Work In Progress SWF Community Voted Tier List - 3.0 COMPLETE

[Ze Diglett]

+to top of Tier 5
+to bottom of Tier 4
+to top of Tier 3

 

[L1N3R1D3R]

+8 (between and )
How did this even happen? Between Taiheita, Pink Fresh, and many others' results, great damage racking, many kill options, a great recovery that's much harder to gimp than Ness's, and a very usable neutral game, Lucas has every tool needed to be a high tier.

+9 (between and )
[Rant start.] Maybe I'm moving him too high, but please listen to me before you think I'm crazy. No, Abadango was not the only player using Pac-Man. There are still many players worldwide who show how insane he can be when mastered, such as Tea, Zage, and Koolaid, to name a few. His theory undeniably has some flaws, such as killing and grab, but they are mostly covered up by his insane zoning and trapping game, great escape options, and amazing recovery if you know how to avoid being gimped (use side B BEFORE jump to surprise people, super armor through their edgeguard attempts, and punish them for it, letting you freely jump and up B if needed). Most people still retaliate by saying "if you know the matchup, he can't do much", and even if that's true, the lack of national tournament threat like Abadango is beneficial to Pac-Man as most top players no longer retain the matchup knowledge from, what, July or August? And no, playing Pac-Man doesn't make me biased, but in fact makes me more aware of the character's TRUE strengths and weaknesses and not the perceived ones that get more popularity. [Rant over.]

+6 (between and )
Have any of you Link haters seen a European tournament? He's getting many more results than you may think, with notable players including HyruleHero, Izaw, and Scizor. He has a great moveset with useful projectiles, good combos, great power, easy approaching, and good traps into kills. He doesn't have as good of mobility or frame data as his Toon counterpart, but like with Dr. Mario, he's a worse TOON LINK, not a WORSE Toon Link. Respect him for what he has and give him a good position already.

My honorable mention goes to being too low, but he's already getting enough upvotes for me to safely leave him be.


EDIT: I've changed my upvote to a upvote, and I'm not moving quite as high.

 

[jespoke]

Oh, he's at 31st? I thought he was 29th, my mistake then.

Marth is actually 29th, but that is still one spot below the median. Aka, well into mid tier in my book

 

[Bowserboy3]

Oh, he's at 31st? I thought he was 29th, my mistake then.

As for the core problems, that's litertatly what I said.

The smash 4 rankings on smashboards is NOT fact; Nobody thinks Esam is top 5 or that MVD is top 10, not even themselves. I'm not saying it isn't impressive, but that it doesn't prove Marth is top 25 like you people hilarisualy think now.

Whatever place he's at right now, Marth deserves to be no lower. It's debatable how much higher he is (such as I don't think he's too much higher, if at all, but his results are showing he could be a few spots up), but he is most certainly not any lower like your first post implied.

 

[Frihetsanka]

between and
between and
between and

 

[VizionarY]

I Haven't checked the thread in a while but i guess it's time for my tier gap voting thingamig:

S:
A:
B: ()
C:
D:
E:
F:
Now for my tier list. I don't even know why I'm putting this here but I'll put it under a spoiler tag so if you don't want to know my thoughts or opinions you don't have too. Also I don't want any angry comments on what people think of MY OPINION; So don't comment or PM me your thoughts or ideas- I won't care or listen.

Spoiler

(GODS OF SMASH 4) S:
(Very Dangerous and Very Noteworthy) A:
(Dangerous and Noteworthy) B:()
(Noteworthy)C:
(Possibly Viable; NEED more results) D:
(Buffs Needed) E:
(Buffs and results REQUIRED) F:

 

[Tizio Random]

between and
She has very good results as of late, I would say she is even slightly better, but I don't want to jump the gun already.

between and
Marth now is really good (and Lucina is too but no representation hurts a lot) and he's consistent, I don't know why people keep underrating him so hard.

() between and
As much as I like these guys I don't see how they can be that high. Every character above them have accomplished better results.

Honorable mentions to and being a bit too high and and being a bit too low.

EDIT: changed my Palutena position

 

[Stick Dude]

between &
between &
between &

 

[Deleted member]

+11 = between and .
+7 = between and .
+10 = at the top of tier 4/bottom of tier 3.

