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Official Official Updated Melee Panel Tier List and Community Voted Results

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I'm curious about how the tier system is set up for Smash Bros.

Why aren't Tier Lists created soley based on tournament results? Wouldn't that be more accurate?
 

Spak

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I'm curious about how the tier system is set up for Smash Bros.

Why aren't Tier Lists created soley based on tournament results? Wouldn't that be more accurate?
No, because not every character has equal representation in tournies (especially in the low tiers).
 

Suzukipot

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This list isn't bad though I don't really see how Fox is in his own tier. To me, him and Falco seem pretty much equal but that's just how I see it.
 

Diosama

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This list isn't bad though I don't really see how Fox is in his own tier. To me, him and Falco seem pretty much equal but that's just how I see it.
Fox does better against more of the cast, but it's not enough to warrant his own tier. My guess is that he placed there simply because of the 1.25 voting discrepancy
 

TheDrWasMe

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Personally I think the tier list is completely accurate. Not much I'd really change rather then Ness. I feel he'd at least be higher then Zelda or Mewtwo, but that's just me. Other then that the tier list is pretty solid!
 

Diosama

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Personally I think the tier list is completely accurate. Not much I'd really change rather then Ness. I feel he'd at least be higher then Zelda or Mewtwo, but that's just me. Other then that the tier list is pretty solid!
Mewtwo is ****in legit, I just wish he wasn't so light. He's the best true low tier imo
 

TheDrWasMe

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Mewtwo is ****in legit, I just wish he wasn't so light. He's the best true low tier imo
Yeah, I'll admit, Mewtwo does has a pretty cool community to follow by, and the almighty Mew2king plays him as well. I guess that's why he's in the higher part of the Low Tiers. Though I still See Ness potentially beating out Zelda but as I've said, it's really only just opinionated.
 

Diosama

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Yeah, I'll admit, Mewtwo does has a pretty cool community to follow by, and the almighty Mew2king plays him as well. I guess that's why he's in the higher part of the Low Tiers. Though I still See Ness potentially beating out Zelda but as I've said, it's really only just opinionated.
idk enough about Zelda to judge really or Ness, but I would say better recovery, 2 knees, frame 6 dash attack and neutral b invincibility make her seem like a much better character than Ness
 
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Zink Imp

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This is a great list. Feels much more accurate now.

A bit upset that Bowser is 25th now, I already bought a custom sweatshirt with BOWSER and 24 on the back :(
"A bit upset"

I would be furious. If you're delicate with scissors, you can make it work...
 

Varist

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I feel like the absolute certainty that Fox is 1st and the uncertainty between Falco/Marth 2nd is giving Fox a larger number value tier difference to reflect that technicality rather than reflecting how much better he actually is than second. You have to make an exception to the system here and take Fox out of his own tier.
 

Thor

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I feel like the absolute certainty that Fox is 1st and the uncertainty between Falco/Marth 2nd is giving Fox a larger number value tier difference to reflect that technicality rather than reflecting how much better he actually is than second. You have to make an exception to the system here and take Fox out of his own tier.
Um, no you don't?

You seem to have interpreted tier gaps as "There is a large drop-off in viability between tiers." While that's an arguably valid interpretation in general, I think they're meant to be read differently here. From what I gather, tier gaps are meant to show "Hey, maybe the order within the tier is mixed up, but we're definitely confident in stating that this group of characters is better than this group of characters." That is, a statistical drop-off indicates that there is some consensus that one character is decidedly better than the next group of characters, if not by very much.

In that sense then, it is clear by all the voting from every group that Fox IS better than Falco, Marth, or Sheik [and everyone else for that matter]. Gaps then, are not about the margins but about certainty, and so the margin by which he is better is irrelevant - what matters is the certainty that he IS better, and so belongs in his own tier above every other character the next tier down.

Similarly, it is agreed Link is better than GnW, if not by very much.
 

-ACE-

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I think tier gaps are more about the margin than certainty. They imply that a gap in potential/tourney results is present. Because if we were certain that this list was correct, every character should have his own tier lol. I personally think Fox only halfway deserves of his own tier.

If this were quantifiable, and fox was a 9.9/10, and falco a 9.7/10 in units of competitive effectiveness (somehow), literally everyone would vote for 9.9 to be first because it's that easy to see. But does the 9.9 guy really deserve his own tier apart from the other top 4 (all 9.5 and above)? When the 5th character might be an 8.9? Seems like the ones with similar potential (or results) should be grouped. But going off voting trends certainly simplifies everything and like I've said before it's a good list.
 
