First Official 4BR Smash for Wii U Tier List

It is common for fighting game communities to create a tier list for their game as a source of reference and debate regarding the tournament viability of the cast. The Smash scene is no exception to this, and all games in the series have had a tier list posted to SmashBoards. More often than not, the website itself was instrumental to the creation of these lists, mainly through projects organized by the so-called Smash Back Room for each respective game.

Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS finds itself in the unique position of receiving patches, DLC characters and stages for more than a year after release, with two more characters still forthcoming. As a result of this, it made sense to hold off on tier list discussion until a period of relative stability came along. The current patch (1.1.3) left the majority of the cast relatively untouched and had Genesis 3 as a major showcase, so we chose this build as a foundation. With the recent launch of the 4BR, we were in a good position for the official tier list project to finally get underway.

The 4BR acknowledges that tier lists are often controversial and won't be perfect at the first iteration, if ever. We do, however, strive to study the game to the best of our ability and give a sincere opinion on the current state of affairs. As such, a tier list can be an important benchmark to look back on as the game progresses.

To illustrate this, compare the first and last tier lists for Brawl. Over the nearly 5 years separating the two, we saw the fall of top tier threats like King Dedede, R.O.B. and Mr. Game & Watch, the rise of supposed mid tiers like Captain Olimar and Zero Suit Samus and the blatant early misjudgment of Zelda's potential. Despite these major shifts, the majority of the cast did not end up that far from where they initially started.

Our community has pushed Smash 4 hard from day one, and we have more resources at our disposal than ever before, be it complete frame data, tutorials, or tournament footage. It will be interesting to see how this affects our accuracy in rating the cast, something only time will tell. All that being said, we are proud to present you the first official tier list for Smash Bros. for Wii U!

Procedure

In late December 2015, 4BR members were asked to distribute all 56 released characters across 20 tiers, with no differentiation within the same tier. Voters could place gaps wherever they wanted and there were no restrictions on the amount of characters in the same group. They had to assume play under the 1.1.3 patch with no custom moves allowed, while Miis had to be considered with their 1111 moveset only, in accordance with tournament reality at the biggest events. The 4BR at this moment has no official stance or recommendation on ruleset matters.

We agreed to let voting run until after Genesis 3, which would hopefully provide us with insights into especially the more recent additions to the cast, most notably Cloud. During the voting process, there was a separate topic for reasoning and discussion. We also asked a small group of non-members to submit a vote, in order to involve more people at the forefront of the metagame. We ended up with 53 votes, of which 34 were American and 19 were international.

These are the people who submitted a vote:

Spoiler: List of Voters

@AeroLink_the_SoulMaster (AeroLink)
@Alphicans
@Amazing Ampharos
@Ambrose (My Smash Corner)
@ASC | Red Ryu
@Camalange
@CHOMPY
@CYVE
@Dabuz
@DtJ XeroXen
@D1
@earth_tyt (Earth)
@False
@Fox Is Openly Deceptive
@gsmVoiD (VoiD)
@istudying
@John123456
@Katakiri
@k9.
@Liberation
Marc
@Meru.
@Mister Eric
@Mr-R
@Myran
@NAKAT
@NickRiddle
@nietono
@qb9b
@Ranai
@Raziek
@Rayquaza07
@Remzi (VABengal)
@rintarosu10 (RIN)
@san.
@Seagull Joe
@Shaya
@Slice~ (Beefy Smash Doods)
@Spinosaurus
@SS_and_TH (Komorikiri)
@TA~Mav
@The calm tyrant... (Tyrant)
@TheReflexWonder
@Thinkaman
@Trela
@UltimateRazer (GrimTurtle)
@vyQ (Beefy Smash Doods)
@Xiivi
@Xzax Kasrani
@Zan-
@Zigsta
@---
@-6WX-

Spoiler: Breakdown by region

USA
Atlantic North: 12
Midwest: 8
Pacific West: 7
Southwest: 4
Atlantic South: 3

International
Europe: 8
Japan: 6
Canada: 3
Australia: 2

Note that we will not release individual votes, but any voter is free to share his own vote with the public. The most notable abstainee was @TSM ZeRo, who felt it was still too early for a tier list.