If anybody wants my reasoning, feel free to ask.

 

[Bigbomb2]

between and : Used to think she was bottom 3. Lol nope I'm wrong
between and : He has some issues killing and that grab blows but otherwise I feel he's strong

I don't know who else to move. I dunno move my mains up hyuck hyuck. Or maybe Charizard

 

[valakmtnsmash4]

+8 between wiifit and samus

+10 between bowser and link

+2 between Lucario and yoshi

 

[zeldasmash]

+8, behind in front of
+5, in front of

 

[Samuelwisebaggins]

+11 = between and .
+7 = between and .
+10 = at the top of tier 4/bottom of tier 3.

If anybody wants my reasoning, feel free to ask.

I'm curious why you moved shulk up.

 

[Deleted member]

I'm curious why you moved shulk up.

His neutral, spacing ability and mixups are all too good for him to be a low tier, or like I've seen some people still try to justify, bottom tier character. He gets decent regional results (Tremendo Dude here in FL being an example) and him getting 13th place at a national on a solo run is still nothing to sneeze at.

 

[Kirby Dragons]

bottom of tier 1
between Charizard and BJ
between Ike and Weegee

 

[Frihetsanka]

between Ike and Weegee

Could you explain this vote please?

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Could you explain this vote please?

Ya even I don't agree with it, and I'm still a bit skeptic about Mewtwo. >_> Not enough to vote him down atm, but I'm expecting him to fall off a tad like 6 months from now.

 

[Kirby Dragons]

Could you explain this vote please?

I know Mewtwo won a national, but I'm not convinced that it should be that high.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I know Mewtwo won a national, but I'm not convinced that it should be that high.

Won a national, placed highly in Japan, has multiple other mains getting good results with him in large tournaments, PR'd in multiple stronger areas...

 

[Phuckyew]

+1 at the bottom of tier 1
During the last round, I placed Mario at the top of tier 2. After some thought, I believe Mario deserves to be in tier 1. When I think about consistency, I picture Mario. A plethora of results, including Ally's recent outing at GOML was the final push I needed to make this decision.

+14 between and
Here we have one of the most criminally underrated characters in the game! To be completely honest, I don't know where to place him; what I do know is that he's better than tier 8. Unfortunately plagued with being fufu garbage nonsense on release; this stigma has caused everyone to ignore his repeated buffs. Charizard is held back by peoples refusal to acknowledge him as anything but trash tier. With such a small player-base, it's hard to develop his meta. I'm a firm believer in Zard's potential ... maybe one day.

+2 at the bottom of tier 2.
If you were to tell me a year ago that Mewtwo is one of the best characters in the game, I would give you the look I give my casual friend who constantly tries to kirbycide me (you know who you are). Widely considered garbage on release, he's been blessed via game updates. Patches 1.1.3 and 1.1.5 in particular have improved him tremendously. Because of his buffs, Mewtwo now boasts solid rep, great results, and a devoted playerbase constantly developing tech and evolving his meta even further. We've done it boys; there's nowhere to go but up!

Other things of note:
1) I believe is the best character in the game; however, his results aren't on par with the other tier 1 characters (yet).
2) I don't understand all the hate. Somebody please explain this to me.
3) Is actually good now or is everybody just bandwagoning?

 

[Deleted member]

+1 at the bottom of tier 1
During the last round, I placed Mario at the top of tier 2. After some thought, I believe Mario deserves to be in tier 1. When I think about consistency, I picture Mario. A plethora of results, including Ally's recent outing at GOML was the final push I needed to make this decision.

+14 between and
Here we have one of the most criminally underrated characters in the game! To be completely honest, I don't know where to place him; what I do know is that he's better than tier 8. Unfortunately plagued with being fufu garbage nonsense on release; this stigma has caused everyone to ignore his repeated buffs. Charizard is held back by peoples refusal to acknowledge him as anything but trash tier. With such a small player-base, it's hard to develop his meta. I'm a firm believer in Zard's potential ... maybe one day.

