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.

 

Puff is too high.

 

Just figured I'd drop by and I was surprised that there was an "official" tier list since it's so close to the end of balance patches probably. Makes me wonder why it didn't start sooner or why it didn't wait untill balance patches were done. Not that there's a problem with that. Tier lists change overtime anyways, just when new ones are made, the patches will have to be taken into consideration.

With that said I do love looking at tier lists. Even though I don't think I'll ever fight enough good players to make it matter for me.

Most of the characters I plan to main are low tier. Exceptions are Meta Knight and Cloud being in top tier. Lucario being mid.

 

Well... I appreciate the attempt.

It's not like i can really refute anything. Have fun with the response. lmao

 

What terrible fate it is, that the bottom 3 characters are the exact same three characters, albeit in a different order, as Brawl's bottom three, you'd think they'd get some priority while balancing, but apparently not.

 

I agree with zero. It's too early for a tier list, especially when we don't have all the characters

Last characters come out tomorrow, which usually comes with a balance patch, this list could be redundant in 24 hours.

 

Judging by the Mii Fighter's placements, they were clearly an after-thought as always when forming this tier list.

 

I like this list, it works. I don't see the complaints. The patch won't shake the meta that much, unless Sakurai's team drastically rebalance a lot of characters which I doubt will happen, especially in the given time. Come to thing of it, the only characters I can remember ever falling or gaining a ton (in my opinion) were, like, Diddy Kong and Mewtwo, respectively.

Well, you know, we could have accepted actually waiting for a tier list to come out, Shaya. Nothing comes under such heavy backfire like this if it wasn't feeling like it was rushed.

Most people are agreeing that the tier list is flawed heavily among everything, and that it goes to show that we're NOT ready for one just yet.

Can you like, stop spamming? Posting "GRRRR this tier list is bad!!" and "ARRRGH too early!" over and over isn't productive. Seriously.

 

>places Lucas bellow G&W
>Motherboy has footstool combos on him and half the cast

Lol ok.

Footstool combos dont happen in competitive play.
Still, he is too low and most definitely not mid tier with the tools at his disposal.

 

lol the voter line-up
lol creating a tier list without people agreeing on how to handle Mii's
lol creating a tier list few days before the might-be-final-patch

I don't understand why you would release a tier list before all characters are released and I don't understand why people who hate Smash 4 and don't really pay attention to this games are allowed to be in the 4BR.

I'm not going to post my personal changes because they are as pointless as a tier list before all characters are released anyway.

 

I don't understand why people who hate Smash 4 and don't really pay attention to this games are allowed to be in the 4BR.

Wait, who are you talking about?

 

This is rich.
You cherry-pick 50 top-level players out of the current meta to do the voting and you really think there's ANY chance Sheik won't be at the top along with Rosa, ZSS, Sonic, Diddy, etc. The meta's practically infantile and the bias is real. Gee, I sure wonder why Jiggs and Mii Gunner are bottom tier when almost no one in the competitive scene that gets attention plays them (or CAN play them half the time in Gunner's case)...

Melee tier lists put Sheik at #1 until, like, 2005, and that game didn't even get patched... I'm not going to say that tiers are baseless, -- obviously some characters are going to be better in the competitive scene, but trying to put out "official" tier lists before you guys even have an official stock count for games just spreads misconception about who's really "good"...

 

This is rich.
You cherry-pick 50 top-level players out of the current meta to do the voting and you really think there's ANY chance Sheik won't be at the top along with Rosa, ZSS, Sonic, Diddy, etc. The meta's practically infantile and the bias is real. Gee, I sure wonder why Jiggs and Mii Gunner are bottom tier when almost no one in the competitive scene that gets attention plays them (or CAN play them half the time in Gunner's case)...

Melee tier lists put Sheik at #1 until, like, 2005, and that game didn't even get patched... I'm not going to say that tiers are baseless, -- obviously some characters are going to be better in the competitive scene, but trying to put out "official" tier lists before you guys even have an official stock count for games just spreads misconception about who's really "good"...

c u r r e n t m e t a

 

Welp, Zelda's bottom tier three Smash games in a row.

Better luck next time, gorl.

What'chu saying? Sheik's top tier

 

This is rich.
You cherry-pick 50 top-level players out of the current meta to do the voting and you really think there's ANY chance Sheik won't be at the top along with Rosa, ZSS, Sonic, Diddy, etc. The meta's practically infantile and the bias is real. Gee, I sure wonder why Jiggs and Mii Gunner are bottom tier when almost no one in the competitive scene that gets attention plays them (or CAN play them half the time in Gunner's case)...

