Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Deathcarter]

is in the "Borderline" group along with . Good enough to hang with most of the viable characters but not great enough to really be able to influence the shape of the meta game.

Note: I feel like I might be sleeping on Greninja but I want to see more of what top players can do with the frog.

 

[san.]

I don't know how I feel about Ike but I do feel like he's bottom of high tier or at the top of mid-tier, but that really depends on how he performs at top level against the top tiers if he gets the chance anyway since that's the most important aspect at nationals/majors. I believe Ike struggles against

- I believe that Mr.R / ZeRo has a nice advantage for them if they face any Ike since sheik can exploit Ike options very nicely.

- I honestly believe that Zero Suit rekts Ike at Top level, I mean we already know how Nairo (ZSS) does against big / heavy characters .

- I can see Ike doing decently well against Rosa but as we all know Dabuz is a fortress and I can also see how Ike can struggle against Rosa.

- The only Pikachu that gets top placing is Esam and I don't even want think about how that can turn-out

- I believe he will struggle with these characters the most at Top Level due to all the aforementioned characters having a more threatening neutral, better disadvantage and a better advantage state against Ike. 3 of these 4 characters are also highly mobile and have faster attacks against Ike allowing him to be overwhelmed much more easily then them being overwhelmed by him. Not trying to say Ike is bad or anything but like most characters who have nearly a worse everything compared to the top tiers they will tend to struggle against them in the whole spectrum of the top tiers.This also give reason as to why every Major/National consists mostly of top tiers in Top 8 or lowered tiered characters such as Donkey Kong or Pac-man with higher tiered secondaries to back them up. Even Fatality who had an amazing run at Smash con was shut down by and especially by /: which is why later on down the line I expect for players to pick up secondaries to help their mains against their really bad MU with a top tier(s) if they want to win that is.

Thing about Ike is that he can directly challenge a lot of hitboxes in the game with a usable ground game.

- Ike definitely loses to Sheik, not sure if he gets invalidated by her. Sheik isn't so scary until needle charges up and you can kind of play around it. I can't go into much detail without bringing up a bunch of micro situations. All I can say is that Ike has to rely on the range and quickest moves: 4 frame jab1, 3 frame jab 2, 7 frame dtilt, power shields and grabs, and 7 frame bair. Ike has to maximize his punishment game and focus on any pattern the Sheik displays.

- I dunno about that. ZSS punishes hard, but so does Ike. ZSS' size and weight makes combos easy to perform when they land, even at high %. Both characters are vulnerable to kills from low % punishes. Ike can actually directly challenge ZSS' flip with his own aerials and grounded attacks pretty easily, and goes toe-to-toe with ZSS in aerial spacing. I think what tips the favor towards ZSS is that Ike is particularly weak to tether grabs unless Ike is very conservative with his landing aerials. Ike is also susceptible to being blindsided by quick aerials while Ike has to trap more. I can definitely see Ike getting overwhelmed, but it's a little overloaded when you say that you don't see Nairo or ZeRo having much trouble with your idea of Ike lol due to the skill difference. I played some skilled ZSS in tournament and felt that way.

- Ike is really good at stopping luma, but I think he's kinda meh to okay vs Rosalina herself. I haven't played this MU much in 1.1.0, but Rosa used to be pretty safe when running away from Ike waiting for luma to respawn. Now, I think Rosa is very susceptible to uair kills so I'm not sure how it goes now. Ike also doesn't care much about luma traps offstage since aether's spinning sword flinches luma and even launches him with rage. I think Ike is capable of doing well when both players are studied in the MU.

- I don't think Ike has any glaring problems against Pikachu. Jab helps in close range and quick attack's main weakness is direct agression with large hitboxes (or shield vs. bad quick attack usage). Ike is one of the easier characters for Pikachu to land smashes on, however, but in no way does Ike lose badly to Pikachu, maybe even at all with it being evenish instead. Pikachu also has to fear eruption a bit offstage surprisingly, since Pikachu halts for a long enough time to react to the quick attack. Ike has to fear aerials offstage but Pikachu has a tough time challenging quick draw directly. Pikachu does have quite a few options if Ike is recovering low, but there should be few attacks that send Ike at that angle from Pikachu.