Results

@Shaya processed the votes and found these average placements, standard deviations and gaps between average placements for the cast:

Spoiler: Raw voting data

Character | Average Placement | Standard Deviation | Gap
Sheik | 20.0 | 0.0 | 0.0
Zero Suit Samus | 19.46 | 0.708 | 0.538
Rosalina | 18.77 | 0.87 | 0.687
Ryu | 17.95 | 1.103 | 0.82
Pikachu | 17.86 | 1.065 | 0.099
Sonic | 17.83 | 1.269 | 0.021
Fox | 17.52 | 1.146 | 0.313
Mario | 17.51 | 1.108 | 0.014
Diddy Kong | 17.43 | 0.998 | 0.082
Meta Knight | 17.12 | 1.489 | 0.307
Villager | 16.52 | 1.614 | 0.597
Cloud | 16.5 | 1.657 | 0.023
Ness | 16.39 | 1.502 | 0.11
Captain Falcon | 15.16 | 1.767 | 1.228
Yoshi | 15.15 | 1.893 | 0.013
Luigi | 14.27 | 1.996 | 0.881
Dark Pit | 13.89 | 2.138 | 0.381
Pit | 13.88 | 2.308 | 0.006
Peach | 13.75 | 2.115 | 0.133
R.O.B. | 13.63 | 2.221 | 0.12
Wario | 13.56 | 1.898 | 0.067
Toon Link | 13.2 | 2.416 | 0.357
Lucario | 12.92 | 2.224 | 0.285
Olimar | 12.47 | 2.452 | 0.454
Greninja | 12.25 | 2.633 | 0.215
Ike | 12.12 | 2.425 | 0.126
Donkey Kong | 11.8 | 2.252 | 0.325
Mega Man | 11.41 | 2.159 | 0.386
Pac-Man | 11.29 | 2.278 | 0.124
Bowser | 10.81 | 2.66 | 0.477
Robin | 10.17 | 2.722 | 0.642
Roy | 9.29 | 3.209 | 0.883
Kirby | 9.1 | 3.388 | 0.183
Bowser Jr. | 8.93 | 2.671 | 0.176
Mr. Game & Watch | 8.72 | 2.47 | 0.21
Lucas | 8.65 | 2.993 | 0.071
Mewtwo | 8.35 | 2.666 | 0.297
Falco | 8.12 | 3.026 | 0.232
Wii Fit Trainer | 8.08 | 2.674 | 0.037
Shulk | 7.75 | 2.926 | 0.325
Marth | 7.72 | 2.237 | 0.038
Link | 7.47 | 2.474 | 0.249
Duck Hunt Dog | 7.18 | 3.11 | 0.283
Little Mac | 7.18 | 2.633 | 0.009
Dr. Mario | 7.14 | 2.437 | 0.033
King Dedede | 6.04 | 2.721 | 1.107
Lucina | 5.59 | 2.547 | 0.447
Mii Brawler | 5.01 | 2.952 | 0.584
Charizard | 4.79 | 2.255 | 0.218
Palutena | 4.78 | 2.199 | 0.008
Samus | 4.12 | 1.942 | 0.656
Mii Gunner | 3.6 | 2.153 | 0.525
Mii Swordsman | 3.32 | 2.054 | 0.282
Ganondorf | 3.23 | 1.675 | 0.082
Jigglypuff | 2.79 | 2.035 | 0.448
Zelda | 1.96 | 1.259 | 0.828

A standard deviation of (close to) 0 means that voters generally placed the character close to the mean, while a higher standard deviation means that the character had a larger range of placements. Most standard deviations are over 1, indicating that we are far from a consensus.

