How do you feel about Ganondorf's viability/tier list placement?

[Blobface]

So now that we've all had a few months with Ganondorf in smash 4, I'm curious, how do you guys feel about his viability/tier list placement?

Without customs, I'd say Ganon is Low-to-Mid tier (low at worst, mid at best). I could list what makes Ganondorf good for several paragraphs, but what's really problematic to his viability are some of his terrible matchups against very common characters. Rosalina, Sheik, Villager, and ZSS are all top tiers and all horrible for Ganon to deal with. Regardless of how he performs against everyone else, having four common 3:7 matchups is just too much of an obstacle to get him past mid tier.

With customs however, Ganon improves immensely. Dark Fists is an amazing move, and combined with his other customs like Dropkick and Flame Chain, helps him a lot in his worst matchups and makes him even better in ones where he already performs well. It brings these nearly insurmountable 3:7 matchups to 4:6's at worst. With customs, I'd say he's definitely Mid Tier, and I think it's more likely that he's even High Tier.

 

[Vermanubis]

Good points on all fronts! I'm not sure yet about his customs placement, but in my opinion, while customs <do> help him, they don't give him the options he needs to deal with things that fundamentally cripple him. Ganon's a constant flux of extreme highs and extreme lows, depending on how your opponent plays the MU. For example, if you face someone who's good at teching chokes and doesn't spotdodge or roll a lot (and has good movement options), literally everything Ganon does has to be a hard read. Notable mentions are ZSS, Falcon, Sheik, etc.

But that aside I agree he is overall better with customs, though I'd put him at mid of mid at maximum with customs, and a maximum of low-mid without. WDK helps a lot against Rosa and Villager, but as I found out when I went against a customs Ganon in tournament recently, WDK, even with tricky ledge cancels, can be easily predicted and punished, since at the ideal range, the opponent's under no obligation to expect anything else and can react pretty easily to it. Its boon to recovery can't be overstated though. DF as well.

Overall, I think Ganon is generally semi-viable. Nothing truly <shuts him down>, but there are a lot of ways to make life very hard for him as a lot of different characters.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Ganondorf is just good enough the way he is right now...though a better Jab would make me sleep well at night.

I think mid tier is fitting for a King of Evil. Yes, Ganon's been forced to suffer spectacularly each time his master plans have been foiled (really, watching a a big heavy grappler get the snot juggled out of them in a way is kinda funny to watch and listen to), but it makes victory all the sweeter when you remind them that Ganondorf cannot be slept on forever.

 

[jahkzheng]

Sheik and Villager have some really great customs too. I think it's worth exploring how much better those matchups really get for Ganon with customs on. I know customs help him greatly in general, but against these tough matchups, I wonder. I know we discussed Rosa in another thread and I can believe he actually improves by a whole 10 to 15 percent in that matchup with customs on, simply because many of his customs really do seem to cover a lot of the problems he had in that matchup... mainly getting gimped and dealing with Luma. I get the feeling his customs don't help nearly as much against Sheik and Villager with customs. Rosa is about as good as it gets in terms of a matchup swing. Goes from one of his worst, to simply unfavorable. Although, maybe slightly more unfavorable than you think Blob, since I think Luma Warp in particular is a scary option for Rosa.

In terms of his placement on the tier list... it's hard to say. I'm thinking mid sounds right, at best with customs, maybe top of mid tier. I get the feeling he'll never quite be able to break that ceiling and sneak into the bottom of high though. Perhaps a challenge for us though. When you see the likes of Gungnir play, you wonder "maybe". And A2 is right... Ganondorf can swing even the most unfavorable matches with a single read. Pon exemplifies this from what I've seen, heh.

 

[MegaBlaster1234]

Easily mid tier. The changes to the game engine benefit Ganondorf more than anyone else in the entire cast, and his raw knockback, damage racking and edgeguarding prowess is better than the majority of the casts.
His only true weakness is his defensive options.