Of course, there's tons more situational things, but other than Sheik I believe those other 3 characters are among the easier ones to deal with. I haven't played too many MUs for 1.1.0 for the uair change cause of work preventing me from going to tournaments so most of it is from my 1.0.8 experiences with a bit of extrapolation with the uair change. A lot of Ikes aren't really pushing the uair change to its limits just yet either since uair has a bit of a learning curve.

Fixed it.

Jk. In all seriousness, I can see it being in gunner's favor. Gunner's fair could be a problem for Luigi too. Gunner has a good offstage edgeguarding game with the projectiles you mentioned, which is good because Gunner doesn't have to commit at all to use them from the stage. So Cyclone wont screw you over.
The Gunner has to play the neutral very well in order to beat Luigi. I can't put a number on the matchup. It's rarely played so take this theorycraft with a grain of salt.

It's pretty easy for gunner but really boring if you want to play it optimally.

 

[DunnoBro]

Samus probably doesn't beat luigi, but since she can actually play a neutral game vs him I see why she's ESAM's "luigi counter" since due to his extensive experience with her over the history of smash, he can just straight outplay luigis.

Pikachu can't really outplay luigi, it's a lot of sacrificing stage control to just avoid a grab/grab set-up. Can't go in the air, can't roll. He just gets boxed in and takes hella damage. Pika has like 20 mistakes he can make and luigi only has like 3. It's dumb.

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

Hmm... That's probably the same in Rice and Trevonte's situation. Rice seems to like Dr. Mario, but his Fox is his best character while Trevonte likes Palutena (and Captain Falcon), but Sheik is his best character. Ito counts, right? He likes Meta Knight, but Diddy was his best character when Diddy reigned. Now Diddy's not insane anymore and Meta Knight's good, so yay, a win-win situation. Does west Michigan have a PR? The PR thread: http://smashboards.com/threads/smash-4-power-rankings-directory-project.401710/, would be interested since some states like CA is split into several parts: NorCal, SoCal, and San Diego.

West Michigan does not have a PR. They only have 3 possibly 4 players that can compete over East. Meanwhile, while we have a 10 man PR, we have another group of players who are all right on the border of being PRed that are similar skill to myself.

 

[DunnoBro]

Also I think DK is the perfectly designed heavy hitter, and it's only possible with rage mode.

His BS combos mostly only work while he has medium/little rage, but his neutral is so poor that he can't really help it in most MUs. If he's getting those combos it's because he's straight outplaying them. (Or lost his stock and got a grab during the fresh one =p)

He's still kind of silly but I hope to see more of the heavy hitters/bad neutrals given incentive to play conservative/efficiently rather than take risks the entire time because of the rage mode cushion. (Looking at you luigi)

 

[Vipermoon]

I don't think of Michigan's PR to be just for SE Michigan. It's all of Michigan. The players in the west just haven't yet proved that they can land a spot on it.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Also I think DK is the perfectly designed heavy hitter, and it's only possible with rage mode.

His BS combos mostly only work while he has medium/little rage, but his neutral is so poor that he can't really help it in most MUs. If he's getting those combos it's because he's straight outplaying them. (Or lost his stock and got a grab during the fresh one =p)

He's still kind of silly but I hope to see more of the heavy hitters/bad neutrals given incentive to play conservative/efficiently rather than take risks the entire time because of the rage mode cushion. (Looking at you luigi)

This. DK's ****ty neutral really helps balance his ridiculous grab reward. And his ****ty disadvantage gives him incentive to play safe.

But people will still complain.

 

[Trifroze]

Speaking of DK's cargo uthrow to uair, if any character deserves to get cheese such as that it's characters like DK who struggle getting in, but in general those sort of tools are really dangerous for a character's design. Is there really any good reason for DK to do anything else than shield and run around fishing for grabs now when both him and the opponent are below 90%? Diddy became a lot more interesting when his dthrow to uair was essentially obliterated, but now they're taking the easy route and buffing the worse characters by giving them ridiculous setups like that.

There really are some poor (definitely a matter of opinion here) character designs in Smash 4, although other Smash games have their fair share of those. Sheik deals very little damage per hit and takes forever to kill the opponent but theoretically has better odds of winning just about every situation compared to just about any other character. You may argue that this is an interesting design because of how extreme it is, but to that I say think about all the characters who have bad neutral; they cannot win the matchup because their odds of winning neutral are so small it will realistically almost never happen. Luigi is similar but in a different way; you either keep him out and win or you get grabbed 3 times and lose a stock.

