Smash 3DS Smash 4 Tier List Speculation (3DS)

[Lozjam]

Get Link and Ganondorf out of low tier. Have you seen all of the bomb AT's that cancels Link's aerial lag? Also, Ganondorf will be murderous in the right hands. It's still about mind games bro, and the engine definitely gives Ganondorf amazing buffs.

 

[Sir Bubbles]

I disagree with the tier list (IMO) I don't mean it to be a jerk or something, but this really something I disagree with

1. Lucario #1? I think he's at least mid tier

2. Pacman is mid-tier at best

3. Mario, Luigi and Doc are at best high tier/mid tier

4. Captain Falcon is at least high tier

5. Megaman last? I think he's mid tier.

As for everybody else, I really don't know.

 

[CryoGX]

I'm pretty amazed and happy that Sonic is generally much higher now, in terms of speculation.

He was my main in Brawl and I was pretty crappy with him.

Then I downloaded P:M and everyone on the hall hated how annoying and combo-y I'd become and would sometimes intentionally get me out first in a 4-man FFA match.

So far, the new Sonic is looking utterly incredible in the next smash and I cannot wait to play him and roll around at the speed of sound.

From what I've seen, he's more than likely upper-mid tier at the least.

 

[Aura Warrior]

I've been playing during 2 weeks with the Japanese version using only Lucario, and yes, he IS a God at 100%
Even below that, he is extremely agile and fast... I actually don't know whether to be happy for it. I mean, he is my main, but something feels wrong to use a more powerful character than the rest.
In any case, the player's skills will always be the most important factor.

 

[Trickerhere]

Little Mac should be higher his ground game is really solid.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I'm not convinced Lucario is top tier right now, and I love the death out of that character.

 

[Gabukin]

TOP

S Tier: 1) 2) 3) (No Specific Order)

A Tier: 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9)


HIGH
B Tier: 10) 11) 12) 13) 14) 15) 16) 17)
C Tier: 18)19) 20) 21) 22) 23) 24)


MID
D Tier: 25) 26) 27) 28) 29)30)
E Tier: 31) 32) 33)34)35)36) 37)38)


LOW
F Tier: 39)40)41)42) 43) 44)
G Tier: 45) 46)47)48)49)

I have a few thoughts
Why is robin so high? - I've watched A lot of Robin gameplay and he looks like he's B or C Tier.
I think Jigglypuff is way to low. she deserves to be A tier. everyone I've seen play this character has pretty much just dominated.
Captain Falcon seems WAY to low. His combo game is actually pretty incredible with Down-Throw & U-air. He's at least a B Tier
Ness was buffed considerable in this game, and I think he is B tier in this game.
Aside from that the list looks pretty good.

 

[Rich Homie Quan]

All I can comfortably say is that Sheik will be near the top

 

[z00ted]

I think it's safe to say I was considerably wrong on Falcon lol. Jigglypuff I can see being higher, yeah - but I haven't found many vids on her gameplay other than playing w/ her myself for a bit. Her and Ike I'm the least informed about. Robin's great imo, has all the tools a high but not quite top tier character should possess it's just gonna take a bit of time for his meta to develop (same goes for Rosalina).

 

[shapular]

Seems solid enough. I think Bowser Jr. is a bit higher than that, and I haven't seen enough high-level Palutena play to convince me that she's that good (although I've only seen her with the default moveset, some of her customs should help her out. Auto-Reticle is kind of balls imo). I hope Charizard isn't really that bad because he's fun . Can I ask why you have Peach that high? Pretty much everybody I've seen has said she's worse than in Brawl, but I'm pretty sure you're better at Peach than all of those guys.

For the heck of it, here's a tier list I made a month and a half ago for the heck of it just based on the E3 demo and pure speculation:

A

B

C

D

 

[Ultima777]

While I don't know enough about each character I do want to make a few comments on some characters:

- High mid tier at worst. Aside from two of his aerials suffering from high landing lag Captain Falcon is a very flexible character that has a lot of ways to adapt and react, he has so many great attacks that are just made for combos. There's nothing terrible about him either outside of the little landing lag issue, he's not great at recovering but not terrible either.

