Recovery Tier List (Updated 1-5-07)

[Magus420]

A jiggs that gets shined off stage more than once is a nub that doesn't learn to pound away from the stage though.

 

[Skylink]

I think that samus is better than jiggz. And ness is not bottom, his double jump is as good as yoshi's, and he has an Up B. (unlike yoshi) He is very similar recovery wise... large, slow double jump and projectile Up B. And mario should be in lower mid tier.

A side note, I think that samuses Bomb jumps leave samus just about as vunerable as ness when getting his thunder around and under him. Then again... samus can airdodge and then press A to grapple...

I think the proper list would be as follows: (Copied and edited from chozen1, as his is closest to fully correct)

Top Tier
1. Jigglypuff
2. Samus
3. Peach
4. Mewtwo (you convinced me...)

Upper Tier
5. Pikachu
6. Zelda
7. IceClimbers (two of them)
8. Gannondorf
9. Fox

High Tier
10. Pichu
11. Marth
12. Link
13. Mario
14. Shiek

Middle Tier
15. Luigi
16. Young Link
17. Single Ice Climber
18. Game and Watch
19. C. Falcon

Low Tier
20. Ness
21. Kirby
22. Yoshi
23. Roy
24. Bowser
25. Donkey Kong

Bottom Tier
26. Falco
27. Doctor Mario

This should be a little more accurate

 

[MaskedMarth]

...

What a lot of people don't realize is that Jiggly doesn't need to use any of her jumps to just reach the edge. Upward Pound grants Jiggly an infinite horizontal recovery. Without jumping or air dodging, and without involving breakable projectiles. So she can reach the edge at no cost - so she can use ALL her resources to thwart edge-guarders. Five jumps, upward Pound and air dodging give her arguably the highest vertical recovery in the game (Ice Climbers and Mewtwo might get slightly higher), allowing her to fly way above most edge-guarders; and don't forget, she can fight almost as well off the edge as on, so Wall of Pain is still a factor when Jigglypuff is "recovering."

Samus may get almost as much distance as Jigglypuff when recovering, but it's with much more effort - she needs to drop bomb after bomb, each one an opportunity for an opponent to jump in and kill her bombs (which throws a wrench into Samus' recovery). All the extra time Samus leaves herself vulnerable gives the opponent an opportunity to kill her outright (Falcon can fly off the edge and knee/uair her out of bounds; an enemy Samus or Mewtwo can jump way off edge, kill a bomb, fire a cannon and still make it back onstage; Jigglypuff could probably even launch multiple Rest attempts, using Samus' bombs as a safety catch).

 

[Skylink]

Masked marth has a good point. I'm editing my list

 

[Zero34]

is this list solely distance or does it include weight, mindgames, realism, etc. too?

 

[ChozenOne]

On my list I created mine on the basis of overall effectivness... Note that every character on my list that was atleast positioned in "high tier" and above (excluding Falco, and Doc) has a recovery rated in high tier and above. This is not a mistake. It is also a very clear indication that recovery does play a very important role in a character's affectiveness in the game... Falco would without a doubt be the best character in the game if his recovery was better, and the same may also be said about Falcon.. however this is not a discussion on character possibilities.

 

[DJ Nintendo]