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SteveTrooper

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I feel this is mostly accurate, I agree that Icies are above falcon, and pikachu and samus are the the next best after the top 8 characters. But i don't feel fox deserves his own tier above everyone else, it's very arguable whether or not falco is tied or even better with him plus Marth can also be considered to trump spacies,I'm not saying Fox can't be considered the best but I don't think he's "SS" he doesn't have an unfair advantage in most areas like the only other "SS" character in a smash game, meta knight in brawl. I also feel Pichu is a bit low, he's a very underrated character, he's definitely still trash but isn't below zelda and mewtwo.
 

Squirrell

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Will this meme of every Melee player talking about how their main sucks all the time ever end?

As for what this thread's actually about, I have a lot of mixed feelings on this tier list.. For one, and most here seem to agree, Fox does not need his own tier. This isn't Brawl and he isn't Meta Knight. Every top-tier character aside from Jiggs can consistently 0-death Fox. I mean really. If he were so overpowered then Armada and Leffen would just win every tournament. It's weird to say the undisputed best character in the game is overrated, but I think it's a bit true here.

I would make a very slight argument about Marth being above Sheik, but Sheik players haven't been doing very well lately and everyone else seems to agree with it so I won't go into that one. To my dying breath I will say Samus belongs above Pikachu.

Yoshi>Luigi>Doc seems the most accurate to me if you base it on results and theory. There's been one breakout performance by a Yoshi, one by a Luigi. The Yoshi did better, and Yoshi is still less developed than Luigi. There's just not much you can do to evolve Luigi's meta, whereas Yoshi has plenty of room to be improved. And Doc has been criminally overrated for sooo long, it's nice to see him down where he belongs.

My biggest grievance honestly is Pichu's placing. Pichu's Nair >>> the entire E-tier and below.
 

Spak

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My biggest grievance honestly is Pichu's placing. Pichu's Nair >>> the entire E-tier and below.
Nah, DK's Uair is probably the best juggling move in the game, DK's Bair is really disjointed and can edgeguard effectively, Roy's D-Tilt combos really well (although he has nothing to combo into), Ness' Bair, Zelda's Bair, and Zelda's Fair are like Knees, Ganon can chainthrow with D-Throw, and stomp puts people in insane amounts of stun, Link and Bowser both have very powerful Up-B OsS, and quite a few other moves I don't feel like listing right now are either as good or better. The place that Pichu excells at is his movement.
 

Squirrell

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Nah, DK's Uair is probably the best juggling move in the game, DK's Bair is really disjointed and can edgeguard effectively, Roy's D-Tilt combos really well (although he has nothing to combo into), Ness' Bair, Zelda's Bair, and Zelda's Fair are like Knees, Ganon can chainthrow with D-Throw, and stomp puts people in insane amounts of stun, Link and Bowser both have very powerful Up-B OsS, and quite a few other moves I don't feel like listing right now are either as good or better. The place that Pichu excells at is his movement.
I was more referring to how Pichu can actually abuse Nair. Every character has good moves, except maybe Kirby lol. The problem is that they're all either too slow to use them (Zelda), have some other crippling weakness like crappy recovery (Ness, Roy). Or both of those problems (DK, Bowser, Link, Ganon). I feel like Pichu is the most "complete" mid-low tier character. SHFFL Nair combos into itself like crazy and destroys fast-fallers offstage, recovery is crazy good, Usmash and Fsmash both kill reliably depending on matchups and can be set up with Nair or Uthrow or Dthrow.. honestly Pichu's only bad weakness is being KO'd really easily. A lot of people say it's because there's no range to work with, which I get, but come on.. You're gonna tell me a character that has 0 approach options like Zelda or no maneuverabiity or recovery whatsoever like DK or Ganon is better than a range problem?
 
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Diosama

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I was more referring to how Pichu can actually abuse Nair. Every character has good moves, except maybe Kirby lol. The problem is that they're all either too slow to use them (Zelda), have some other crippling weakness like crappy recovery (Ness, Roy). Or both of those problems (DK, Bowser, Link, Ganon). I feel like Pichu is the most "complete" mid-low tier character. SHFFL Nair combos into itself like crazy and destroys fast-fallers offstage, recovery is crazy good, Usmash and Fsmash both kill reliably depending on matchups and can be set up with Nair or Uthrow or Dthrow.. honestly Pichu's only bad weakness is being KO'd really easily. A lot of people say it's because there's no range to work with, which I get, but come on.. You're gonna tell me a character that has 0 approach options like Zelda or no maneuverabiity or recovery whatsoever like DK or Ganon is better than a range problem?
Dude, you just said Pichu has only 1 good move. You spam that and it'll be dealing like 4%. I find it ironic that you call other players out for crying about their mains being placed low yet you're doing the exact same thing.