+2 at the bottom of tier 2.
If you were to tell me a year ago that Mewtwo is one of the best characters in the game, I would give you the look I give my casual friend who constantly tries to kirbycide me (you know who you are). Widely considered garbage on release, he's been blessed via game updates. Patches 1.1.3 and 1.1.5 in particular have improved him tremendously. Because of his buffs, Mewtwo now boasts solid rep, great results, and a devoted playerbase constantly developing tech and evolving his meta even further. We've done it boys; there's nowhere to go but up!

Other things of note:
1) I believe is the best character in the game; however, his results aren't on par with the other tier 1 characters (yet).
2) I don't understand all the hate. Somebody please explain this to me.
3) Is actually good now or is everybody just bandwagoning?

To answer questions 2 and 3;

gets the hate he does because he has literally zero notable results at high level. He has a couple alright regional placings, but his players rarely show up when it matters. Besides All Might and Sethlon, his representation is fairly lacking.

A while ago Dabuz explained how Roy is practically a poor man's . He wants to be an aggressive, bait and punish character but has none of the frame data to support that niche.

His poor range (coupled with pitifully weak sourspots), frankly unimpressive combo throws that have undependable utility out of low percents and are susceptible to being teched or DI'd away from safely due to their lacking hitstun, coupled with his high falling speed making him very easy to combo and having an outright bad recovery that doesn't cover far distance and having a poor ledgesnap. He has very little ways to threaten shield due to him not being able to space well, and with how bad his grab range is. He has a hard time killing as well due to almost all his kill options being laggy or unsafe, and his kill setups being difficult to pull off consistently.

is pretty good now. He has really good buttons such as fair and ftilt, the buffs really made his gameplan come together better. He has the results and rep to back it up as well. If he gets another round of buffs to even things out in his toolkit I have no trouble seeing him entering high tier.

 

[Nairo]

His spot IS high tier so you're argument of him not being high tier but deserving his spot is wrong.

As for results, I agree he has good results, but Duck Hunt and WFT also get those levels of results (Duck Hunt's are mostly in japan) and they aren't up there. I mean, Duck Hunt's theory is worse but WFT's theory is like, a tiny bit worse.

Nairo is inconsistant a lot, espicially in his own region. He's been beaten by a Robin before too, and Robin's litertatly in the spot right below Marth imo. Plus a ton of other upsets.

False used Sheik a little more than Marth at GOML iirc so..... yea. You keep saying than False mains Marth, but he's either a secondary or duo main along with Sheik and Ryu (It's hars to tell at this point) outside of small tournaments where he'll go mostly Marth.

Just gotta say If I'm inconsistent in my region by losing to someone solid like Mr.E once then a lot of players must be worse in terms of consistency lol you must not look at all results here. (To make this not completely off topic I think Marth is solid enough to do work if that is what the main discussion is about, I didn't read every post! lolol)

 

[Rhinomaster22]

Just something to mention, Earth won Sumabato 10 with primarily Pit against players such as Komoriki, 9B, and e.t.c. So just something to keep in mind when +/- voting Pit/Dank Pit

 

[Bowserboy3]

Before I start with my votes, I want to mention that I'm uneasy about all the attention is getting. I'm a huge supporter and representative for Marth, and while I do think it's within the realm of possibility he could move up a few spaces (Between 2 to 5ish spaces), I don't think he should move up by huge amounts.

On one hand, Marth does have a few problems that keep him earthed; ones that keep him from being a huge threat. He does require a lot of precision. He does have a few problems against specific rush down fighters. He does have below average throws (aside from his kill throw). His hitboxes, while huge, once again require precision due to their active frames (this can be worked around, and is not a huge deal, but it should be brought up nonetheless). Projectiles can make his job annoying.

On the other hand, aside from his usual positives (fantastic early KO potential, quick moves, great range, great off stage presence, decent combos, Dancing Blade etc), Marth has been appearing more commonly and performing better than characters above him, like and .

I suppose if you are going strictly off of results, I can see why Marth might rise quite a bit, but taking every factor into account, I'm unsure to say how much Marth should rise. I definitely think a rise of some kind is fine, but the amount shouldn't be too huge, not just yet.

---

With that, my votes for this round:

• - Between and : Shulk's run at GOML has impressed me. I don't want to jump on any bandwagons just yet, but I definitely think a modest rise is in order for such a feat.
  