I disagree with Dr. Mario being the worst. He has a good amount of options when coming back to the stage or the ledge. When's he's knocked off the stage, he has a total of four moves to do to come back. Unless, he got knocked off the stage after his second jump, which leaves him with only three. He can perform his four moves which are second jump, cape, tornado, then either his uppercut or air dodge in basically any order. Although his last fourth move has to be either his uppercut or air dodge. Dr. Mario is also kind of a floatie character so he gets some sort of good horizontal distance. In addition, if you use Dr. Mario's uppercut last to reach the ledge, he has a huge magnet that makes him reach the ledge even a mile away, lol. Thus, with his magnet you can avoid getting spiked or hit trying to grab on to the ledge. Even though Dr. Mario has all these moves he could perform to get back on, using them effectively and at the right time play a major role. For example, his tornado has to be done to the highest potential for it to be a good move to help his recovery. Also, using his cape at the right time helps a lot as well. It's better to use his cape before his tornado because if you use the cape after his tornado, you'll go down extremely low. After the tornado, he has lag time to perform another move so using his cape after that would be a bad time since his cape sends you down unlike Mario's cape. We all know that Dr. Mario's cape sends him down a little bit even if used the first time, but it helps to give a little bit more horizontal distance and can be used as an attack option if someone is trying to kill you. Since I main Dr. Mario and Mario, I know how to come back with them even from incredible distances, especially if I'm using Mario. Lastly, with the good amount of moves that Dr. Mario has at his disposal in the air, you could play effective mind games and also fight while trying to come back onto the stage or grab the ledge. Even though doing these things is very risky, Dr. Mario is my main so I believe I know what I'm doing and saying. I hope my opinion helps out because I don't think Dr. Mario is the worst.

 

[ChozenOne]

For those of you whom disagree with Doc, and Mario's position on the tier list for recovery, whom do you feel should replace them in thier current position? Personally i feel that Doc's recovery isn't as bad as falco's, but Falco has more options. Also, Doc falls very quickly. Remember too, that characters like luigi have amazing recoveries, but many people cannot utilize them to their fullest extent. This tier list (mine i guess... can't really speak for Mr. Wii ie. topic starter) creator is most certainly aware of Doc's full recovery potential, however i still do not feel that his place on the recovery tier list should move. and as for topic startin man... Roy 2nd from the bottom. ComeOn... He's kinda floaty. That right there makes his recovery superior to Bowser, DK, and Falco... If any of those three are hit far away can any of them make it back?? Me thinks not. Roy can also make his UpB move farther than Marth's horizontally, so that right there is an option. And let's not forget about the Fire Emblem Twin's Sword Dance ability to futher improve their already acceptable recovery for their postion on the overall goodness tier list...

 

[Magus420]

Doc falls very quickly.

Roy 2nd from the bottom. ComeOn... He's kinda floaty.

Doc is one of the floatier chars of the game, and Roy is the 4th fastest faller in the game...

 

[Brookman]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this but a fully charged shadow ball from mewtwo can be used to get major horizontal distance

 

[Airo]

repeated but very important facts of mewtwo!

Mewtwo

--2nd jump is proven to jump the same distance as yoshi
--teleport teleports you passing Anyone. and you can control the direction too!
--his confusion (forwardB) bounces MEWTWO up a little, and also DRAGS edge guarders down. (even taj used this in his video)
--Mewtwo covers 2nd most horizontal distance, only bested by peach
--the usual jump jump UpB routine shouldnt prevent Mewtwo from having the best recovery.
--and no taj, as well as many mewtwo players, dont djc that often... the Dair is only a toy on land
--and djc is only one of many ways of using his Nair, so dont let this tiny factor hold him down on the recovery tier list.
--highest vertical reach in game


and as for samus.....
just watch this video.. and you will know that fancy stuff doesnt save you
http://youtube.com/watch?v=_MnF8eXLme4&search=ssbm ether

and as for peach....
she cant cover vertical distance, one meteor smash and you got nothing to save you

higher for mewtwo!!!
some of the comments ive read are against mewtwo entirely because he is just "big and goofy" and you just dont like him. you people should lay off, he's already down at the rock bottom of the official tier list for poor reasons.

 

[B-Will]

repeated but very important facts of mewtwo!