We considered all gaps over .50 as tier separation points and those above .75 for a change in label (Top, High, etc.). However, we decided against single character tiers and the C tier occupying a "High Mid" label with just two characters. Finally, we split F tier into two based on the largest difference within that group of 14 characters.

Official 4BR Smash for Wii U Tier List v1.0 (1.1.3 patch)

Top
S:

High
A:
B:

Middle
C:
D:
E:

Low
F:
G:

Bottom
H:
I:
J:

Text version:

S: Sheik, Zero Suit Samus, Rosalina & Luma
A: Ryu, Pikachu, Sonic, Fox, Mario, Diddy Kong, Meta Knight
B: Villager, Cloud, Ness
C: Captain Falcon, Yoshi
D: Luigi, Dark Pit, Pit, Peach, R.O.B., Wario, Toon Link, Lucario
E: Captain Olimar, Greninja, Ike, Donkey Kong, Mega Man, Pac-Man, Bowser, Robin
F: Roy, Kirby, Bowser Jr., Mr. Game & Watch, Lucas, Mewtwo, Falco, Wii Fit Trainer
G: Shulk, Marth, Link, Duck Hunt, Little Mac, Dr. Mario
H: King Dedede, Lucina
I: Mii Brawler, Charizard, Palutena
J: Samus, Mii Gunner, Mii Swordfighter, Ganondorf, Jigglypuff, Zelda

Graphic version:

Conclusion

The first year of Smash 4 has been an absolute rollercoaster, with players flocking from Bowser to Diddy Kong to Sheik to Luigi to Donkey Kong to Sheik again. With the completion of the cast on the horizon and the nerfs and buffs slowing to a halt, the game can be expected to come to full fruition in 2016. We can't wait to see the Smash 4 tier list evolve over the years as Smashers all over the world rise to the challenge -- and with them, their respective characters.

What do you think of the tier list? Would you have placed any characters differently? Let us know what your thoughts and questions are and we will try to address the most common ones in a followup article, which will also include a more in-depth analysis of the results with statements by 4BR members.

Major thanks go out to @Shaya for processing the votes, @Zigsta and @Liberation for helping with the release and @Xiivi, @Shaya, and @Camalange for collecting outside votes and various odds and ends. Finally, a shoutout to all the voters for their time and input. I was proud to spearhead this project and receive help from so many dedicated people.

 

Ryu.......... I guess I don't pay as much attention to the competitive scene as I thought because I did NOT see that coming. Top 3 were so obvious, it's a bit sad but then Ryu comes in at 4 and I'm just like O_o'. If Ryu weren't there, My top 5 would've been pretty much exactly right.

Also, WTF Bowser is mid tier?!? What's worse is it's low mid tier. I mean, I wasn't expecting top tier but I was expecting maybe Low high tier, not low mid tier.

Also, WTF Brawler is bottom tier?!?!? Have I just been living under a rock all this time? Last I checked he was high tier.

In less surprising but still surprising news, Cloud is much higher than I thought he'd be, as is Palutena strangely. (I thought she was low bottom tier. Like bottom 5) Zelda is the worst character? ........eh..... I'm not sure but in this case I cant really argue.

Overall, this list confuses me in several ways. Otherwise, I don't really have a problem with it. Except maybe that it was to soon to make a tier list.

This is customless Brawler. Customless Brawler is total garbage. Palutena is garbage tier as well but she is not that bad.

 

bruh people are REALLY sleepin on roy and robin.

 

Nice!
I've been waiting for a official tier list too long.
It's not too soon, the game is 1 year old already.
Patches will come and thing will change, but tier list always changed from version to version anyway.
In the backroom work I trust!

 

I appreciate the fact that we've made a tier list, even if only for posterity's sake. We'll be able to see what we thought of the metagame at this point in time when we look back on everything.

That said, I would recommend a change to the naming scheme. Because this game is the most balanced in the series since 64, I would argue that the naming scheme is misleading. A character in mid tier is still able to put up a good fight against a character in top tier, and often can pull off a win. It's not until we see lower tiers attempt to fight higher tier threats that the gap is as drastic as from other games.

