE9KH5b8hA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhaYIlyxda4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXSp87ZNxDI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktGb-jimFC0

The practicality of matchup disadvantage between character tiers is not really like how people portray it to be.
These videos definitely opened up my eyes on MK's potential. Whether it is against high tier or top tier, it really doesn't matter all that much. What matters is who is playing.

Don't give up buddy. Practice makes perfect!

 

[T4ylor]

Meta Knight is top 10 in my opinion, he has everything a character needs to succeed at a high level of play. Looks like people in this thread are looking for attention or an excuse to lose.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Smash 4 and brawl specifically, are similar to games like street fighter. As in, they're very VERY Match-up heavy. MetaKnight will have bad match ups, but you can get over those with skill. But, in games like this, having a second character is super essential though, not only for bad match ups, but different characters will teach you different things (this is THE most important thing to know, since this isn't a decision based on who meets your style, but shapes it into something more dangerous). If you have trouble with spacing, get on DK bowser D3 Ganon Ike, etc... If you have trouble controlling space, pick up ROB, toon link, killager, duck hunt, etc...
Really, it's not a bad thing if you have to resort to secondaries because this is that type of game. Look at Super Turbo