  
• - Between and : Might be a bit personal, but a total new player came from nowhere and stormed my last monthly using just Jr, taking out all the top players. I think he's just a bit underused, but he definitely has tools and setups to make him worthy of at least this position. I've also always had a little trouble with him, and all the characters I've ever had trouble with have made unanimous rises eventually (such as ,and ). I'm not saying that last point means anything, but I do believe the fact that he's underused makes people forget about him. I think he's defiantly a good character.
  
  
• - Between and : I'm pretty confident my boy will move up, so I feel Lucina should move up at least a couple of spaces. Only a couple of spaces, mind. Marth has far more reason to move up than Lucina, but seeing as Marth should be moving, it makes sense for Lucina to rise ever so slightly on that basis alone.

This round has been tough. I was also going to vote up a few spots, especially after seeing Nairo's Robin once again recently, and after I was exploring the character a bit. Not by much though, but just a bit.

I also feel is fine where she is now. I could see her down by no more than 3 spaces, but she's definitely still a powerful character, with many useful tools.

 

[jespoke]

I would really feel much more comfortable with the list if basically nothing suggested in this round happens.

 

[SpaceCanary]

- between and
- between and

I honestly don't know what to do for a third vote. I'm pretty good with the tier list as it is.

 

[Zerp]

Spoiler: Reference

VERSION 3.19 STARTING AT PATCH 1.1.4

1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
7:
8:
9:

to __
to __
And that'd be it.

 

[Frihetsanka]

- between and
- between and

I honestly don't know what to do for a third vote. I'm pretty good with the tier list as it is.

Lucina, perhaps? If Marth is high tier 5 perhaps she should be a bit higher? High tier 6, perhaps? Low tier 5?

 

[L1N3R1D3R]

EDIT: I've changed my vote. I'm not voting quite as high, and I changed my upvote to a upvote.

 

[Deleted member 269706]

+1 So I think Lucas is about where he needs to be, but he deserves to be in the next tier in my opinion. For some reason when I look at the characters that accompany him in his tier, in my eyes it seems like he has an edge over them and would better belong in the next list. So the characters he's between doesn't change, but his tier placement does.

-7 I think this character is still really good, but it's going to be some time before people really start to figure out the character. I honestly think she could be top 15 if the right player explores her, but for now I think she'll sit just outside of that range. For now I think it's best she remains in the same tier, but at the very end (behind Greninja).

+9 Alright so Bowser is an interesting case cause until LordMix had his wild run at Momocon, I think a lot of us thought his current placement is pretty appropriate. But after seeing LordMix utilize so many tools, beat Vinnie, VoiD, and get close to beating Ally, I really think we are sleeping on this guy. For now I think he should go between Lucas and PacMan. He definitely shouldn't be any lower than he is now. I expect to see him rise in the future.

 

[Funbot28]

between and
between and
at the top of 3

 

[Deleted member]

between and
between and
at the top of 3

I'm wondering why you think should be in the echelon of high tier characters when the character hasn't done much to justify such a placement. Not mad, just curious.

 

[Bowserboy3]

Lucina, perhaps? If Marth is high tier 5 perhaps she should be a bit higher? High tier 6, perhaps? Low tier 5?

See, that theory is a good one, in a part sense. Sure, Marth moving up a bit would realistically mean Lucina should move up ever so slightly, but the fact is, Marth has been performing FAR better than Lucina, so there is less evidence for us to move her up.

I'm not against her moving up a space or two. In fact, I might go and change one of my votes now...

---

Also, regarding Bayonetta, I'm just leaving this here.

Yep, 0 - 70% off of a counter move.

Sure, Bayonetta's combo game isn't as "braindead" as before, but it's still here, and when you think she could have still gotten 50%+ without the Witch Time, it's still a threat.

I still have high hopes for Bayonetta. I think unless you actually use her, it's tough to understand where exactly she will be. Like, upon reading about her nerfs, before I had a chance to play her, I instantly thought "Yep, mid tier". But when I actually played her in her new state, she's still very competent.

I feel that with these nerfs, we'll start seeing the Bayonetta players becoming more threatening in other parts of her play. I know I have definetly improved my Neutral, Bait and Punishes, and off stage game with her after these nerfs, because I'm not focusing on the one thing that made her good. In a similar fashion, people look what was removed, and think she's bad. She really isn't. I'm confident she's at least around where Meta Knight is on our Tier List, at the bare minimum. I daresay she's absolutely fine where she is now.

