Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[|RK|]

That reason alone doesn't mean he beats her.

Definitely true! But it does help.

No, the truly terrible matchups are Sonic, Yoshi, and Luigi. Like, damn.

 

[Mega-Spider]

Sure are a lot of underrated characters in this game.

A lot of the underrated characters need to be seriously buffed, and all of the top tier characters should be nerfed to the point of them still being great, but not broken or ridiculous. Also, the heavy characters should not have landing lag, which is outright unneeded.

 

[TriTails]

Also, the heavy characters should not have landing lag, which is outright unneeded.

Um. Wait. What?

You want Ganon's F-air to not have landing lag?

 

[Mega-Spider]

Um. Wait. What?

You want Ganon's F-air to not have landing lag?

Okay... most heavyweights to not have landing lag. I just don't want to see the heavyweights get crapped on, that's all.

 

[LightLV]

Blocked ganon Fair should push enemy away and be safe on landing. Characters like Ganon are what defense attributes were made for

come at me

Edit: Uhh, hey mods, what about this post is spam? I'm droppin knowledge here.

 

[Jabejazz]

Okay... most heavyweights to not have landing lag. I just don't want to see the heavyweights get crapped on, that's all.

Stop while you still can.

 

[Antonykun]

Did the Miis use default specials or customs? (Need to know for the tier list purposes)

it depends on the TO tbh

 

[Wintermelon43]

I mean in that video

it depends on the TO tbh

 

[Antonykun]

I mean in that video

Yes Trela only ever used APEX Sword during all his time on stream

 

[Wintermelon43]

Yes Trela only ever used APEX Sword during all his time on stream

Uh what does APEX mean

 

[Mega-Spider]

Uh what does APEX mean

It's an annual tournament held every late January to early February.

 

[Wintermelon43]

It's an annual tournament held every late January to early February.

No I mean the way he used it "Apex Swordfighter"

I Know about the APEX tournaments

 

[Remzi]

Eh. I mean I have my reasons for the opinion on Kirby's matchups, but no one has anything but theorycraft either way. I do know that SmashGod beat VaBengal's ZSS without crouching once, but I digress.

And Sheik? I don't truly see how Kirby is at a disadvantage, particularly when he has Needles. Much of Sheik's ability to kill comes from incredible kill setups and edgeguarding. Both of these things are harder to do against Kirby. Then you have Sheik's combo game, which is again, amazing, but less effective against Kirby. On the opposite end, Kirby's combos love Sheik's fall speed.

IDK. I'm not going to pretend I'm some analytical god - I just don't see it skew hard in either direction. I'm also biased, clearly.

He actually crouched quite a bit, and very smartly. He didn't just crouch in place across the stage, but instead he would do it at close proximity after various actions (landing aerials, defensive maneuvers) to force whiffs on my punish attempts. It got him a lot of mileage.

 

[PUK]

Apex refer actually to the tournament. Apex rules for mii were 1111 default size and weight.

 

[adom4]

Blocked ganon Fair should push enemy away and be safe on landing. Characters like Ganon are what defense attributes were made for

come at me

It is, it does a lot of shield pushback & even with the lag it's relatively safe on shield.

 

[S_B]

Um. Wait. What?

You want Ganon's F-air to not have landing lag?

Can't speak for all HWs, but just touching the stage makes Bowser lag for a moment unless he uses his side+B as he's landing.

He doesn't even have to be doing an aerial. Just landing on the stage from a certain height does it and the end result is that there have been piles of threads made titled "How do I land with Bowser?" because just falling onto the stage is so easily punished.

 

[Man Li Gi]

Probably because this thread has no real goal. The only prompt is "talk about characters/the metagame at large in a smart way" which many times leads to good discussion but can just as often lead to everyone beings super hyperbolic for a couple pages at a time.

Truth. If there was a goal, we'd feasibly reach it and become bored. And if we became bored the meta may stale. If the meta stales, it means we stop talking unless someone has a "riduculous" post in which we berate the user and then the warnings and then someone brings it back up only for us to discuss how silly the post is. Ah, the

.
Warning incoming.

 

[Routa]

Btw doesn't Swordfighter's Dair deal huge amount of shield damage? I mean I know cases where it has dealt enough shield damage that last hit has kinda "ignored" the shield (shield not covering the whole body anymore).

 

[Rockaphin]

Who are the good Ryus to watch? I've been trying to get good with Ryu for a while now and wanted to see what the good players are doing that I am not (or doing too much of).