...why can't he stretch his arm further when he grabs? :C

 

[MezzoMe]

His grab range is something that always bugged me.
That's because in general, the taller a character is, the bigger his undisgointed hitboxes are, and with Smash 4 the gap between each character's height is increased, wich makes him a character able to space effectively despite he lacking disgointed hitboxes BUT his grab range for some reason is the shortest of the cast, at least horizontally, vertically it catches opponents better because of Ganon's height(though conversely he can't grab several crouching characters, unless he uses the pivot grab). Despite has crippling flaws in neutral, he is less crippled than before when juggled because his Nair and Uair eat the world and half, while his advantaged state is unparalleled in every situation, being it when comboing, juggling or edgeguarding, so he is definitely middle tier.
Customs are a great boost to him and make him the his best incarnation yet, surpassing Melee Ganon(wich is not that good, being outcamped by Fox/Falco, outranged by Marth, chaingrabbed to death by Sheik, comboed until tomorrow by every single top tier and I probably forgot something). I recall showing the Ganon-Rosalina match-up a while ago, and I thought(and still think) that it's a match-up should be 0:100 if I wasn't that sure about it, but customs turn it into 45:55. Warlock Blade has some nice gimmics, such as covering landing and outspacing Luigi, Flame Chain is a move that is often slept on because it loses the powerful tech-chases of Flame Choke, but it can drag you and your opponent over a big chunk of the stage and gain stage control, it as well has a semi-spike knockback so your opponent flies the most distance horizontally and loses the most space, the semi-spike knockback as well makes for a far tech-chase, wich can be followed up by another Flame Chain, Warlock Blade and Wizard Kick/DropKick if close enough, otherwise he gets lauched away and under the stage so Ganon can use his broken edgeguarding to murder him, and edgeguarding is as well a vital situation in several of his most difficult match-ups (if you ever asked, Sheik is vulnerable for a chunk of frames before grabbing the ledge with Vanish, while Coffee Fish can just be sheilded and make her go to the opposite direction or, if she aims it to you, jump backward and murder that landing lag, Flame Chain as well refreshes the highest number of slots in the stale move negation list out of all his moves. Wizard Drop Kick speaks for himself when it comes to recovering, and when reacting to most projectiles, instead of powershielding them you can do a Wizard Dropkick and have a guaranteed hit on them, because of this I think that Piercing Needles should be discarded since their maximum range is not very different from Dropkick. Dark Fists is the truth, simple as that, with his high range SSB4 Ganondorf has often been compared to Marth, well, now we have the GANNON-banned version of Dolphin Slash, with super armor replacing invincibility, being reactable and killing at stupidly low percentages with or without rage, it can be used basically everytime you bait something from your opponent, it's also the most epic move in the game

Spoiler

With customs he becomes G(Gannon) Tier.

 

[Blobface]

I get the feeling his customs don't help nearly as much against Sheik and Villager with customs.

I can't speak for Villager, but I recently had some matches with a Sheik player I know, and it improves a lot. The lowest % you'll ever die at once Sheik actually has to work for her kills is 150% (exaggeration, but losing gimping does severely limit her kill options. Just make sure you don't eat a b-air or bouncing fish offstage). Dropkick and Warlock Blade are decent tools to deal with Sheiks spacing and needles (good for Paralyzer too). Though they're still not as safe as he'd like, they beat his current anti-needles stratagem of "run forward and shield". And Dark Fists can actually counter her F-air and U-air shenanigans with it's Super Armor.

Meanwhile, all Sheik gets out of customs are needles with extra shield damage and a side-b that isn't useless, and even with the slight improvement, her Side-b is still mostly there to cause the occasional SD.

Tl:dr: once Sheik has to play somewhat fair (needles and F-air among other things are still a colossal pain) and can't just gimp Ganon at 100%, the discrepancy between her kill power and Ganon's kill power becomes a huge factor in the matchup. Her safety is still a huge pain to get around, so it's still in her favor, but once Ganon is literally getting kills 100% damage earlier, her safety is a lot easier to deal with.

 

[adom4]

Without customs i can see him around 30-40, he has his problems but no way in hell he's bottom tier.
WIth customs i believe he has potential for 15-25, Dropkick helps certain matchups so much & Dark fists is just amazing in general.

Sheik Snip

This so much, i don't know if it makes Dorf have an advantage against her but Dropkick makes Sheik actually work for the kill, Dorf survives to incredibly high percents against character who rely on off stage kills (Pikachu also becomes much much easier).

 

[jmanup85]

I can saf

Without customs i can see him around 30-40, he has his problems but no way in hell he's bottom tier.
WIth customs i believe he has potential for 15-25, Dropkick helps certain matchups so much & Dark fists is just amazing in general.

This so much, i don't know if it makes Dorf have an advantage against her but Dropkick makes Sheik actually work for the kill, Dorf survives to incredibly high percents against character who rely on off stage kills (Pikachu also becomes much much easier).