 

[Frihetsanka]

See, that theory is a good one, in a part sense. Sure, Marth moving up a bit would realistically mean Lucina should move up ever so slightly, but the fact is, Marth has been performing FAR better than Lucina, so there is less evidence for us to move her up.

I get what you're saying, and you might be right. There are several factors to consider, however. What if Lucina is a lot stronger than she appears but doesn't get played much because Marth is available? Not to mention that Marth is a veteran, I suspect most Melee and Brawl Marth mains are likely to stick with Marth instead of switching to Lucina. Still, Lucina does offer a few benefits over Marth, the most significant being consistency. This might matter more for non-top players, since a top level Marth is probably good enough at spacing to land the tipper fairly consistently. I suspect a mid-level tournament player might not be much worse off by playing Lucina (perhaps they would be better off, even?).

Anyway. Let us assume that there are two characters in the game that are clones, X and Y. If X were not in the game, Y would easily be considered high-mid tier. Now X is in the game and does 1% more damage with f-smash, with the disadvantage of doing 1% less damage with up-tilt. Assume the up-tilt is just as bad as Ganondorf's. X is thus clearly better than Y. A tournament player would have no reason to ever pick Y, aside from aesthetic reasons. Should Y be bottom tier? Or should Y still be high-mid tier and X slightly higher? I would argue in favor of the latter. Y is still a fairly good character, and if you prefer Y for some reason you could play them and still do well. In the top level competitive scene X would have virtually all the results though, since that 1% extra f-smash damage is superior to 1% up-tilt.

How does this apply to Lucina and Marth? Obviously the two are much different from X and Y in that they have more differences than just two moves. Still, my point still stands: What if Lucina would've gotten better results if Marth weren't around? This is, obviously, speculation, and I cannot prove that she would, and her results might not have been as good as Marth's. I'm not saying they should be next to each other. I'm mostly just trying to argue that results, while important, should not be playing too much of a role when placing characters. If that case, a solid high-mid tier character (Y) would be placed in bottom tier due to no results (since X stole their thunder).

 

[Bowserboy3]

I get what you're saying, and you might be right. There are several factors to consider, however. What if Lucina is a lot stronger than she appears but doesn't get played much because Marth is available?

I understand what you are saying completely, but what we are talking about here is "potential". Tier lists aren't based on potential, but proof, in reality. It's part of this reason why Corrin needs to come down. He has little proof to be all the way up there. He might have the potential, but right now, he lacks any players that truly main him, and that says a lot.

This post sums it up well: http://smashboards.com/threads/swf-...-wildcard-round.379736/page-289#post-21216168

 

[Dee-SmashinBoss]

+ between and
+ between and
+ between and

 

[Frihetsanka]

I understand what you are saying completely, but what we are talking about here is "potential". Tier lists aren't based on potential, but proof, in reality. It's part of this reason why Corrin needs to come down. He has little proof to be all the way up there. He might have the potential, but right now, he lacks any players that truly main him, and that says a lot.

This post sums it up well: http://smashboards.com/threads/swf-...-wildcard-round.379736/page-289#post-21216168

"In gaming, a tier list is a list that ranks all characters based on the strength of their fighting abilities and their potential to win matches under tournament conditions, assuming equal skill on the part of each player. A tier list is decided based on the analysis of the following:

• The metagame and the effectiveness of the characters' strategies
• Each character's moveset and statistics
• Each character's matchup spread
• Each character's tournament results" - http://www.ssbwiki.com/tier_list

Tier lists are supposed to show how strong a character is, not how well they're currently performing in a tournament. Granted, strong characters are more likely to be picked up and played by competitive players, but it's not guaranteed. In any case, for top tiers and, to some extent, high tiers, results should be fairly important. For mid tiers and low tiers it's a bit more problematic, though. Why main Lucina instead of, say, Cloud or Diddy Kong, if your goal is to win as much as possible? Chances are the players maining mid-tier and low-tier characters aren't primarily concerned with winning. Perhaps they'll still win some locals thanks to playing better than the rest and/or the others being unfamiliar with the match-up, but for big tournaments, players are likely to primarily play strong characters. If Lucina are, say, top of tier 6, she'd still struggle to get picked since Marth is higher and she'd still be a mid-tier character.