Personally, I think that it's still early and no one is using Ryu to his fullest potential. But, I must say that I've been impressed with some of 6WX's stuff he's pulled off. Ryu's KO power can be so scary.

 

[Zelder]

Uh what does APEX mean

Oh my God.

Anyways, I would like to see where Ryu goes in this game. He's lacking in range, and he's pretty gimpable, but he can put on damage solidly and he has, bar none, the best punish option in the game. Theoretically, he's a good character, and he's seeing some results (mostly on the back of Trela) in locals, but I want to see more.

Though to be fair, wasn't he banned at EVO? I know he was banned at Apex. And he wasn't banned at Smashcon, correct?

 

[Ghostbone]

He's lacking in range, and he's pretty gimpable, but he can put on damage solidly and he has, bar none, the best punish option in the game.

It's like people forget Luigi's up-b exists. (Which amusingly reliably punishes Ryu's true input up-b)

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Re: Heavyweights with no landing lag.

Sheik has no landing lag. Look at how that turned out.

 

[NickRiddle]

i have major issues with people not putting in "solo-viable" tier. exactly how do we know that he gets destroyed(aka more than -1) by other than nick riddle going on a hedgehog killing spree? mr. riddle has extensive experience with campy hedgehogs because he plays almost regularly against the campiest out there(staticmanny). i dont have a clear recollection of how each of his sets went, but i do know he struggled against 6wx(he was about to take the set but then got hit with the ol roofio). to me it seems like hedgehogs that don't want to adjust from their campy style to a more aggressive style that get destroyed by .

inviting @ NickRiddle for his opinions

1. I don't often play Manny, he lives 4 goes away from me.
2. That's how the MU usually goes, ZSS is losing and then you die.

 

[hypersonicJD]

But Campy Sonic is not good at anyway. I have defeated Zero Suit Samus so many times by going full yolo against her and not letting her breath, punishing her landings and grabs and not relying on Spin Dash. I mean I have said it so many damn times. But Sonic isn't a campy character. That stuff doesn't suit him at all. Any character in this game can have problems with an aggresive + smart Sonic player. Knowing when is the time to go at full speed and attack and take cover. He is a rush down character. That's why he has fast attacks in the air (Nair is fast at start-up and Fair is really fast too). People will have their play of playing Sonic and I respect it. But if you want to really extend the potential for Sonic, you don't spam Spin Dash + Shield and Spin Dash + Up Air/Nair.

And yeah, Zero Suit Samus is really really good at killing and invalidating Sonic. But it's not that bad when you know how to attack her and when to take cover.

 

[Ghostbone]

lol at campy sonic not being good.

There's a reason staticmanny places the best, he plays Sonic optimally for most matchups.
Especially as they keep nerfing his kill power, that playstyle becomes more and more favoured.

 

[Wintropy]

Gonna have to agree with Ghostbone on this matter. If Sonic's "optimal" playstyle is consistently undermined and reevaluated, he is naturally going to have to shift tactics to a different style. There may have been a time when rushdown, full-throttle Sonic was the way to go, but with most of his best kill moves nerfed and top players getting results by playing ultra-conservatively, it's reasonable that the meta would develop in a new direction.

You can play the character any way you like, that's your call. Yet it's very clear from top-level results that the current metagame for the character is "camp" - you can only go against the grain so much.

 

[Cassio]

How many aggressive sonics are there though? The only one I know of is 6wx, and the only really successful campy sonic in the US is static manny. Remember at EVO he had that hammer custom to help him out too. And at CEO 6wx lost to fatality and nick riddle, wouldnt call those bad losses. Im not saying camping isnt good, but I dont think Sonic is really that linear most Sonic players just arent that good (good enough to explore him holistically)

 

[Balgorxz]

lol at campy sonic not being good.

There's a reason staticmanny places the best, he plays Sonic optimally for most matchups (super gay).
Especially as they keep nerfing his kill power, that playstyle becomes more and more favoured.

campy sonic is the optimal sonic, people praise all the aggresive sonics but they get destroyed when it counts, that's why I can of understand the hate for the character since its force the players to play extra safe.

 

[Locke 06]

I almost snapped when I realized it was just an example.

But anyway, remember, shield beats pellets.

I really don't want these 'spamming pellets beats Luigi' from spreading again.

Shield beats pellets? That's rich.

Remember, the tool Mega Man's entire kit is based around loses to shield. Everyone should be beating this character.

uses haze.

 

[RedBeefBaron]

It's very likely Sonic was intended to be a pressure rushdown character by the devs, and the players simply took it in another direction that works better. Game plans don't always end up as the balance team intends.