To remedy this, I would recommend changing the tier system. Keeping the naming scheme of "Top, High, Middle, Low, Bottom", is fine (though I would consider a scheme of "Top, High, Good, Average, Low" as well), but I would completely change the lettering system to represent the tier which the character resides in. If the character resides in the High tier, for example, I would list them as either A+, A, or A-.

This would be satisfactory even for the current middle tier, which contains the majority of fighters and three tiers, C, D, and E. Under this lettering system, the tier would instead be broken up into the B+, B, and B- tiers.

With that naming scheme, the tier list would look like this:

Spoiler: Official 4BR Smash for Wii U and 3DS Tier List v1.0 (1.1.3 patch)

Top
S:

High
A+:
A:

Middle
B+:
B:
B-:

Low
C+:
C:

Bottom
D+:
D:
D-:

I believe this naming scheme would more accurately reflect the opinions of the community as the whole, which tends to claim that the entirety of the cast is viable. If this is the case, then this lettering system is a more natural way to group the characters.

In particular, the lettering system brings to mind a scholarly grading system, which reserves the letter F for a failing grade in certain countries, and a C for an acceptable, albeit not stellar, grade.

Regardless of the above criticisms, I approve of your methods for creating this tier list, and hope to see future iterations of it as time progresses. I'm particularly curious about how Bayonetta and Corrin will shake things up and about ZeRo's opinions, which I hope he will share in the future.

Cheers,
Pacack

This, like, this a million times. The amount of letters in this tier list is just silly and makes the placings themselves meaningless. I think that the tiers should be Top (S and A), High (B), Mid (C), and Low (D), with the S tier part of the top tier as well and using + and - instead of using a whole new letter to show differences in power in that individual tier. The reason being that Shiek, ZSS, and Rosa, while extremely powerful characters, are not extraordinarily powerful enough that they can't be fought on (mostly) even terms by characters like Ryu and Pikachu. Also, there's simply something wrong with a Smash 4 tier list if the phrase "Ryu is not a top tier character" applies to it. Like, bruh, the man kills you from a 3 frame up tilt confirm at 80%, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The other problem I have with the tier list is the "bottom" tier. Frankly, I don't think there are any bottom tier characters in this game. Not when you have people like Johnny Westside kicking ass and taking names with Samus, freaking Samus. Heck, even Zelda has some good traits, not many, but some. Bottom tier characters are more or less unwinnable with (baring extreme circumstances) and that's been shown time and time again to be not the case with even the worst characters in Smash 4.

While the placings of the characters themselves are mostly fine in my opinion, I do have some issues with some.

Spoiler: Opinions

Is way too high in my opinion. His results aren't better already then characters like Ness or Falcon, and many people are just now starting to figure out how to exploit his weaknesses and how to edgegaurd him properly. Not to mention his mediocre finishers and terrible grabs.

Is most certainly in the same realm as Falcon or Yoshi, probably in between the two. He still does crazy Luigi things, all he lost was a kill confirm on a character who still has a strong back throw, amazing smash attacks, and up b to close out stocks.

and both are too inconsistent for how high they are placed. But not too much (they should be either right before or right after DK)

is definitely too low. He should be directly behind Wario at the very least

Honsetly might all be too high. They really all seem like C+ (high mid) characters and they should make up C+ tier along with

and both should be higher. Roy has too much speed, damage racking, and killing power to be considered low tier (although that tier really should be mid tier). Lucas as well has combos and neutral far surpassing the characters he's currently grouped with.

And then there are a bunch of low and bottom tier characters that I disagree on the placements of because, like I said, there really aren't any "bottom" tier characters.

This list is mostly fine, but really it does needs to be reformatted badly. Otherwise it won't be possible to use it as a common point of reference in discussion, which is the whole point of having it in the first place.

 

Can someone explain Ryu's spot? I don't recall many Ryu topping, and his recovery is not that great.