Melee tier lists put Sheik at #1 until, like, 2005, and that game didn't even get patched... I'm not going to say that tiers are baseless, -- obviously some characters are going to be better in the competitive scene, but trying to put out "official" tier lists before you guys even have an official stock count for games just spreads misconception about who's really "good"...

Why don't you think those characters belong at the top? What do other characters have that surpass them?

 

More like nobody plays Jigglypuff. BrianYDG is inactive, and the only notable players she has right now are Seryender (who doesn't even do much outside Xanadu) and RDR7.

I'm still adamant that she's the worst character in the game like how I thought in Brawl, but Zelda being there also is justifiable.

 

That would make the patch discussion so interesting. Im sitting here grinning, getting more hype for the testing and discussion of the patch than actually playing it!

You know, I only play at my friends houses now and I am mostly in the spectator side of Smash, reading those patch discussions is like watching tge World Cup for me

 

Yeah, no. Put Kirby in the C tier at least

 

Yeah, no. Put Kirby in the C tier at least

...why? You have to have something to back that up.

 

Cloud isn't that good and Roy isn't that bad D:

 

Pretty surprised to see Roy in the Low Tier. Especially after seeing how good he was before.

Cloud isn't that good and Roy isn't that bad D:

Dude, Cloud can force approaches, has Incredible Mobility, all of his aerials are Safe on Shield and he has the best frame data of any other swordsfighter in the game. How is he not that good?

In 2 days, this tier list will be extremely inaccurate LOL. But it already kinda is.

 

I won't argue against this tier list, it's pretty decent as it is, but I disagree with two things:
1. I think Robin is a bit too low in my opinion. He may not have the results like the characters above him do, but that doesn't make him bad by any means. That and Robin has some decent results, such as taking a game off of ZeRo.
2. I think Jigglypuff should be dead-last. While Zelda isn't all that amazing either, I think that Jigglypuff has nothing positive about her and her issues were never addressed with the patches so far. I know the reasoning is a bit silly, but at least Zelda has something.

Lastly, I think the tiers shouldn't go by letters from A to J, but rather go by A to D with pluses and minuses.

But that's my two cents.

 

Welp, Zelda's bottom tier three Smash games in a row.

Better luck next time, gorl.

Princess Zelda, Forever Alone....

And Bottom Tier.

 

When Ness is finally high tier but you decide to main Lucas instead.



But in all seriousness, this list looks like some good groundwork to at least give us some idea as to how the tiers are shaping up.

 

Looks about right to me. Surprised to see Bowser in mid-tier and Mac not in bottom tier.

 

It seems a lot of us didn't read the whole the post, because most of these complaints have already been addressed. They explained that the most recent patch didn't change much, and that Genesis 3 was a prime showcase. They explained most deviations as being over 1. They have mathematical reasoning for the groupings and labels. Notice how some labels only have two groups? Easier to go to J than use plusses and minuses in that case. Lastly, they acknowledged that tier lists change over time and they probably didn't get it totally right. Everyone saying they should have waited two days doesn't realize that we won't be able to gauge the effects of any changes for some time anyway. You people need to recognize good work when it's done FOR YOU and quit whining.

 

Why are characters in the top 15 considered mid-tier?

 

Dude, Cloud can force approaches, has Incredible Mobility, all of his aerials are Safe on Shield and he has the best frame data of any other swordsfighter in the game. How is he not that good?

Because he can't force every character in the game to approach, (R.O.B. in particular) has only above average mobility with no tools to support it, still doesn't have that good of frame data and has no way to get out of strings or combos, doesn't have very reliable finishers outside of Limit, has one of the most useless sets of throws in the whole game, and has a very easily gimpable recovery that gives him no extra horizontal distance and only decent vertical distance.

Yeah, Cloud can kill you at 60% if you get hit by Finishing Touch, but Cloud can die at any percent by simply getting edgegaurded, and the opponent doesn't need to sit and charge a meter and then get a read to do that. Now if we're talking about this very moment in time how good Cloud is then an argument can be made for his current position, but I can guarantee that his position will drop. Mr. R was able to pick Komorikiri's Cloud apart offstage at Genesis 3, and when more people learn who to fight Cloud his weaknesses will become more of a hindrance then they are now.

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.