*thinks of ice climbers and and has a PTSD flashback*

 

[|RK|]

He actually crouched quite a bit, and very smartly. He didn't just crouch in place across the stage, but instead he would do it at close proximity after various actions (landing aerials, defensive maneuvers) to force whiffs on my punish attempts. It got him a lot of mileage.

I did not notice; my mistake!

And yeah, that's definitely the smart way to use it.

So, what are your thoughts on the MU?

 

[FullMoon]

All of those characters in A/2 has shown something at the level of the game. If Amsa doesn't attend a tournament you're not seeing greninja. He doesn't even fill the you may see him in top 13. Being considered good early on isn't anything special. As we learn more about the game things change. I doubt that Greninja was on the level of prepatch diddy 3ds rosa or even sheik's earlier builds. Bowser was consider top tier and duck hunt was considered really good at a time.

@Kurogane Hammer is your frame data for greninja correct? You have nair at 12 frames and fair at 16 frames when I thought they were 10 and 14.

NinjaLink wins tournaments with Greninja, I said it before, it's not just aMSa who's repping him.

Also the frame data is right.

 

[Wintropy]

It's very likely Sonic was intended to be a pressure rushdown character by the devs, and the players simply took it in another direction that works better. Game plans don't always end up as the balance team intends.

*thinks of ice climbers and and has a PTSD flashback*

Can we ever truly, objectively determine the devs' intent with character design? It's kind of a "death of the author" situation; at best, we can draw inferences from the data present (hint menus, trophy descriptions, essential stats, whatever Sakurai says in interviews), but when it comes down to the wire, we as players determine the "optimal" way to play the character.

Sometimes it's good to go against the grain, other times it's just stubborn obstinacy. We, as a community, draw our own inferences and then work from that to develop the character - irrespective of what Sakurai intended, we've decided that campy Sonic is the ideal meta, thus campy Sonic is the way forward.

 

[RedBeefBaron]

Can we ever truly, objectively determine the devs' intent with character design? It's kind of a "death of the author" situation; at best, we can draw inferences from the data present (hint menus, trophy descriptions, essential stats, whatever Sakurai says in interviews), but when it comes down to the wire, we as players determine the "optimal" way to play the character.

Sometimes it's good to go against the grain, other times it's just stubborn obstinacy. We, as a community, draw our own inferences and then work from that to develop the character - irrespective of what Sakurai intended, we've decided that campy Sonic is the ideal meta, thus campy Sonic is the way forward.

This is all true, however what videogame developer in their right mind would design Sonic as a patient and defensive camp character?

His catchphrase is gotta go fast, yet he draws out most matchups to the point where it's a snoozefest.

Edit: on topic: I think there's no reason Sonic wouldn't be solo viable as well, even with the nerfs.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

These are the same devs that made tourney mode. The one with the 3 minute 2 stock matches in 1v1 bracket. The one where you can't make 1v1 brackets. So don't think that competitive Smash was the only thing on their mind when they designed Sonic.

 

[LancerStaff]

This is all true, however what videogame developer in their right mind would design Sonic as a patient and defensive camp character?

His catchphrase is gotta go fast, yet he draws out most matchups to the point where it's a snoozefest.

Edit: on topic: I think there's no reason Sonic wouldn't be solo viable as well, even with the nerfs.

Yaknow how Sonic wins most boss fights? Running away until they're vulnerable. Sound familiar?

 

[Snackss]

Sonic can play aggressively. There just aren't compelling enough reasons for people to want to do that when he has safe and easy options out of mashing side B. He completely negates basically all approaches just by doing so, as well as being a punish and a mixup. Why bother with short hops or spacing or any sort of mixups when side b does everything they can do and more with less effort?

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Sonic can be played however the heck you want. His mobility is so extreme and his overall tools are safe/strong enough where you can do as you please. I'd say that optimal Sonic is largely dependent on your individual opponent.

Some characters' approaches get invalidated by Spin shenanigans alone, while others can punish it reliably. Some players get flustered by campy play while others don't. I'd say the best Sonic would feel those factors out and shift gears accordingly.

 

[hypersonicJD]

But Spin Dash it's very punishable when you know the match-up. But Sonic can change his playstyle in the middle of the match and adapt pretty easily. So that's a very good plus on him.

 

[Illuminose]

I'm with @ TheReflexWonder on this. Check out the two best Japanese Sonics. Here's Octo and here's Komorikiri. Octo is more defensive/spin dash camping heavy while Komorikiri is more aggressive. Both playstyles of Sonic can definitely work and it's hard to call one optimal.