Mewtwo

--2nd jump is proven to jump the same distance as yoshi
--teleport teleports you passing Anyone. and you can control the direction too!
--his confusion (forwardB) bounces MEWTWO up a little, and also DRAGS edge guarders down. (even taj used this in his video)
--Mewtwo covers 2nd most horizontal distance, only bested by peach
--the usual jump jump UpB routine shouldnt prevent Mewtwo from having the best recovery.
--and no taj, as well as many mewtwo players, dont djc that often... the Dair is only a toy on land
--and djc is only one of many ways of using his Nair, so dont let this tiny factor hold him down on the recovery tier list.
--highest vertical reach in game
and as for samus.....

just watch this video.. and you will know that fancy stuff doesnt save you
http://youtube.com/watch?v=_MnF8eXLme4&search=ssbm ether

and as for peach....
she cant cover vertical distance, one meteor smash and you got nothing to save you

This is precisely why I was hoping to have mewtwo ahead of samus. Just because you all don't play with mewtwo, including myself, and just because he is now officially the worst character in the game, it doesn't negate the fact that mewtwo as a REDICULOUS recovery. I find edgeguarding a samus a whole lot easier than mewtwo, and mewtwo, IMO can make it back from more spots on the map then samus. And again, peach's recovery is way overrated. I like my placement for peach to stay at 6 and I'd like to move mewtwo back up to 2 depending on what you all think of it.

Chozen one. Yes I am aware of doc's options, but his horizontal recovery sucks and his vertical doesn't compensate for it. So I agree doc should stay at the bottom. However, roy is not floaty in the least. This is precisely why is lower than marth on the recovery tier list; he sinks like a rock. While trying to use over b to recovery to the edge, he loses lots and lots of altitude each over b he does. And the fact that his vertical recovery isn't quite as high as marth makes him easier to edgehog. Roy's recovery sucks; is it worthy for second to the last? maybe not, but I'd like to hear others opinions.

And skylink, your tier divisions are well done, however, the one flaw that caught my attention was Captain falcon at 19. Wtf? CF has a horrid recovery. So very predictable, only one realy option, lack of mindgame ability with the up b, very limited occasions to use the down and b for a second jump...at least with characers like dk and bowser, their horizontal distance are much greater and at least they have somewhat of disjointed hitboxes on their bodies which make it a little harder to edgeguard.

EDIT: On second look, there are a lot of mistakes. Mario at 13 ahead of shiek? I'm sorry that couldn't be more wrong and I think everyone here would agree with that, that's an obvious one.

Pichu at 10 makes me cry.

Again, roy's recovery sucks, definitely not higher than dk and bowser.

Last one is ganon over fox. I'm more cautious to not just say it's wrong because it IS debatable, but I believe fox def has a better and more versatile recovery.

I'll filter through the rest of the posts and mock tier lists that you all made and try to make changes to my post but for now I have to go.

 

[Magus420]

Roy having less vertical recovery does not make him easier to edgehog than Marth. Marth is easier to edgehog than Roy is.

 

[B-Will]

Roy having less vertical recovery does not make him easier to edgehog than Marth. Marth is easier to edgehog than Roy is.

I disagree... because roy sinks like a rock and loses vertical altitude, his recovery that is shorter vertical wise than marth hurts him because it makes it harder for him to recover over the edge and onto the stage, thus being able to be edgehogged is more common. Marth is able to make it not just back to the edge, but over the edge and onto the stage because he is more floaty coupled with his higher recovery. This makes him less susceptible to edgehog; however, that doesn't mean that an edgehogging falco, at that point, can't just simply punish marth's up b lag by performing a ledgehopped bair ftw...

 

[Airo]

as for pichu.... doesnt his UpB have one of the farthest reach????
and ALMOST NO DELAY WHEN YOU LAND! OMG

it is tecnically farther than mewtwo, pikachu, and kirby's 5 jump put together.

the only downfall is that he is very defenceless in the air while executing this predictable recovery move.

but still, his position is very just =]

 

[Magus420]

Sure Roy will get edgehogged at lower damages due to his worse recovery than Marth, but that doesn't make actually edgehogging Roy any easier. He won't be getting edgehogged more often as you say, though he will with less damage usually. It hits better, is a lot easier to land on the stage with if need be, and doesn't fall victim to the lightshield edgehog trick used for Marth.

 

[B-Will]

Sure Roy will get edgehogged at lower damages due to his worse recovery than Marth, but that doesn't make actually edgehogging Roy any easier. It hits better, is a lot easier to land on the stage with if need be, and doesn't fall victim to the lightshield edgehog trick used for Marth.