It definitely doesn't make the Pikachu match any easier because now Pikachu has real good kill moves. And I'm not talking about the Heavy Skull Bash that everyone is whining about. Pikachu can get you off stage and space a certain thunder jolt variant (don't know which it is exactly) and it can kill you at 80-90% easily.

 

[Blobface]

I can saf


It definitely doesn't make the Pikachu match any easier because now Pikachu has real good kill moves. And I'm not talking about the Heavy Skull Bash that everyone is whining about. Pikachu can get you off stage and space a certain thunder jolt variant (don't know which it is exactly) and it can kill you at 80-90% easily.

Thunder Jolt? Don't worry about that. Pikachu gives up the only thing that prevents Ganon from really abusing his long ranged moves like D-tilt since Thunder Jolt has so much more endlag and so much less range than default. On top of that, the sweetspot is incredibly finicky and Dark Fists can just armor through it anyway.

Heavy Skull Bash does merit looking in to. I'll test some stuff with it later today.

 

[jahkzheng]

I can't speak for Villager, but I recently had some matches with a Sheik player I know, and it improves a lot. The lowest % you'll ever die at once Sheik actually has to work for her kills is 150% (exaggeration, but losing gimping does severely limit her kill options. Just make sure you don't eat a b-air or bouncing fish offstage). Dropkick and Warlock Blade are decent tools to deal with Sheiks spacing and needles (good for Paralyzer too). Though they're still not as safe as he'd like, they beat his current anti-needles stratagem of "run forward and shield". And Dark Fists can actually counter her F-air and U-air shenanigans with it's Super Armor.

Meanwhile, all Sheik gets out of customs are needles with extra shield damage and a side-b that isn't useless, and even with the slight improvement, her Side-b is still mostly there to cause the occasional SD.

Tl:dr: once Sheik has to play somewhat fair (needles and F-air among other things are still a colossal pain) and can't just gimp Ganon at 100%, the discrepancy between her kill power and Ganon's kill power becomes a huge factor in the matchup. Her safety is still a huge pain to get around, so it's still in her favor, but once Ganon is literally getting kills 100% damage earlier, her safety is a lot easier to deal with.

Good points. Dropkick is the "MVP" in the customs matchup I guess then. Like with Rosa, I hadn't tested Sheik myself but I was aware of her having a much improved grenade. I don't know it's properties though.

It terms of Villager... there's a pretty amazing stalling game in the customs for Villager and he can actually further improve his stage control. He can basically own one side of the stage and challenge you to try and approach if he gains a lead. His wall requires setups of course, but it's a pretty brokenly fantastic stalling option. His usual fair and bair game gives him an option to snag that percent lead before you even get in so he can employ the stall too. I've only seen a couple videos but basically he can plant the counter tree near the ledge and use it to protect the side he wants to stall on. Pushy Lloid moves slowly and multihits and he can grab punish you shielding it or combo off of it hitting you. I'm curious if WDK can jump it even though it's pretty big or if Dark Fists can act out of the multihit and destroy it while simultaneously punishing a Villager coming in for the punish. Villager also gets a unique up B that makes the balloons explosive. They can also create stage control because they cut loose when he lands or ledge grabs and they float slowly up and away from him, even going through stages, and explode on contact.

TL;DR... Villager gets an even more ridiculous stage control game in customs.

 

[Blobface]

Villager is another character I haven't had much chance to fight, but...

Yeah, Villager unfortunately probably improves the least compared to Ganon's other terrible matchups in customs, but it's more because of Ganon's customs not helping as much with the stuff Ganon really hates about Villager. None of Ganon's customs deal with slingshot, that's for sure (AND OF ALL THINGS WHY IS IT A SLINGSHOT THAT'S THE GREATEST WEAKNESS OF THE KING OF EVIL. WHY). On top of that, Villager has some good customs too. Counter sapling is annoying (does normal Wizkick go over it? Dropkick obviously does, but I know Ganon has benefited from Wizkick's floating animation before), and EBT is a much better recovery against Ganon's edgeguarding. (With that said, don't worry about anyone pulling the "ADHD strategy". Ganondorf has so many options against that it isn't even funny. D-tilt, DA, U-tilt, F-smash, and even Wizkicking onto the stage near the ledge which can kill him at <20%)