Inb4 "that was b8"
 

-ACE-

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Will this meme of every Melee player talking about how their main sucks all the time ever end?
I don't really thinks it's a meme to provide input for the character you're most knowledgeable about. And as for me, it's kind of obvious the community tier list has Ganon in the correct tier and the official one doesn't. That unbiased.
 

Comet7

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pichu's nair does 6.5% when completely stale, not "4%". it's +1 on shield or +0 if it's stale. you can do late nair to pull back nair for decent shield pressure with mixed up timings. you can space nair so stuff like fox's shine OoS doesn't connect and grab him on the last frame of jump squat. nair leads into grab which leads into down throw tech chases that every pichu is really bad at executing or up throw to nair which is a kill setup. it also has an aerial interrupt which is amazibg with only 6 frames of landing lag. side note, pichu overall has the least landing lag in the game for everything save for not having a NIL. nair also edgeguards well, and pichu does that well in general. also 14 frames of ledgedash invincibility.

pichu doesn't have much horizontal range without doing something like nair or up tilt which isn't as effectinve for zoning as something like marth's down tilt. decent dash dance though. vertical range with up tilt is pretty nice. his cc is also kinda meh and doesn't last long. weight is also an issue but we're approaching an era where nearly everyone can get huge punishes on anybody so it's not as crippling as before.
 
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Diosama

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pichu's nair does 6.5% when completely stale, not "4%". it's +1 on shield or +0 if it's stale. you can do late nair to pull back nair for decent shield pressure with mixed up timings. you can space nair so stuff like fox's shine OoS doesn't connect and grab him on the last frame of jump squat. nair leads into grab which leads into down throw tech chases that every pichu is really bad at executing or up throw to nair which is a kill setup. it also has an aerial interrupt which is amazibg with only 6 frames of landing lag. side note, pichu overall has the least landing lag in the game for everything save for not having a NIL. nair also edgeguards well, and pichu does that well in general. also 14 frames of ledgedash invincibility.

pichu doesn't have much horizontal range without doing something like nair or up tilt which isn't as effectinve for zoning as something like marth's down tilt. decent dash dance though. vertical range with up tilt is pretty nice. his cc is also kinda meh and doesn't last long. weight is also an issue but we're approaching an era where nearly everyone can get huge punishes on anybody so it's not as crippling as before.
Moves deal less damage if you use them repetitively. Pichu's nair will eventually deal 4% damage because it's his only good move
 

Comet7

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Moves deal less damage if you use them repetitively. Pichu's nair will eventually deal 4% damage because it's his only good move
read my post.

also false, and nair deserves a much more generous word than "good".

and i goofed in my other post, nair does 6.6 damage when completely stale
 
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Squirrell

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Dude, you just said Pichu has only 1 good move. You spam that and it'll be dealing like 4%. I find it ironic that you call other players out for crying about their mains being placed low yet you're doing the exact same thing.

Inb4 "that was b8"
I didn't mean people complaining about their main being too low, I meant people complaining about their main being too high. Melee players seem to have a complex about blaming their shortcomings on their main being worse than Fox and that irritates me. It's especially bad with us Puff mains. Haha

But yeah, damage-wise Pichu sucks period. So does Sheik, and you don't see too many people complaining. Melee is a game of 0-death punishes. Damage really isn't that important when every high-tier not named Puff gets gimped at X% just as often as they get KO'd.
 
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Ph1l

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I don't approve of this Fox having his own tier trash. This is what the brawl community did with MK
 

Waldoring

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Considering that both the tier lists are based on a hazy mixture of tournament results, theory, and simple opinions of top players, I think it would be nice to have some nicely compiled data on just tournament results. Since it was taken into account for the creation of the official list, would the back room mind sharing that data? I think a list solely based on results (highest win rate) would be cool, albeit not as relevant as the official one.
 

Schill

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To add to the debate of whether tiers are separated by certainty or margin, I think margin. Fox is first with a little bit of competition with falco and falco and marth's placements are somewhat controversial. By a certainty philosophy, that would put sheik in a tier below fox falco and marth which shouldn't be.

Also, it always seemed to me that luigi > doc but I always see doc > luigi on tier lists. Could someone give a pro doc explanation to me of why that is?
 

Squirrell

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To add to the debate of whether tiers are separated by certainty or margin, I think margin. Fox is first with a little bit of competition with falco and falco and marth's placements are somewhat controversial. By a certainty philosophy, that would put sheik in a tier below fox falco and marth which shouldn't be.