Yeah if you look at it that way, I guess that's true.

 

[Supreme Pie Ninja]

Why is Ganon so low?

 

[AOB]

DK's is quite good--it gives you a lot of control, it goes through things, and it gives some nice distance. too bad it sucks vertically, but just ask anyone how my DK never dies.

kirby's is awful because he is soooo easy to interrupt. ice climbers' is also lame because it's very vulnerable. certainly both of these should be below DK.

 

[Magus420]

Even at low damages, if you get knocked off the stage as Ganon there's a pretty good chance you won't be making it back against someone who knows how to edgeguard well, and if you do manage to get back you'll probably have a LOT more damage than when you first went out there. His recovery is very predictable and leaves him quite vulnerable, as well as getting ***** at the edge. His edgetech to up-b is really good, but that's only if they let you get that far. Can't really edgetech unless you can get close enough to hug the wall, which most chars can prevent you from doing in the 1st place.

 

[MZero17]

Zelda has a rediculous up-b range. However, her landing lag has got to be one of the worst, if not, the worst in the game. There IS a reason why top players don't transform to zelda from shiek to make it back to the edge. Her recovery is too easy to predict, laggy, and be knocked back to the edge. Players don't bother even using it most of the time.

You said that awhile back and I have seen Captain Jack transform into Zelda to recover.

 

[Airo]

zelda's recovery isnt that bad.
If you think of recovering as in Intercepting and KOing a player, zelda would definately go back on stage much easier than other general characters. She would definately have the uper hand in this.

besides, IF she is high enough to do a horizontal recovery, she can reach half way onto the stage. And, her delay isnt as bad as most of you say it is. down to it, it is still milliseconds.

and its not like sheik has a chance of even touching the stage in some cases unless you change back to zelda. I would take the chance 0.o wouldnt you?

 

[Skylink]

[QUOTEB-Will]And skylink, your tier divisions are well done, however, the one flaw that caught my attention was Captain falcon at 19. Wtf? CF has a horrid recovery. So very predictable, only one realy option, lack of mindgame ability with the up b, very limited occasions to use the down and b for a second jump...at least with characers like dk and bowser, their horizontal distance are much greater and at least they have somewhat of disjointed hitboxes on their bodies which make it a little harder to edgeguard.

EDIT: On second look, there are a lot of mistakes. Mario at 13 ahead of shiek? I'm sorry that couldn't be more wrong and I think everyone here would agree with that, that's an obvious one.

Pichu at 10 makes me cry.

Again, roy's recovery sucks, definitely not higher than dk and bowser.

Last one is ganon over fox. I'm more cautious to not just say it's wrong because it IS debatable, but I believe fox def has a better and more versatile recovery.
[/QUOTE]Ok, I'll fix that. You have a point on all of that. Some of these are hard to decide on, though. How about DK & bowser above yoshi, Kirby, ness, and roy? (not sarcasm)
Well... maybe not...

This sure is harder than it looks

A few more kinks worked out:

Top Tier
1. Jigglypuff
2. Samus
3. Peach
4. Mewtwo

Upper Tier
5. Pikachu
6. Zelda
7. Pichu
8. IceClimbers (two of them)
9. Fox

High Tier
10. Gannondorf
11. Marth
12. Link
13. Shiek
14. Mario

Middle Tier
15. Luigi
16. Young Link
17. Single Ice Climber
18. Game and Watch

Low Tier
19. Kirby
20. Ness
21. Yoshi
22. C. Falcon
23. Bowser
24. Donkey Kong
25. Roy

Bottom Tier
26. Falco
27. Doctor Mario

 

[ESAM]