- Forget Brawldorf guys, he might look the same, but I assure that he isn't. Ganondorf has received notable buffs, and at the same time the game itself has shifted focus to favor him. Ganondorf's U-Air, B-Air, F-Tilt, D-Tilt and F-Smash have all received speed buffs and thus are his best attacks. At the same time he has received a lot of damage buffs too. That's just one thing though, cause the most important thing is that while everyone KOs people in the 100%-150% range in this game, Ganondorf can do it as early as 70%-90%. Ganondorf's knockback is ****ing ridiculous, his U-Smash KOd Wario at 74% in one of Shofu's videos, his F-Smash can KO everyone on the edge of FD at 80-90%. Punishing is more important than ever in this game, and Ganondorf is the best at that in the entire game. Still, he still has his speed problems, and his recovery is also still pretty lame, so while he's nowhere near as bad as Brawldorf he should be mid tier at least.

- Once people learn to properly predict his projectiles DHD is going to suffer a lot, his Down-B and Side-B are both rather slow and can both be broken, thus aren't going to be great tools once people can adapt to them. He's still a good character, but not top tier.

- This beast is underrated, Dedede is a top tier candidate. His D-Throw is a guaranteed combo setup, he has tons of range, he's got decent speed and a lot of power, and he has possibly the best and most unpredictable projectile in the game, the Gordo has infinite uses. People really need to open their eyes for this character.

- High tier, it's not really debatable. All of her aerials are godlike, Pound is a shield breaker, and you can combo into Rest or simply do it out of shield. I don't think she's top tier since she isn't quite up to her Melee power, but at least high tier.

- Mid tier incarnate, he's got a lot of good things but also notable drawbacks, at the moment I wouldn't put him anywhere else.

- Ike is the worst character in the game by a very long shot, and I absolutely hate to say that, but that's how it is. Everyone around him has been buffed while Ike has actually been nerfed, meanwhile they have not adapted him properly to the new game at all. He kills people at the terrible 110%-130%, no earlier than the likes of Mario who are much faster than him and much better at racking up percentages. At the same time his recovery is absolutely dreadful, with the ledge nerfs it's become harder for him to recover than ever, it's now much easier to gimp him or body-block his Side-B. Ike is a case of a character that seemingly wasn't prioritized very highly and thus has been left behind, it's clear that they have not put very much work into adapting him to the new game at all. I love Ike, I'm going to partially main him no matter what, but I can't deny how terrible he is. I saw someone bring up an excellent point, why play Ike instead of Bowser? There is no reason from a competitive standpoint, Bowser is better than Ike at everything.

Otherwise I don't have many unique things to say, Sheik is top tier, I'm not sure if Bowser is going to stay there but with the current "meta" he's definitely up there. People should wait quite some time before rating Rosalina, her meta is going to evolve a lot every week, both for the better and the worse.

Side b blocking for Ike might not be as bad as you think. I have heard from a few people that played the game that Ike can act out of his side b if he swings at something in Mid air. Also apparently Ike`s attacks can plow through projectiles. He went through Bowser Jr.`s cannonball with his dash attack. Another guy said he kept canceling people`s projectiles when he used any of Ike`s attacks. (Idk about Fox and Falco`s lasers because I think they are different than most projectiles) I haven't played the game myself to confirm this but Ike mains with the japanese version have been saying these things.

 

[MasterOfKnees]

Side b blocking for Ike might not be as bad as you think. I have heard from a few people that played the game that Ike can act out of his side b if he swings at something in Mid air. Also apparently Ike`s attacks can plow through projectiles. He went through Bowser Jr.`s cannonball with his dash attack. Another guy said he kept canceling people`s projectiles when he used any of Ike`s attacks. (Idk about Fox and Falco`s lasers because I think they are different than most projectiles) I haven't played the game myself to confirm this but Ike mains with the japanese version have been saying these things.

Ike cannot act out of Side-B, best thing he can do with it is using the customization that goes through people. It's true that his dash attack has insane priority though, it goes through pretty much everything. I'm not sure if his other attacks kill projectiles. These things alone do not help him much though, even if all of them were true, it's his speed, power and very predictable recovery that kills him, so he's still very far behind.

