Work In Progress SWF Community Voted Tier List - 3.0 COMPLETE

[DarkK]

I've noticed people have started to vote Marth up, and a question has appeared on my mind. Do you consider Marth is good enough to be a tier above Lucina? I'm just wondering.

 

[Wintermelon43]

I've noticed people have started to vote Marth up, and a question has appeared on my mind. Do you consider Marth is good enough to be a tier above Lucina? I'm just wondering.

They're rght next to each other IMO

 

[Atm0s]

+1
+1
+1

 

[Greek Greninja]

Vote how you will. I was just suggesting to do your research before voting.

Probably didn't clarify this, but the reason for my comment on them was because I wanted to see what others thought.. I meant that I wanted reasons for why Wario/Pac Man were that high, and now that I got them, I can change the vote to something else.

 

[Xygonn]

-1
+1
+1

(maybe if she is bottom tier everywhere sakurai will notice).

 

[SpottedCerberus]

I've noticed people have started to vote Marth up, and a question has appeared on my mind. Do you consider Marth is good enough to be a tier above Lucina? I'm just wondering.

Yes. The sourspots on his sword actually work in his favor, because they provide easier follow ups. And the tipper allows for much earlier kills. When played correctly, Marth is far better than Lucina.

 

[DarkK]

Yes. The sourspots on his sword actually work in his favor, because they provide easier follow ups. And the tipper allows for much earlier kills. When played correctly, Marth is far better than Lucina.

But would you say he's a whole tier above her? That's counting a lot of characters that would be separating them. I mean, is the difference that big?

 

[Joaco]

Ryu -1
Rob -1
Captain Falcon +1

 

[_gold_]

I changed my vote slightly.

+1
-1

Samus' flaws just can't be unnoticed. It's unfortunate, but this latest patch hasn't done her justice either.

 

[Wintermelon43]

Holy crap the Samus underrating..... Mii Swordfighter, Mii Gunner, Mewtwo, and maybe Zelda are worse IMO. ESAM WE NEED YOU

 

[SpottedCerberus]

Holy crap the Samus underrating..... Mii Swordfighter, Mii Gunner, Mewtwo, and maybe Zelda are worse IMO. ESAM WE NEED YOU

There's a reason that ESAM barely plays Samus, despite how much he likes the character.

A lot of her moves just don't work. That's the best way I can explain it.

People fall out of her f-air and u-air. This is a part of a larger issue where some of her moves just whiff. This is combined with the fact that he frame data is goddawful. So she has slow moves with bad hitboxes. And they aren't particularly powerful either.

Her up-smash still doesn't connect like it should. It's less bad now, but still bad against a lot of the cast.

D-smash is weaker than d-tilt, and only slightly stronger when fully charged. D-tilt doesn't have the combo potential it had in Melee or the KO power from Brawl. So it's just kinda there. Missiles are too laggy and ineffective to camp with, and homing missiles are the most useless projectile in the game. (They don't actually home btw.)

Her jab doesn't combo into itself and is punishable on hit. F-tilt is also punishable on hit at low percents. Get in her face and she can't get you out. She's too slow and her hitboxes are too small.

Her u-tilt, an important combo starter, is techable.

Her grab is the worst in the game. This is okay for ZSS because she actually has set-ups into grab and insane grab reward including KO confirms at pretty early percents.

Her roll is absolutely terrible, further limiting her limited mobility.

Her Charge Shot is the only chargeable move that can't be charged in mid-air.

Her down-b used to have incredible recovery potential and offensive uses. Now it's not even an effective spacing tool. Character can just ignore the bombs.

Samus's zair has good range, but it deals only 1% when you don't hit with the very end of it. It deals up to 4% when properly spaced. Lucas's zair deals 4% for most of it and 2% at the very end. Plus, it combos into things like grab. Samus doesn't have that.

Meta Knight can get a kill confirm off of a dash attack starting at around 20%. Samus is usually difficult to combo, but Meta Knight's u-air chains work better on her than probably any other character. (Maybe Rosalina is easier, but she also has Luma for spacing purposes, so it's harder to land the initial hit.)

Captain Falcon, Fox, Meta Knight, Mega Man, Pikachu, and Shiek are all hard counters. Samus can't do much if anything against them.

Samus was one of the worst characters in Brawl. So you'd think she'd get buffed in the transition between games, right? I mean, ZSS got buffed and she was already top tier. Well, you'd be partially right. Charge Shot received the biggest buff, but this buff was balanced by a lot of nerfs, causing an over-dependance on Charge Shot to the point where the character centers around that single move. Really, look at all the nerfs that this character, who was already bottom tier, got: (from ssbwiki)

• Forward tilt, down tilt, forward smash (sourspot), up smash and down smash all deal less damage than in Brawl.