Isn't this the recovery teir list and not the getting back on the stage without getting hit back off teir list? This teir list should not be based on predictability, but instead, of how well there jumps are regardless of predictability. IMO Luigi should have two things. One with misfire(s) and one without misfire(s). If luigi gets a misfire, unless extremely low, he can make it back no sweat. And for the 2 ice climbers, i think people forget how good the forward-b can be if there are two of them. It is far better than the up-b. I don't agree that doc is lowest. If he is hit somewhat hi, his recovery can be good since he has the "Hand of God" meaning that he can grab the edge farther away than most people. I think that peach should have 2 placements also. Her recovery is very good with her float but without it, it is vomit worth. Mewtwo's recovery should be better than peach's either way. His 2nd jump is god and so is his 3rd, even though it is sorta difficult since you have like 5 or less frames to move the joystick to the direction you want. Link should be higher because of his 3rd jump bombing which can get him closer to the edge and higher. Also he can hookshot the edge or rising hookshot for faster recovery. That sums it up.

 

[Airo]

yeah.... link can recover from anything depending on timing of his bomb, and aid from his hookshot. his hook shot can do sweetspotting too!

same for younglink.

as for ganondorf, lets not forget that his warlock kick lets him do his second jump again. ganondorf has no problem with horizontal recoveries

for samus.... if you REALLY want to count his bomb stairway, then he should be at the top of the tier list..... but in reality, almost no one knows how to do it properly, and you require a Mr saturn to do this properly.

 

[Friendship]

shiek should be above kirby. you need to take into account that sheik can transform in midair and use zelda's recovery if she can't reach the ledge.

 

[Courtofdoom]

I still don't know why Luigi is in low tier. He has amazing horizontal recovery especially with misfires. He has a great vertical recovery if you save your double jump, perfect tornado, then upb. Edge guarding the green missle when he's close to the stage is easy but that shouldn't matter because Luigi can go below the stage and sweet spot the edge with ease. If someone is edgehogging, Luigi can stall with a perfect tornado. I still think Luigi is being under estimated.

I disagree with Zelda's placement. Even though her upb has insane range, the lag after landing is significant and results in a punishment (usually sending her back of the stage). She shouldn't be middle tier.

 

[Magus420]

I'll say it again. The lag after landing with Zelda's and Sheik's up-b's is exactly the same.

 

[ESAM]

i still think that if this is the "recovery" teir list it shouldn't matter about the predictability or landing lag. Because if it is that Samus should be lower. Against jigglypuff she can jump down and intercept the bombs ****ing up any chance of samus's recovery. so if this is the recovery teir list i agree with it but if it is the predictability and recovery teir list i disagree. IF that was the case jigglypuff is 1 and everyone else is 26.

 

[Skylink]

Mario is not that low. Shiek IS BETTER THAN ZELDA. Mr. Game and Watch does not deserve low tier. Y. Link does not deserve middle tier. And Marth has mid/high tier worthy recovery.

Move mario up five.
Move Zelda to upper tier.
Move Mr. G&W up five.
Move Shiek down one.
Move Y. Link down four.
Move Marth up seven.

And put in a 19th charachter.

 

[Rock Lobsta]

fox is where he should be..which is good.
dont agree with zeld though. doesnt matter how lagy it is, just a matter of recovery ability.

 

[The Immortal Flame]

I don't think so. Fox's recovery should be much lower on the list as far as I'm concerned. Both the illusion and the firefox are incredibly easy to edgeguard with just about anybody. All that's needed is a perfectly-timed smash or spike, and since both moves have no traction whatsoever, are completely linear, and have low priority, there is really no difficulty in that. Just about any forward or down smash from the edge of the stage can out-prioritize these moves. Fox is also extremely susceptible to moves like Mario's cape, Samus or Falcon's uptilts, Link's spin attack, Samus's missles and charge beam, Bowser's flames, Mewtwo's shadow balls, Shiek's needles, and various aireals and meteor moves. The inability of Fox to control the distance of his recovery, as well as his inability to alter his trajectory in the middle of the move makes him all the more vulnerable, and you can't play any mind games with it. Personally, I'd place Fox in the middle of Mid-tier at best.

 

[Wuss]

I have a question, is this strict distance, or survival. I think survival is more important because... Well... Its pretty self explanatory. If so, samus is first because she is amazingly heavy, and floaty, and has insane distance, and has goog mindgames with recovery.