Also, it always seemed to me that luigi > doc but I always see doc > luigi on tier lists. Could someone give a pro doc explanation to me of why that is?
Shroomed, an AMAZING player, used to do decently with him in tournaments, so people think he's a good character and don't realize it was really just Shroomed being amazing. It's the same situation with Axe and Pikachu, only Pikachu actually probably deserves to be where he is.

Edit: Not pro-Doc, but an explanation nonetheless.
 
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Schill

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When I was first getting into competitive melee I played a lot of doc and watched a ton of shroomed videos. As far as I saw, doc has pills, fair, and cape over luigi. Not sure on the frame data but pretty sure luigi's aerials are shorter than docs so he can do more in the air and also a sex kick nair seems better than a reverse sex kick. It also seems like luigi has a better wavedash.

I get that fair can be a powerful KO move for doc but luigi's fair can just as easily set up an edgeguard situation and all the mario bros have a great bair for edgeguards.
 

Squirrell

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When I was first getting into competitive melee I played a lot of doc and watched a ton of shroomed videos. As far as I saw, doc has pills, fair, and cape over luigi. Not sure on the frame data but pretty sure luigi's aerials are shorter than docs so he can do more in the air and also a sex kick nair seems better than a reverse sex kick. It also seems like luigi has a better wavedash.

I get that fair can be a powerful KO move for doc but luigi's fair can just as easily set up an edgeguard situation and all the mario bros have a great bair for edgeguards.
I feel like Doc probably has the best Bair of the three, and Mario has the best Uair, but those aside Luigi's aerials are just so fast. He can get out of most combos by just mashing A and praying for a Nair, his Fair is crazy strong for its speed, and don't even get me started on his Dair. That thing sends you at the most ungodly angle if it hits you offstage. Not to mention his mini-Rest.
 

sadweather

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Hey guys, I know the tier list has been out for a while, and I wanted to share my thoughts.

Firstly, blahblah blah fox in ss tier blah blah blah. We get it,he isn't that much better than falco.
I made a tier list over on the voting thread, and thoughts I'd share some of my differences. I'd like to point out since I posted it, I have made some changes, so check this spoiler for my new tier list.

So overall, here is what I think.
Falcon is only slightly better than ICs.
I'm not too familiar with mid tiers, but I see more potential in Yoshi than I do with Luigi and Doc.
I think that Link is better than DK, Link just doesn't get any representation.
Now, the Low Tiers. My favorite. Here we go.
Let me preface this by saying that this is kinda biased, but I'll try to keep it as factual as possible.
G&W deserves to be at the top of the list, but still definitely worse than DK.
Mewtwo has some good potential, but only gets some use here and there, not really showing what he could be capable of.
Pichu. Oh boy. Some people might be shouting at me for him to be a lot lower, and there was actually one guy when I posted this originally saying it should be higher. Pichu, along with a lot of these low tiers has one really good move, his nair. But Pichu is limited by the move that hurt itself, and the fact that its extremely light. But you can pull off some crazy fun combos with Pichu.
Zelda is probably the character I am least familiar with in this matchup. Zelda does get some usage, with The Lake and Narcissa a long time ago. But, she is definitely very limited.
Roy. Ugh. What a disappointing piece of garbage. I'm putting him tied with Ness for my list, as I really think that Roy is just way too underwhelming. A lot of his attacks do barely anything, and his sweetspots are on the hilt of his blade. His down air meteors instead of spikes, so no awesome ken combos. His only real upside compared to marth is his downtilt, but thats about it.
Ness I am also very unfamiliar with. He gets some usage by Hbox and JimJamFlimFlam, but that is really about it. From my little experience with him, you could have some fun, but he is very limited.
And here is my big surprise - Kirby above Bowser!! This is where my bias unfortunately really shines. I really love Kirby, and love his potential. He has positive matchups against Bowser and Roy definitely, and I would say is about even with like 3 or 4 characters. Kirby gets some nice usage by C Rabbit, and some top players have used him once or twice in matches, along with most other low tiers. I am giving Kirby ll this praise, but I am only saying he is better than Bowser. Sure, Kirby can beat Roy, but Roy does better against Pichu and Ness. So I'm not saying that Kirby is good. He is awful. I'm just saying that he is better than Bowser.
I can't really say much about Bowser, except that he is awful. DJ Nintendo is Bowser's last hope, and his matchups against all of the cast are not in his favor.

So tell me what you think, I know that I really only focused on the low tiers, but they are my specialty.
 

super fan bros

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Good tier list and thank you Mew2king for Pichu!

By cons I would better seen Kirby before Bowser. Especially it has the MU in his favour
 
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