 

[InfiniteTripping]

I can't wait until I get ahold of the game to give my thoughts. On the demo, the sparkling character was Villager. The rest were OK to meh. I was surprised Pikachu was kind of crap now.

 

[o-Serin-o]

Everybody here is underrating WFT and Fox.

Fox is a very strong character, y'all ****** just have to stop try playing Fox like he's a goddamn Melee character. His fair is MONEY now. Bair is GOOD. U-air STILL combos. You boys better recognize when the tools and stop trying to play what you know instead of trying new things.

Unfortunately, I didn't play WFT, but stay woke dawg.

 

[KurashiDragon]

I've mained pikachu for a good long while now so when I got the demo for smash 4, I could immediately feel how weak it was. It had very strong combos but it couldn't kill for anything. They nerfed it hard with the weak Nair Thunder and Usmash. That said, I don't think it's that low. Sure it's weak but the combos are real with pikachu. It probably one of the best combo characters in Smash 4. It's mid tier at worst.

 

[z00ted]

I think Fox is misjudged on this list as well, he'll probably wind up being high tier.
Regarding Pikachu, ehhh lol. Do you think he's better than any of the characters above him?

Everyone keeps on stating that all these characters deserve at least "mid-tier" and I would normally agree it's just that you have to remember how incredible balanced this release of Smash is. Eventually there has to be a low tier - the question raised is who will inevitably fill it?

 

[InfiniteTripping]

I've mained pikachu for a good long while now so when I got the demo for smash 4, I could immediately feel how weak it was. It had very strong combos but it couldn't kill for anything. They nerfed it hard with the weak Nair Thunder and Usmash. That said, I don't think it's that low. Sure it's weak but the combos are real with pikachu. It probably one of the best combo characters in Smash 4. It's mid tier at worst.

I'm guessing he'll be a D tier character now. I only played the demo but I thought Pika was the worst, no question. I might be exaggerating because he just feels so much worse than in Brawl or even in Melee... I just don't see him going anywhere once things settle in. There's not a lot of bright spots, there was no improvements on anything (maybe his horizontal recovery move? I'm not sure) and everything seems to be weaker or slower.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

I am maining Sonic so far on JP Smash 4 and I can say pretty confidently that people are overrating Sonic based on first impression spin-2-win gameplay. It's not like I'm failing with him either, my FG win % is now sitting around 70% with over 300 matches.

He's definitely better than he was in Brawl, in fact I believe most characters will generally be viable, but Sonic is not comfortably sitting on top.

 

[McX]

I don't like when people compile tier lists based on how often they are played. The metagame of this game is still developing.
I will not compile an entire tier list because I have not played every character.

However, these characters are probably near the top: Duck Hunt, Rosalina & Luma, Bowser
Coming a little below that: Little Mac, Lucario, Greninja, Villager, Robin, Sonic, Mario/Luigi
And probably near the bottom: Olimar, Zelda, Megaman

I can't place anyone else because I don't know how they play.

 

[InfiniteTripping]

I think Bowser drops a lot later on. He's just too big of a target and it seems like his hype is based on a few really speedy moves and a fortunate showing in a few early tournaments.

 

[MasterOfKnees]

I think Bowser drops a lot later on. He's just too big of a target and it seems like his hype is based on a few really speedy moves and a fortunate showing in a few early tournaments.

Size isn't as big a handicap as usual since projectiles aren't as dominant as they used to be. I do however agree, there's only one way for Bowser right now and that is down, how much he'll fall remains to be seen.

 

[Cactusblah]

I think Toon Link is better than most people think he is.

 

[InfiniteTripping]

And why does OP think Meta will be so low? Besides the nerf to Shuttle he still recovers with every single special. There's no way Meta will be below all of those characters. He might not be SS but he's pretty solidly S with his off-stage options.

 

[DtJ SmithZzz]

game isn't even out in america yet hahahaha definitely posting here to get alerts. I can't wait for the amazing posts that'll be here.