Also in this case, peach should be higher like third because she has a lot of options and can stall well.
pika and pichu CAN go far, but they are way too light and dotn have as good horizantal moving speed. I know peach is light, but they are lighter.

Ganon is also very heavy and has good recovery, therefore should be high tier.
This is all my opinion.

 

[Skywalker]

Official Recovery Tier List (In Progress)​

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​

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Bottom Tier

25. Captain Falcon (27)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always though Captain Falcon would at least make middle tier.

 

[Scrubs]

There are several things that i disagree with in this list.

Firstly Doc should be moved up.

Doc recovery is bad no doubt about it. I think he and falco both have similar recoveries in terms of distance. Doc has one important advantage over falco though. Doc can deter edge guarders. He can cape aerial attacks and projectiles while of the edge. I constantly cape aerial attempts at edgeguarding mainly bairs and sex kicks. Also doc can fire pills on his way down this is an extremely effective deterent.

Falco should be moved down (to 26th)

Falco's recovery IMO is the worst in the game. It's horizontal distance is no longer than any of the characters below him atm. But it has another weakness it is very easily edgeguarded. Falco has no way of detering edgeguarders.

DK moved to mid

DK's recovery has a extremely large horizontal range i have never seen DK travel far enough away from the stage to not recover. DK's up b has very high priority therefore it is very hard to interupt is UP B with aerial attacks. The only downside to his recovery is its verticality but with proper di only a spike and maybe sheiks fair will send him low enough not to recover i don't think it is bad enough for low tier.

Peach should be moved to top tier.

I think peach should replace mewtwo in top tier. Mewtwo's recovery is too easily edguarded. Peach's horizontal recovery allows her to recover everytime unless she dies. Also she is very difficult to edgeguard parasol has crazy priority and a detatched hitbox. Float also lets her stall if she wishes.

Mewtwo down

Too easy to edgeguard. UP B is hard to sweetspot. Mewtwo should be in mid he has a shocking recovery.

I agree with jiggs being top great recovery. I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet but Jiggs can mix it up with rollout to recover aswell.

 

[Samochan]

kirby's is awful because he is soooo easy to interrupt.

Maybe because the kirby's you've been fighting always resorts to cutter even with extra jumps. :/ I've been trying to learn how to DI up everytime I get hit off the stage and only resort to edgehog when I'm below stage or otherwise safe from edgeguard. With multiple jumps, Kirby can easily recover from high that not many characters can reach him and he still has his multiple jumps and swallowcide to punish everyone trying to edgeguard him, not to mention you can sweetspot the edge with the stone. Cutter can be easy to interrupt with characters that have very long reach, but even samus with her nasty utilt and fsmash needs to time it correcly to hit kirby and in some cases she can't hit kirby at all due to cutter's hidden range and that you can still grab the ledge from pretty far. Sweetspotting cutter is also an option, but I don't fancy cutter as a recovery tool since it's still quite easy to interrupt for say, peach. But with 5 jumps, good DI and aerial dodge, you can recover against anyone. His aerial dodge is pretty good, travels far and he grabs the ledge from afar.

Oh yea, and Peach recovery is top tier. Proper DI and vola, she'll recover from too high against anyone that's not Fox who just waveshined and shinespiked her.

 

[Hoefler]

Bowser should be moved up, a few reasons:

1. His Up-B has a lot of range when used in conjunction with a saved jump and good DI.
2. His Up-B has a ton of priority over edge-guarders and will disrupt most forward smashes/down smashes.

That is all.

 

[mood4food77]

ganon has amazing recovery, why is he down so low, his recovery is better than the pikas, it's just as good as mewtwo's, he doesn't die

 

[Skylink]

He doesn't die because he's heaviest but with a average-ish recovery range. And the ability to spike some edgegaurders with some luck. (Down B spikes)

 

[halfDemon]

Peach definetly needs to be moved to the top tier. Her horizontal recovery never fails to reach, and her vertical isn't too shabby.