 

Here's my question. Was this mostly based on tourney results, or MU spreads?
Not that it would differ TOO much, but just enough, for some.

Also I think Villager is top 10-material, I definitely would put him in A tier (tho I believe there's WAY too many letters but that's another issue) if not top 10, at least bottom of A tier.

I believe Ryu is high tier but nowhere near top 5. Top 10, maybe...but that's just me....for now

Still don't think Jigglypuff is that bad, but hey, we still haven't gotten a puff to rep her at high level and show her potential sooo xD


Overall, great first tier list! Can't wait to see how it changes in the future. Thank you to everyone who put hard work into making this.

 

That didn't stop the ice climbers, did it?

You do need to remember though, that Rosalina is a big target. The Ice Climbers were never that big of a target, even when separated. Also, a lone Ice Climber still has a projectile move to use.

Rosalina can't use any projectile attacks without a Luma, so she either has to regroup until a new Luma spawns, or attack her adversary directly.

 

I have no complaints, there are characters I really enjoy playing in several of the tier lists: Ryu, Luigi, Lucas, Roy...

 

I just realised the bottom 3 is EXACTLY the same as Brawl's current tier list, cept in a different order.

Poor Power Suit Samus though, officially the worst smash character overall now surely by being bottom tier in every game cept Melee. Zelda's not far behind either.

 

Shulk is ridiculously low.
I've seen a lot of Shulk mains claim that he definitely has potential to be high tier, and considering what incredible stuff I've seen people do with Shulk, that statement is absolutely justified. Shulk's been getting buff after buff lately, both on his frame data and power, and nevermind the fact that he has five modes with very strong benefits that can all cancel landing lag immediately after activation. I can take the argument that he hasn't been getting great results or is too niche, but at the end of the Smash 4 meta I can't see him anywhere near Low Tier. Nevermind being lower than non-custom!WFT with her really odd hitboxes who's also almost never played in the normal meta.

Aside from that, the placements look good except Lucas is way too low for a Ness semi-clone with his own positives about him and I am not so sure on High Tier Cloud yet. But whatever.

 

> Looks at tier list
Mid tier working our way up boys lets go :D

Of course, only a matter of fact when we finally get our hands on Corrin and Bayonetta that is.

 

Shulk is ridiculously low.
I've seen a lot of Shulk mains claim that he definitely has potential to be high tier, and considering what incredible stuff I've seen people do with Shulk, that statement is absolutely justified. Shulk's been getting buff after buff lately, both on his frame data and power, and nevermind the fact that he has five modes with very strong benefits that can all cancel landing lag immediately after activation. I can take the argument that he hasn't been getting great results or is too niche, but at the end of the Smash 4 meta I can't see him anywhere near Low Tier. Nevermind being lower than non-custom!WFT with her really odd hitboxes who's also almost never played in the normal meta.

But what has he done? He has, like, no results supporting the claims of all the "potential" he has. Non-customs WFT has RIN, Waveguider, and John#s

 

Interesting tier For now it's not to bad, nothing I can disagree on. I respect the tier list, but I also don't go by it. I play whoever I like and go from there. The ones I play are scattered across all of these xD.

 

All of my favorite characters are very low on this list.

This is worthless garbage and I hate it.

 

But what has he done? He has, like, no results supporting the claims of all the "potential" he has. Non-customs WFT has RIN, Waveguider, and John#s

I haven't seen much post-patch Shulk yet, yes. And I know people always say he's better than people think he is because it's true, but no big tournament players really put effort into him yet, which is also why I can understand why he's this low. I just think that this won't be the case in the long run and that he's at least better than at least a good chunk of the F tier characters even as of now.

All of my favorite characters are very low on this list.

This is worthless garbage and I hate it.

That's not what a tier list is about.

 

I think Skulk is my only complaint.

 

I haven't seen much post-patch Shulk yet, yes. And I know people always say he's better than people think he is because it's true, but no big tournament players really put effort into him yet, which is also why I can understand why he's this low. I just think that this won't be the case in the long run and that he's at least better than at least a good chunk of the F tier characters even as of now.