• Neutral attack's first hit has less hitstun and increased knockback scaling. This means the opponent may shield between the first and second hits, or the first hit knocking the opponent too far away, failing to link to the second hit. It appears that this move is intentionally designed this way, as mentioned by an in-game tip.

• Down tilt is much weaker, no longer KOing until 200%.

• Forward smash has 5 more frames of ending lag, and its new sourspot is weaker.

• Down smash is much weaker (it could KO at around 150% in Brawlwhen fully charged, but not until 180% in SSB4). It has also become possibly the biggest nerf on a down smash from the transition to SSB4 due to becoming her weakest smash attack (and by extension, the game's weakest down smash).

• Dash attack starts up 2 frames later.

• Neutral aerial, forward aerial and down aerial all deal less damage than in Brawl.

• All aerial attacks (especially forward aerial) have more landing lag than in Brawl.

• New neutral aerial has 3 additional frames of startup, and its hitbox is significantly smaller, no longer covering her entire body.

• Back aerial can no longer be used twice in one short hop.

• Down aerial now contains a sourspot at the edges of the attack that knocks back horizontally.

• Grab aerial now has 8 frames of landing lag.

• Normal Missiles travel less distance. Samus can now only have two normal Missiles and one Super Missile on screen at the same time. If she attempts to shoot a Super Missile while one is already onscreen, she will still perform the firing pose, but no Missiles will be fired. Additionally, she is no longer able to perform the Missile cancelling technique.

• Samus' bombs, when used airborne, don't stop falling speed as much as in Brawl.

Plus, they increased her fall speed, but lowered her horizontal air speed. Nerfs everywhere. Why? Again, Samus was bottom tier in Brawl. And she was only as high as she was because ledge mechanics allowed her to stall and time people out. There's no justification for it. The develops made the decision to buff the top-tier Samus and leave the original in the dust. ZSS even has better taunts, complete with voice acting for each one. Samus has some of the worst taunts in the game, if not the worst.

Anyway, with all of her projectiles, you'd think Samus would be a character dependent on camping. But you'd be wrong; she can only camp out a couple characters, all slow heavy-weights. So what is she? A rushdown character? Obviously not. A bait/punish character? Well, maybe if she manages to get a fully charged charge shot. She's not very good at approaching and she's not very good at keeping opponents away.

She's just not good at all.

Basically, they replaced Samus, the badass bounty hunter in a power suit, with an overpowered barbie doll and somehow thought that made sense. Between that, the patch history, and the mii Samus costume, the message is very clear: "There's no reason to play Samus." I'll play her because I want to, but it's really irritating to be completely ignored like that.

And it makes it worse when so many people say "She's underrated! She has her good points." when they don't main the character and have no understanding of her. That's why they can never pinpoint these strengths that supposedly offset Samus's weaknesses.

*drops the mic and walks away*

 

[Xygonn]

Holy crap the Samus underrating..... Mii Swordfighter, Mii Gunner, Mewtwo, and maybe Zelda are worse IMO. ESAM WE NEED YOU

I'm not above reposting my vent from the Samus boards:

I'm very frustrated with Samus right now. I've been letting my son pick who I play as and it makes me mad when I go back to Samus. I've made similar posts before but other characters in general have good stuff going for them (or if you'd like this highlights Samus' weaknesses):

1) Functional usmash. Yes Samus got a little buff to her tragic usmash, it's still pretty bad though. Literally every single other character in the game has a more functional usmash than Samus even after the patch. Even animations like Roy's, Mewtwo's, ROB's, Villager's, Megaman's, etc. have scooping hitboxes to put small characters into the sweet spot.

2) Rolling doesn't open any other character up to a 14 frame punish window that begins at the perfect time to challenge on reaction. They aren't forced to use SHAD (although many characters don't even have it as an offensive option some do, like Marth/Lucina and Olimar).

3) Dsmash that kills or actually has good coverage. Samus' does neither.

4) All moves are safe on hit. This isn't quite totally true, some characters do have moves that are unsafe on hit, but Samus has at least two, jab1 and ftilt sour spot. That's just harsh since those are the main tools in CQC to get some breathing room. She has more if you include the fact that fair can be interrupted by some characters as low percents and that people can fall out of usmash and punish.

5) Shield grab is a powerful option against virtually all non crossed up and arguably poorly spaced aerials (true for about 75% of the cast). A whiffed grab doesn't give your opponent enough time to falcon punch you.