 

[BBC7]

So...I guess Mega Man hit ROCK bottom! Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

(On a serious note, he really didn't. In my opinion, at least. He can outzone any sans reflector character with consistent projectiles, he has a great Fair and Bair, Fair which is especially good for approaching, while Bair is more for gimping offstage. Not to mention how quick his grab is, it really does lead into easy combos and damage. Up-Tilt is also a godly kill move with Rage Status, especially with Tap Jump set off. Hitstun cancelling is also pretty nifty and prevents you from eating combos that you otherwise would have to take as another character. Although it's just my opinion, I don't think Mega Man is the worst.)

 

[InfiniteTripping]

Mega Man seemed to me to be a pretty blah character. I don't think he'll be really good or really bad. He'll be like Samus was in Melee... maybe just on the edge of being bad, but not quite. He definitely played better than he did in the demo in June though.

 

[deepseadiva]

No this is entirely wrong my favorite character was placed too low.

 

[25%Cotton]

as somebody who plays duck hunt, even though i'm not near a pro-level player it feels like most of the reason people lose to me online is because they aren't used to my projectiles. they don't really know how to handle them.

the clay pidgeon is extremely frail and leaves A LOT OF LAG on duckhunt (it also takes the B button away from the can for a single press). the hunters are slow, don't do THAT much damage or knockback, only hit once, are destroyable, can't have more than one at one time, and have a fair amount of lag on deployment.

people keep telling me duckhunt has a great recovery, but it's INCREDIBLY vulnerable and uncancelable (if this is not the case, PLEASE tell me because i feel like i've tried everything). it's also fairly slow vertically and doesn't even go all that high, meaning if you gimp with even the slightest downward force (rather than outward) duckhunt will probably be totally screwed.

love duckhunt and would love duckhunt to be in the higher tiers, but i just feel like most of the praise is simply from novelty.

I've been playing during 2 weeks with the Japanese version using only Lucario, and yes, he IS a God at 100%
Even below that, he is extremely agile and fast... I actually don't know whether to be happy for it. I mean, he is my main, but something feels wrong to use a more powerful character than the rest.
In any case, the player's skills will always be the most important factor.

i have been so ashamed of myself losing to crappy lucario players online because of being unfamiliar with the huge aura boosts. extended range on side-b... KOs from screen-crossing extremespeeds... i think i'm getting the hang of it because i haven't lost to spammers in a while, but the aura boosts are WAY more tangible than i expected, and at lower percents, too (even when lucario is at a higher stock).

I have a few thoughts
Why is robin so high? - I've watched A lot of Robin gameplay and he looks like he's B or C Tier.
I think Jigglypuff is way to low. she deserves to be A tier. everyone I've seen play this character has pretty much just dominated.

agreed. i have played a lot of jigglypuff since 64, so even though i'm not a great player i feel comfortable with the puff. anyway, in matches where i JUST AM NOT FEELING IT and am very clearly not playing my best i eventually realize "holy **** i am actually in the lead," which is a weird feeling after years of brawl. it's certainly a welcome one, though... that bair is BEAST.

 

[RPGatWill]

Well if you're going to include the mii fighters, shouldn't you eventually include the different mii fighters? They all play differently so...

 

[z00ted]

Nah.

 

[Brango]

It pains me to see Falco at the bottom

 

[z00ted]

It pains me too cause I'm too lazy to go back and fix all of this and it sorta doesn't even matter anymore, but he does deserves better. Let's say he's bottom-high/top-mid tier... how does that sound?

 

[Brango]

I'd say around mid-tier from what I'm hearing. Sure his lasers and d-air got nerfed but his ground game is still pretty solid
Oh, let's not forget about his new b-air too

 

[KingLucasx]

Villager should be Higher wayyyy higher.

 

[Shaya]

We've kinda decided to rule against tier list speculation threads at this early stage.
This thread ended up pretty good thus far, but has already started to degenerate into crappy "X SHOULD BE Y" etc etc.


http://smashboards.com/threads/3ds-character-competitive-impressions.367669/
We do have a thread for this type of conversation though, and we do it by trying to promote people analysing things a bit more, which is a lot more pleasant than just a rotation of "my opinion > your opinion".

And dalock~