IIRC, 9B and Trela both tried using him and got nowhere. They then switched mains and are actual threats now.

 

I vow that Ness and Mega Man will be higher on that list, one day.

 

Can someone explain Ryu's spot? I don't recall many Ryu topping, and his recovery is not that great.

No explanation will ever make sense.

Ryu has 9B and Trela using him, two players capable of beating anyone in the world in Brawl, yet they cant manage to top 8 in any major tournament.

He is overhyped to hell. Hes high tier, but he doesnt deserve a spot over diddy, sonic and fox all who win tournaments constantly, all over the world.

 

Fair enough, my local scene doesn't have top quality ZSS either. PK Flash is still too slow to use reliably.

I should specify that at most I am only half-charging it; I'm using it as an anti-air when ZSS tries to come at me from above with down b.

 

Just move Marth and Roy to Mid and Combine low with bottom, then we'll have list

 

yo this is some ****-tier tier list ngl

 

The standard deviations are possibly the coolest part of this relatively early tierlist. Sheik is undistputed No. 1 with the only standard deviation of 0, while Roy, Kirby, Lucas, Falco, DHD, Shulk, and Mii Brawler have huge standard deviations around 3.0, with most of the low-mid characters not far behind. Watch for these characters to see the most dramatic changes in the coming months with placement (barring patch changes), whether they move up or down.

 

Roy... Am I missing something? Who ranks with Roy? Sethlon's the only notable Roy I know off the top of my head and he's usually out by the end of winner's quarters. Also, WFT will be perpetually underrated so that's honestly no surprise even if she has a good number of top 32 placings to back her up. F tier is kind of a mess because, aside from WFT, everyone listed has like one notable player who uses them and are almost never seen in big tournaments.

 

Idk how to feel about this, I'm not a top, pro, good player at all so I wouldn't know... But I feel like this is wrong

 

I appreciate the fact that we've made a tier list, even if only for posterity's sake. We'll be able to see what we thought of the metagame at this point in time when we look back on everything.

That said, I would recommend a change to the naming scheme. Because this game is the most balanced in the series since 64, I would argue that the naming scheme is misleading. A character in mid tier is still able to put up a good fight against a character in top tier, and often can pull off a win. It's not until we see lower tiers attempt to fight higher tier threats that the gap is as drastic as from other games.

To remedy this, I would recommend changing the tier system. Keeping the naming scheme of "Top, High, Middle, Low, Bottom", is fine (though I would consider a scheme of "Top, High, Good, Average, Low" as well), but I would completely change the lettering system to represent the tier which the character resides in. If the character resides in the High tier, for example, I would list them as either A+, A, or A-.

This would be satisfactory even for the current middle tier, which contains the majority of fighters and three tiers, C, D, and E. Under this lettering system, the tier would instead be broken up into the B+, B, and B- tiers.

With that naming scheme, the tier list would look like this:

Spoiler: Official 4BR Smash for Wii U and 3DS Tier List v1.0 (1.1.3 patch)

Top
S:

High
A+:
A:

Middle
B+:
B:
B-:

Low
C+:
C:

Bottom
D+:
D:
D-:

I believe this naming scheme would more accurately reflect the opinions of the community as the whole, which tends to claim that the entirety of the cast is viable. If this is the case, then this lettering system is a more natural way to group the characters.

In particular, the lettering system brings to mind a scholarly grading system, which reserves the letter F for a failing grade in certain countries, and a C for an acceptable, albeit not stellar, grade.

Regardless of the above criticisms, I approve of your methods for creating this tier list, and hope to see future iterations of it as time progresses. I'm particularly curious about how Bayonetta and Corrin will shake things up and about ZeRo's opinions, which I hope he will share in the future.

Cheers,
Pacack

This, this, 1000 times this.