So, my argument is this: At least for mid tiers and low tiers, tournament results are not as important as they are for high tiers and top tiers. Big tournament players are likely to pick whatever wins them more games (even Leo, a Meta Knight main, played a lot of Cloud to get an advantage). That doesn't mean the characters that don't get picked as much are necessarily bad.

I should mention that if you do view tiers as a reflection of how well characters currently are doing rather than how strong they potentially can be, then that changes a lot of things. I'm not a fan of that approach though, although it would make it easier to place characters in tiers (just look at the tournament data and place characters based on that).

 

[Bowserboy3]

"In gaming, a tier list is a list that ranks all characters based on the strength of their fighting abilities and their potential to win matches under tournament conditions, assuming equal skill on the part of each player. A tier list is decided based on the analysis of the following:

• The metagame and the effectiveness of the characters' strategies
• Each character's moveset and statistics
• Each character's matchup spread
• Each character's tournament results" - http://www.ssbwiki.com/tier_list

Tier lists are supposed to show how strong a character is, not how well they're currently performing in a tournament. Granted, strong characters are more likely to be picked up and played by competitive players, but it's not guaranteed. In any case, for top tiers and, to some extent, high tiers, results should be fairly important. For mid tiers and low tiers it's a bit more problematic, though. Why main Lucina instead of, say, Cloud or Diddy Kong, if your goal is to win as much as possible? Chances are the players maining mid-tier and low-tier characters aren't primarily concerned with winning. Perhaps they'll still win some locals thanks to playing better than the rest and/or the others being unfamiliar with the match-up, but for big tournaments, players are likely to primarily play strong characters. If Lucina are, say, top of tier 6, she'd still struggle to get picked since Marth is higher and she'd still be a mid-tier character.

So, my argument is this: At least for mid tiers and low tiers, tournament results are not as important as they are for high tiers and top tiers. Big tournament players are likely to pick whatever wins them more games (even Leo, a Meta Knight main, played a lot of Cloud to get an advantage). That doesn't mean the characters that don't get picked as much are necessarily bad.

I should mention that if you do view tiers as a reflection of how well characters currently are doing rather than how strong they potentially can be, then that changes a lot of things. I'm not a fan of that approach though, although it would make it easier to place characters in tiers (just look at the tournament data and place characters based on that).

I don't view tier lists solely as current results. Potential does play some part into it. However, results show proof, and that means the most really.

For example, Puff was viewed as rather poor/below average in the early lifespan of Melee. Looking at Jigglypuffs tools, it's hard to see why she wouldn't be top tier, but she was placed down there because she didn't show enough proof. The rest is history, and she's the top/high tier character we love her for today, but she didn't get up there just because she had potential, no. She got up there because she started proving she was good, and for me, regardless of whether Marth existed or not, until Lucina starts getting any notable results like Marth has been doing, I can't see why we should move her up too much.

Marth has been getting results and such, so he deserves to move. On that basis alone, I think Lucina could move up, but just a fraction of the total Marth moves, because she hasn't been used much at all.

 

[Browny]

ONE DAY LEFT BEFORE THIS IS FINISHED

 

[jespoke]

I don't view tier lists solely as current results. Potential does play some part into it. However, results show proof, and that means the most really.

For example, Puff was viewed as rather poor/below average in the early lifespan of Melee. Looking at Jigglypuffs tools, it's hard to see why she wouldn't be top tier, but she was placed down there because she didn't show enough proof. The rest is history, and she's the top/high tier character we love her for today, but she didn't get up there just because she had potential, no. She got up there because she started proving she was good, and for me, regardless of whether Marth existed or not, until Lucina starts getting any notable results like Marth has been doing, I can't see why we should move her up too much.

Marth has been getting results and such, so he deserves to move. On that basis alone, I think Lucina could move up, but just a fraction of the total Marth moves, because she hasn't been used much at all.

But Lucina can never get results by the nature of her design. I think it is unreasonable to rank an inferior clone by their results, because the better one will always be the one taking them. Lucina should be ranked for how good she is, which is Marth with slightly less killpower and skill ceiling.