6) Multihit aerials self connect better. No one falls out of ROB's uair, or Sheik's uair, or.... Uair often misses the last hit because the hitbox is smaller; opponents often fall out of fair even with good offensive DI.

Then, after I play other characters and I am just smoothly doing what is intuitive, I go back to Samus and I have to remember not to roll and use SHAD, and not to use usmash (for the most part), and to use dtilt more than dsmash, and to space my ftilt to avoid my sour spot, and to only use jab1 after my opponent is at about 30% and to only string it into jab2 at 60%, and to use upb OoS instead of shield grab, and to avoid SH fair, and to angle my fsmash down if I want a more reliable hitbox, and to use uair instead of nair to break combos. #justsamusstuff

 

[ShortcutButton]

Stuff about samus

Keep in mind Samus was seen by the developers as the best character in the development.

 

[Wintermelon43]

Holy crap this voting periods slow

 

[SpottedCerberus]

Keep in mind Samus was seen by the developers as the best character in the development.

So? I believe there is evidence somewhere that she was heavily nerfed pre-release.

 

[Wintermelon43]

Guys, just email Nintendo about how Samus deserves a buff, if they get enough emails about it they'll ask the smash team to buff her out of pure annoyance.

 

[wedl!!]

+1
+1
+1

 

[Kassetten]

+1

+1

+1

 

[WondrousMoose]

+1
-1
-1

 

[dbwithlemon]

I changed my vote slightly.

Samus' flaws just can't be unnoticed. It's unfortunate, but this latest patch hasn't done her justice either.

My playstyle has changed over the years and I thought this time around Samus would be a great fit for how I play.
I tried, I really tried to like her, but man is she lacking.

People like to say Zelda and Palutena(no customs) are bad. Samus makes them look top tier, and this video sums it up nicely. Her moves just simply don't work in a practical way.

She has potential, buff her hitboxes and frame data, she'll be ok, but as she stands now, terrible.

Esam puts on a good show with her, but that's largely due to matchup unfamiliarity. It takes the element of surprise for a top tier player to do moderately well with her, that alone is a sign of a problem.

 

[dbwithlemon]

Holy crap this voting periods slow

Keep complaining, that will make it go faster.

EDIT: Sorry about the double post.

 

[sogeki]

+1 mii swordfighter
+1 Samus
+1 luigi

 

[MarioMeteor]

I changed my vote slightly.

Samus' flaws just can't be unnoticed. It's unfortunate, but this latest patch hasn't done her justice either.

You can DUCK under the Missiles? And suddenly Samus became even less of a threat.

 

[Smash4Player64]

+
+
+

 

[XenoBlur]

+1
+1
+1

 

[sleepy_Nex]

+1
+1
+1

 

[S.P.A.D.]

There is no way Ness should be higher than the Good Captain. He's got a great kit, but I personally feel his weaknesses are too strong to be higher than Falcon. Mario has an insanely great and safe kit all around. He can reflect projectiles, have great recoveries, gimp characters, and even has a good approach fireball. And Samus? All I have to utter is why... Just... Why...

-1
+1
-1

 

[TMNTSSB4]

+1
-1
+1

 

[Vyrnx]

+1
-1
-1

I know all of the Samus mains are supposed to down vote Samus to get the devs attention, but the devs don't pay any attention to this thread. Samus has bad moves that are nearly unusable, but they don't make the character unusable. I'm really getting tired of hearing people say things like, "Samus has a bad A button..." It just isn't true. It's especially frustrating considering many of these people haven't played Samus more than three times, because they say things like, "Samus has a bad throw game" or "Samus can't combo". Dead giveaways. I could elaborate further but I don't want to make such a lengthy post.

 

[_gold_]

@ Vyrnx
We're going to have to agree to disagree. She has moves that come at slow, horrid hitboxes, difficult combos to pull off, tether grab (which is fine, but can be negative a in some cases), and more. With all these combined, this brings her down to bottom tier for the time being. If you're facing a Sheik or a Capt. Falcon that's just constantly in your face, Samus has an extremely hard time retaliating.

Samus has a high-skill ceiling which forces players to adapt to an odd situations that other fighters don't have trouble with. However, even if someone is able to master her, there are still defects in her coding and animations which you simply can't overcome. As she stands, Samus is a good fighter for casual play. But I don't see her surpassing the bottom tier in the competitive scene.