 

I'm so sad to see my boy Luigi not in top 15. I'm probably going to keep playing him, but I know I will be using a higher-tiered secondary. Still, I'm praying that Mr. ConCon can step it up and that J.Miller will perform well at BEAST 6 just so Luigi can rise a bit.

 

Complaints aside, can we take a small moment to appreciate how this game doesn't have a SS tier or a metagame that almost exclusively revolves around 3 or 4 characters?

 

Hm.

Well, at least you finally went ahead and did it. The way whiners are always throwing around "it's too soon!" and "the meta game isn't settled!" means that if they had it their own way, there would never be a tier list as long as there were patches.

I expect this to be iterated on, of course. But thanks for the time and effort that you put into it.

 

The Boy calls your name, but you do not answer. You fear the truth. You fear the Flare Blade. It is your time, 4BR. Sakurai has come to reap the sinners. Step into the light and cleanse yourself. Cleanse yourself from what you have said. There is still time. Escape. But it comes with a price. Your soul. Your dignity. Your validity.


...




OAAAGHHHH!!!

This was just a joke, don't take it seriously

 

Will the Yoshi/Roy hype ever die? Every character below them has accomplished more than Yoshi/Roy in their entire life.

So true, dude... ZeRo did good with Roy in one tournament. ONE. And that's ZeRo. You know he's the top player. Oh, and the tournament wasn't even a national and he was playing Diddy Kong for the most part anyway!

As for Yoshi, Poltergust or Raptor don't have significant results compared to higher tiered chars (and some below Yoshi, like Luigi or or Ike). Yoshi is a good character in theory, but he doesn't have the results to fully prove that.

 

Hey its cool. Keep putting Toon Link lower than he is. Makes it worse when people lose to him that way.

Toon Link is upper mid tier. And in Smash 4, there honestly isn't much difference between high tiers and middle tiers. Toon is still extremely good. Hell, even the supposed low tiers are actually still pretty damn good in the right hands. But the bottom has to exist. The worst character in the game could still technically be good if the game is pretty well balanced. And while I don't think Smash 4 is that balanced, the principle still stands. No matter how small the difference in viability is, the apparent "order" of the tiers still has to exist. So a character not being high doesn't mean they're bad. It only means there's that many characters that are better, whether it's by a lot or by a little.

 

Complaints aside, can we take a small moment to appreciate how this game doesn't have a SS tier or a metagame that almost exclusively revolves around 3 or 4 characters?

That IS true. SSB4 is the most balanced game. We got a solid 15 characters that consistently hit top 16 or top 25. Even proportionately, it's more than the other games. Melee folks better stop complaining

 

The funny thing is that a patch will drop in a couple of days that will probably shake the tier list that was carefully cemented.

 

So true, dude... ZeRo did good with Roy in one tournament. ONE. And that's ZeRo. You know he's the top player. Oh, and the tournament wasn't even a national and he was playing Diddy Kong for the most part anyway!

As for Yoshi, Poltergust or Raptor don't have significant results compared to higher tiered chars (and some below Yoshi, like Luigi or or Ike). Yoshi is a good character in theory, but he doesn't have the results to fully prove that.

This. Yoshi's been steadily getting worse as time has gone on and Roy's almost always had like no presence at anything note worthy. I'd almost argue that Doc and Roy should switch places because at least Doc is a fairly common pocket of top players.

My only major gripes overall are WFT (whose results are ignored for some reason) and Lucas' (who is largely slept on but certainly more impressive from a competitive standpoint than the likes of Little Mac with a sword Roy) placings but I'd still say this is fairly reasonable overall.

 

At least for the 3 characters I play. I would say Cloud and Toon Link are about in the right spot but would imagine that Jiggs be mid tier as well. I don't believe she's that bad. Maybe not as good as melee but definitely not 2nd worst character in game.

There are a few others I disagree with but for the most part looks like a pretty solid list.