However, like Sheik and Rosalina, Dark Fists allows Ganon to really abuse how much better he is at killing than... well, pretty much everyone. No matter how much better Villager gets at camping, Ganon surviving longer will automatically swing the matchup to a manageable difficulty simply because he has more time to kill Villager, and when you're playing a character like Ganon, time is all you need. Not sure whether you should use Dropkick or Wizkick though. I'd say it's probably 40:60 with customs.

somewhat unrelated wall of text below

See, what Ganon hates about Sheik, Rosa, ZSS, and Villager is that they horribly skew his risk:reward. Ganondorf is generally a high risk, high reward character, and against most of the cast, this plan works out just fine for Ganon. These four however, toss the rules Ganon follows out the window and dump their own in place instead. They have insane amounts of safety, making them incredibly hard to approach, and Rosa, Sheik, and Villager are amazing at gimping Ganon (ZSS is a bit different in that she's only average at killing Ganon, but she has so much bloody safety that that doesn't even matter. ZSS is like that annoying kid on the playground that "dodges" your nuke during pretend play). Ganon's reward is amazing, but these four get just as much reward as he does due to gimps but take only one tenth as much risk. It's basically the same reason he was so bad in Brawl (though obviously it was way way way way wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more severe there).

Dark Fists + Dropkick, however, renders gimping almost useless against Ganondorf, as well as gives Ganondorf a scary kill option that beats out anything and everything you throw at it, even seemingly frame-tight chains. While it doesn't fix these four character's safety (to be honest, I think that would be impossible to do outside of nerfing the four directly. If you buffed Ganon's approach to the point where he could approach through this much safety, he'd dominate literally everyone else), it does restore his reward against these four characters. Once these four characters actually need to deal with Ganon's kill power, their safety becomes much less of an issue.

TL;DR: Ganon hates characters that skew his High risk:High reward Gameplan. Ganon's customs prevent this, hence why he benefits so much from them, especially in his bad matchups.

 

[Vermanubis]

For Villager, WDK'd be my choice. I prefer wizkick in all situations because I'm so stubborn and set in my ways, but the smart choice would be WDK, I think. There's a lot to be said for be able to hop over lloid rockets.

Also, regular wizkick trips on counter sapling, iirc.

 

[Z1GMA]

WDK alone makes Ganon climb at least a full tier imo.

 

[JapanGuy]

Ganondorf is a weird character for me. He has the strength and some combos, but doesn't have any speed. Hence why I go to Captain Falcon.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Also, regular wizkick trips on counter sapling, iirc.

Really? Always went Dropkick anyway vs Villager with customs allowed for a number of reasons but normally Wizkick goes over bananas and similar stuff, so I find it weird that it works differently vs. TC. Doesn't really matter, as a character who likes to wall you out with projectiles, has a disjointed Uair that beats Wizkick head-to-head, and is great at gimping is generally a matchup where Dropkick is preferred anyways.

 

[Z1GMA]

It's hard to place a character like Ganon on a tierlist. He is so dependant on strong reads and intelligence rather than data.

 

[ZomBiehn]

If I'm just character swapping on for glory or playing with friends and decide to go with a "Heavy" ill always choose ganon, Ganons set ups kill quick and to be honest aren't hard to accomplish, I'd agree with I'd place him Low/Mid

 

[JapanGuy]

It's hard to place a character like Ganon on a tierlist. He is so dependant on strong reads and intelligence rather than data.

^
This.

 

[JmacAttack]

So now that we've all had a few months with Ganondorf in smash 4, I'm curious, how do you guys feel about his viability/tier list placement?

Without customs, I'd say Ganon is Low-to-Mid tier (low at worst, mid at best). I could list what makes Ganondorf good for several paragraphs, but what's really problematic to his viability are some of his terrible matchups against very common characters. Rosalina, Sheik, Villager, and ZSS are all top tiers and all horrible for Ganon to deal with. Regardless of how he performs against everyone else, having four common 3:7 matchups is just too much of an obstacle to get him past mid tier.

With customs however, Ganon improves immensely. Dark Fists is an amazing move, and combined with his other customs like Dropkick and Flame Chain, helps him a lot in his worst matchups and makes him even better in ones where he already performs well. It brings these nearly insurmountable 3:7 matchups to 4:6's at worst. With customs, I'd say he's definitely Mid Tier, and I think it's more likely that he's even High Tier.