 

[Vyrnx]

@ Vyrnx
We're going to have to agree to disagree. She has moves that come at slow, horrid hitboxes, difficult combos to pull off, tether grab (which is fine, but can be negative a in some cases), and more. With all these combined, this brings her down to bottom tier for the time being. If you're facing a Sheik or a Capt. Falcon that's just constantly in your face, Samus has an extremely hard time retaliating.
Samus has a high-skill ceiling which forces players to adapt to an odd situations that other fighters don't have trouble with. However, even if someone is able to master her, there are still defects in her coding and animations which you simply can't overcome. As she stands, Samus is a good fighter for casual play. But I don't see her surpassing the bottom tier in the competitive scene.

I agree that Samus has some horrible moves. I don't argue that. But far too many people completely pass off Samus because of her 2-3 awful moves and 3-4 pretty bad moves. Just avoid using those moves unless it's the right situation. Samus has other moves that are good.

First and foremost, and I need to get this out of the way, charge shot is a really good move. I hear people all of the time saying it isn't, mostly WFTs who think Sun Salutation is better lol (SS is not as good as CS or aura sphere imo). There will never be a match where you don't have a chance to charge CS unless you are horrible. Sometimes this is halfway through the match, so what. Play with strong fundamentals and a good understanding of Samus and you'll get space to charge eventually. Once it is charged, people have to play differently. Even if they're trying really hard to avoid it, there are so many ways to get CS to hit (at all levels of play) and when it does, it's 25 damage or the stock. There are techniques to b reverse it on the ground (sort of) and in the air. All of the chargeable projectiles are good, but Samus has the one with some of the highest knock back.

Anyway, Samus isn't just about CS and that's another misconception. Zair is good, but I don't really need to go over this. Uair is particularly good, and I know a lot of characters that wish they could SHAD uair like Samus can. It's a combo starter, a combo extender, and sometimes a combo breaker all in one. It can cross up shields and can even combo into CS. If you hit it right it can KO at 140ish. Dash attack also is very useful. If it's whiffing then you are doing something wrong. It crosses up shields and starts combos. Samus has good tilts, dtilt in particular since it comes out so fast. This is the move that is usually better than jab, and IMO it doesn't really matter if it combos or KOs because its primary purpose is getting back breathing space, though it's worth noting it can usually combo into fair. I like fsmash a lot since it's pretty quick, has good range, and KOs really early with the sweetspot. Saying a character has bad hit boxes IMO does not make a character bad. Both WFT and Samus have bad hit boxes, but that is not the main reason either character is considered bad.

To address general weaknesses, Samus's biggest weaknesses are her jab and her grab. For jab, you can just get around this with dtilt usually, though I agree it is not always practical. Grab is definitely a problem. I don't have too much to say on this really. It's good at catching landings I guess. Once you get a grab, Samus has one of the best pummels and a great dthrow for followups (I disagree that Samus has difficult combos, only moderately so), but Sakurai should either speed up the grab or give us a kill throw for sure... Roll is not a real weakness because it can be used situationally and SHAD makes up for the rest.

She has good matchups against Luigi and Ness, a decent one vs Rosalina, and some of the best matchups in the game against the other heavyweights since she is hard to kill and can easily combo them.

Samus is low tier because of a bad grab and poor landing options. The other issues people say Samus has are still there but avoidable and not as bad. Samus absolutely cannot be bottom tier with such strong combos and zair. She's underrepresented but actually gets pretty good results, watch KayJay or Afro Smash.

I'm sure there's stuff I'm forgetting to say since I am tired, but I'm sure somebody will say something that reminds me lol

 

[Kasai]

+1
+1
+1

 

[FightingPorygonTeam]

+1
+1
-1

I'm surprised about Greninja, but mostly about how low Dedede is.

 

[Browny]

Ryu -1
Little mac +1
Mii Gunner -1

UPDATED

 

[HerpFish]

+As much as I hate to move a character into that tier, I feel as though he deserves it with his powerful projectile game.
-Not two tiers above Lucina. Yes, he is buffed. No, he is not that buffed.
-He/she has his/her good qualities, but I do not feel that they justify such a high placement, especially if the opponent is in their face enough.

 

[kirby509]

+
+
+

 

[Drgoold]

+1 Roy and Greninja
-1 Metaknight

 

[The Puffer]

+1
+1
+1

 

[ShortcutButton]

-1 why is he still top 5 this character is badddd
-1 not really feeling his frame data
-1 BURN IN HELL

 

[Vyrnx]

Oh my god, I wish I had more votes. This list is really screwed up right now.

+1 Samus tier isn't a thing
-1
-1

Marcina is separated by two tiers and TL is a tier below Link lol
Marth, Robin, Link, Peach, DHD, Ike, WFT, Jiggs, Zelda, Ganon, DDD, Charizard all too high.
As the tier list stands now the difference between Samus and Zelda is just as big as the difference between Zelda and ZSS lol