 

I thought Kirby would be at least the middle of Mid tier due to his gameplay and match ups, I guess I'm clueless about his meta game, lol. Hopefully they give him better buffs next time. ★

 

This. Yoshi's been steadily getting worse as time has gone on and Roy's almost always had like no presence at anything note worthy. I'd almost argue that Doc and Roy should switch places because at least Doc is a fairly common pocket of top players.

My only major gripes overall are WFT (whose results are ignored for some reason) and Lucas' (who is largely slept on but certainly more impressive from a competitive standpoint than the likes of Little Mac with a sword Roy) placings but I'd still say this is fairly reasonable overall.

Doc has a good enough niche in the metagame to be considered a bit above where he is right now indeed. I don't think the voters do have the same mindset as us when it comes to ranking the low tiers.
It is clear that all of these low tiers are here because of one or several matchups that cockblocks them, preventing big tour result ( Minus BJR who's not like that, but again, he's kind of a special case )
As a result, it'd be interesting to evaluate Low tiers in function of their niches & utilities as a secondary/pocket in the metagame. As for Doc, he has about 5 Matchups against what's considered top & high to be pretty good, which is probably more than enough to legitimately get him out of the Bottom G Tier.

 

You know, while I don't really agree with this tier list except for the top 10(aside from pikachu who I feel should be a few slots lower), it's not really the backroomers fault on it, it's the players.

Tier lists are mostly based on tournament results, but a lot of people are too busy claiming their character is bad and need buffs and complaining and whining and just straight up sitting on their ass doing nothing. I'm not going to name names(character or otherwise), the ones guilty of this know who I'm talking about.

There are several characters placed either too high, or too low, but again, not the backroomer's fault. If you want to do something about it, don't complain to them, don't whine, don't throw a tantrum, do something about it. Get off your asses, learn your character, lab them like crazy, find new stuff about them, and go get tournament results with them. And I don't mean online tournaments either.

The characters "placed too high" are there because the people who main them actually USE them, they don't spend their time complaining, they go and get results at tournaments. Maybe not the results they hoped for, but they're putting in the effort. The characters "Placed too low", you never/rarely see, and the ones you do are often bad. But at least they're still trying.


Now, again, while I don't agree with the tier list itself, and while I do agree it would have been best postponed until after EVO this year, I applaud the backroomers for actually doing something about it.

 

You know, while I don't really agree with this tier list except for the top 10(aside from pikachu who I feel should be a few slots lower), it's not really the backroomers fault on it, it's the players.

Tier lists are mostly based on tournament results, but a lot of people are too busy claiming their character is bad and need buffs and complaining and whining and just straight up sitting on their *** doing nothing. I'm not going to name names(character or otherwise), the ones guilty of this know who I'm talking about.

There are several characters placed either too high, or too low, but again, not the backroomer's fault. If you want to do something about it, don't complain to them, don't whine, don't throw a tantrum, do something about it. Get off your *****, learn your character, lab them like crazy, find new stuff about them, and go get tournament results with them. And I don't mean online tournaments either.

The characters "placed too high" are there because the people who main them actually USE them, they don't spend their time complaining, they go and get results at tournaments. Maybe not the results they hoped for, but they're putting in the effort. The characters "Placed too low", you never/rarely see, and the ones you do are often bad. But at least they're still trying.


Now, again, while I don't agree with the tier list itself, and while I do agree it would have been best postponed until after EVO this year, I applaud the backroomers for actually doing something about it.

This is true too. Especially in Smash 4. Now, with Melee, Melee's been around for an extremely long time, and the tier list is basically set in stone at this point. Every character's been tried a ton, people know the ups and downs of everyone. But Smash 4 is a different case. There's still a lot to learn. The game is much newer, there are far more characters that have to be studied, and people need to take better advantage of that. I'm surprised Zelda is at the bottom, I've seen people do really cool stuff with her. And same with most the other characters around the bottom or low tier. Now, the point in my previous comment still stands, about how the bottom has to exist no matter what, and the bottom characters can still possibly be good while they remain in the bottom, it's just a fact that every character has room to improve still.