The best part about his customs is that they give him tools that cover his weaknesses, while also exemplifying his strongest points: punishing arrogance and carelessness, making calculated reads, and setting traps. I got 12 sword kills in friendlies today. 12. I got two in-tournament (and an up-tilt)! I got 3rd in Doubles. My fundamentals and matchup knowledge are both still in development, so I didn't make it past round 3 of Singles, but the fact that I finally have so many tools feels fantastic. I was destroying in Friendlies, and every matchup seemed hopeful. I fought many Sheiks today, and so many of her gimp combos that used to kill me at 30 are now just scratch damage -- any who got too greedy found themselves dead off the top from Dark Fists. I turned many heads, and even heard a few spectators to say, "dude, custom Ganon is Godlike. Look at this guy! Holy ****, Ganon can do that now!?"

I could survive Sheik's annoying shenanigans to 200% thanks to Wizard Dropkick. Ganon might not be the heaviest in the game, but with customs, he is easily the hardest to kill. It takes a dunk to kill him early, and those can be punished with Dark Fists if you read it, so that's a bigger risk than usual. Rage is so effective for Ganondorf, because he piles on damage fast, and his moves kill early either way, and today I really got to feel that power.

The biggest head-turner was Dark Fists, though. Few people knew what it did, and fewer still knew it had armor or that it killed, so my opponents' over-extends, mis-spaced aerials, and failed up-smash reads went from minor goofs to devastating mistakes. Combos that normally would juggle Ganon for days often ended in premature weakling death.

Also, Wizard Dropkick gives Ganon a fantastic combo from out of downthrow. Downthrow -> Dropkick is guaranteed on the entire cast from low percent to mid percent, longer for fast fallers, and if they fail to tech the landing after Dropkick, down-tilt and F-tilt are also guaranteed. That's an easy 28% combo out of a throw, and sets up an edgeguard or a juggle. Damn.

 

[HeavyLobster]

I could survive Sheik's annoying shenanigans to 200% thanks to Wizard Dropkick. Ganon might not be the heaviest in the game, but with customs, he is easily the hardest to kill. It takes a dunk to kill him early, and those can be punished with Dark Fists if you read it, so that's a bigger risk than usual. Rage is so effective for Ganondorf, because he piles on damage fast, and his moves kill early either way, and today I really got to feel that power.

I'd say Zard with Dragon Rush and Rock Hurl's frame 1 Super Armor to get yourself out of trouble is actually tougher to kill than Ganon, due to his superior weight, also great recovery for his size, and ability to break out of anything that's not a true combo. Dropkick + Dark Fists Dorf doesn't go down easily though, and thanks to having kill power on basically everything can utilize rage more effectively, though of course Zard is no slouch in this respect either.

 

[JmacAttack]

I'd say Zard with Dragon Rush and Rock Hurl's frame 1 Super Armor to get yourself out of trouble is actually tougher to kill than Ganon, due to his superior weight, also great recovery for his size, and ability to break out of anything that's not a true combo. Dropkick + Dark Fists Dorf doesn't go down easily though, and thanks to having kill power on basically everything can utilize rage more effectively, though of course Zard is no slouch in this respect either.

Thing about Rock Hurl is that even though you are right, Rock Hurl cannot be used while recovering, and its hitboxes are entirely upwards, so it might help him retain a lead, but it won't bail him out of trouble. Sure, you'll tack on some damage, maybe, but you still take damage too, and if you get too predictable with it, you can get baited into much worse followups. Warlock Punch is one of them.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Thing about Rock Hurl is that even though you are right, Rock Hurl cannot be used while recovering, and its hitboxes are entirely upwards, so it might help him retain a lead, but it won't bail him out of trouble. Sure, you'll tack on some damage, maybe, but you still take damage too, and if you get too predictable with it, you can get baited into much worse followups. Warlock Punch is one of them.

Technically Rock Hurl can be used while offstage provided you're above the stage and not too far away. It's a somewhat risky gambit but it can work sometimes. It also does work decently well at bailing Zard out of trouble, as most of the time it sucks your opponent in and puts them above you, which is very nice. It is true that overreliance on it is problematic, though. It tends to be the kind of thing that works much better against someone like Sheik than Ganondorf, as being able to break out of a Fair string that would normally be 25% with only 5% actually taken is a great blessing, and the punishes Sheik can potentially bait you into are nowhere near as theatening. Rock Hurl is more of an anti-meta tool against high tier low damage per hit combo machines than a magic bullet that fixes your problems against the entire cast, as I feel Zard only goes even with Ganon in default due to edgeguarding, and probably loses slightly with customs now that that is diminished, though that's a tradeoff he'll take for better Sheik/Pika matchups.