I disagree with the idea that there has to be a bottom tier. If you want to get technical, yes every tier list does have to have a bottom, but that doesn't mean it has to have bottom tier characters. Take PM for example. Sure it has characters at the bottom of the tier list, but they can hardly be called bottom tier in terms of viability. "Bottom tier" is like "top tier" in that, while it's named after the placement it carries more meaning then just that. If a character is bottom tier, unless it's a very spesefic matchup (or your Gimpyfish) you're simply not going to be winning against people of equal or greater skill playing top tier characters. Labeling characters like Samus, Zard, or DeDeDe as such despite having people who win tournaments with them is simply incorrect in my opinion.

 

I feel like Bottom Tier for this game is different than previous Smash games. From how things have played out with this game:

Top- don't need a secondary
High- only need a secondary for maybe one specifically bad match up at worst
Middle- need a secondary because of 2-3 bad match ups against top/high tiers
Low- need a secondary because nearly all the top/high tiers are bad match ups
Bottom- need a secondary because they have 4-5 BTFO match ups even outside the top/high tiers

Bottom in other Smash games was pretty much: gets destroyed by at least a third of the cast, holy crap, why are you playing this character?!

 

Why are characters in the top 15 considered mid-tier?

Because they scored closer to the mid-tiers than the high tiers. Read the part of the post about how they decided tier separations again, it was fairly unambiguous

 

• Pika at 5th despite only having one good player who can barely finish top 8 anymore.
• MK barely in the top 10 despite dominating multiple continents.
• Characters like Diddy/Sonic ranked below other A-tiers despite having a proven record vs. Sheik.
• No +/- subgroupings (thus implying large gaps in viability between each of A-J.)

I am highly disappointed that such an intelligent group of people managed to compile a list as mediocre as this one.

Your first mistake was thinking they are intelligent.

No one is doubting their skill, but the combined group of them have apparently never studied any sort of maths beyond middle school where you learn about iteration, weighted averages, rates of change etc.

I mean really standard deviation is basic stuff, and thats the extent of their in-depth info lmao.

Funnily enough they could use literally the exact same info they have from the voters, no extra work on their part and with just a little bit of effort they could somewhat normalise the list and remove outliers to make it far more concise and accurate. Apparently I'm a troll though for repeatedly asking them to do that.

 

Your first mistake was thinking they are intelligent.

No one is doubting their skill, but the combined group of them have apparently never studied any sort of maths beyond middle school where you learn about iteration, weighted averages, rates of change etc.

I mean really standard deviation is basic stuff, and thats the extent of their in-depth info lmao.

Funnily enough they could use literally the exact same info they have from the voters, no extra work on their part and with just a little bit of effort they could somewhat normalise the list and remove outliers to make it far more concise and accurate. Apparently I'm a troll though for repeatedly asking them to do that.

Thank god. Finally someone tells it like it is.

 

Why is Yoshi so low?As one of the best yoshi's in my area it really makes me sad to see him be mid tier.Also no way on earth Ryu is better then Mario he's good but he is not that good to be top 4 maybe top 10.Btw I'm hating on Ryu I'm a very big Trela fan so I'm not against Ryu.

 

It seems I can only dream of the day that tiers are appreciated…

 

>first official tier list
>two days before new characters and probably balancing
well done

 

Why is Shulk > Marth? Why is Lucas so low? Why is Zelda the worst and not Jigglypuff? I think Wii Fit should be just a little bit higher. I think Dedede shoud be just a liiitle bit higher too.

 

If they waited two days for the new characters to release do you really think they'd be able to instantly place them in the list without seeing them in tournament for months? Nope. That's why they did it now.

 

Sorry, but I'm not too sure why Charizard so low. He has a combo throw, the strongest kill throw in the game (or top 3 at least) and a great recovery for a heavyweight.

And Lucina is higher?

 

...confirmed Marth change...

What is the change? Where is the source?

 

Why is Shulk > Marth? Why is Lucas so low? Why is Zelda the worst and not Jigglypuff? I think Wii Fit should be just a little bit higher. I think Dedede shoud be just a liiitle bit higher too.

Both Marth and Shulk are low tier, it doesn't matter. Because he has no results and all his good players dropped him. Both Jigglypuff and Zelda are garbage, they are interchangeable. Agree. With that terrible mobility, sluggish moves and 0 approach and landing his position is very generous.

 

S to J (S2J), Captain Falcon buff confirmed.

Kappa