Then we have the crew of a little bit less polarizing although still quite extreme characters like ZSS, Falcon, Wario and Lucario who in certain situations can simply take out your stock out of a single conversion or even a single hit well below even half the % where you would usually expect to die. I personally have no trouble with this though, seeing how I main two characters from among them, because they capitalize on mistakes and reads which are player related attributes rather than something static that gets decided in the character selection screen (plus death combos and airdodge read kills are competitively hype).

Anyway I hope they do something else to Sheik than reduce her damage to fix the problems she creates. Not sure what they could do to Luigi though besides dthrow's utility being nerfed, but he needs to be given something in return for his neutral game. That said they decided to do the opposite; increase his fireball endlag and do nothing about his throws while buffing the up b so he has an even stronger confirm off of dthrow once people start doing that.

EDIT: Forgot to mention Little Mac. Shoutouts to the worst character design in the game with superarmor on every smash attack and the best ground game hands down. You either throw out an attack at the wrong time and die literally in 3 hits, or you manage to grab him before then and don't screw up the edgeguard. If you've played versus a good Mac you understand.

 

[outfoxd]

Speaking of DK's cargo uthrow to uair, if any character deserves to get cheese such as that it's characters like DK who struggle getting in, but in general those sort of tools are really dangerous for a character's design. Is there really any good reason for DK to do anything else than shield and run around fishing for grabs now when both him and the opponent are below 90%? Diddy became a lot more interesting when his dthrow to uair was essentially obliterated, but now they're taking the easy route and buffing the worse characters by giving them ridiculous setups like that.

There really are some poor (definitely a matter of opinion here) character designs in Smash 4, although other Smash games have their fair share of those. Sheik deals very little damage per hit and takes forever to kill the opponent but theoretically has better odds of winning just about every situation compared to just about any other character. You may argue that this is an interesting design because of how extreme it is, but to that I say think about all the characters who have bad neutral; they cannot win the matchup because their odds of winning neutral are so small it will realistically almost never happen. Luigi is similar but in a different way; you either keep him out and win or you get grabbed 3 times and lose a stock.

Then we have the crew of a little bit less polarizing although still quite extreme characters like ZSS, Falcon, Wario and Lucario who in certain situations can simply take out your stock out of a single conversion or even a single hit well below even half the % where you would usually expect to die. I personally have no trouble with this though, seeing how I main two characters from among them, because they capitalize on mistakes and reads which are player related attributes rather than something static that gets decided in the character selection screen (plus death combos and airdodge read kills are competitively hype).

Anyway I hope they do something else to Sheik than reduce her damage to fix the problems she creates. Not sure what they could do to Luigi though besides dthrow's utility being nerfed, but he needs to be given something in return for his neutral game. That said they decided to do the opposite; increase his fireball endlag and do nothing about his throws while buffing the up b so he has an even stronger confirm off of dthrow once people start doing that.

EDIT: Forgot to mention Little Mac. Shoutouts to the worst character design in the game with superarmor on every smash attack and the best ground game hands down. You either throw out an attack at the wrong time and die literally in 3 hits, or you manage to grab him before then and don't screw up the edgeguard. If you've played versus a good Mac you understand.

I agree, and eagerly await my misplaced but much appreciated Duck Hunt hoo ha. Even gonna call it "Skeet Shooting".

I'm ready.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

If you fish for grabs with Donkey Kong you will usually lose your stock. @ Trifroze

 

[DunnoBro]

The most likely helpful buff to duck hunt would be to make clay pigeon combo better... It's so ****ing close to kill comboing/frame trapping for kills but just doesn't except at like some magic percent for both players (right % and right rage. it's like a 5% interval between the combination of both players %)

It'd essentially just be a one-shot zigzag at that point, perfectly healthy but also exactly what DHD needs.

Better angling on dthrow and general smashes would be nice too but unlikely.

 

[Patriot Duck]

The inherent flaw with balancing around extremes is that in a game as dynamic as Smash, the metagame will always favor certain strengths over others. It also tends to restrict the flow of the game; against characters like Mac or Luigi, you either win convincingly or get shut down, and there's little room for flexibility in those characters' game plans. This could be fixed by rounding the characters out a little, but that risks homogenization, which makes things stale.

On another note, Smash is the only fighting game I can think of where some moves are deliberately designed to be bad. Even the tip section is like "hey we made Samus's jab garbage so you might as well not even go for the second hit lol". They should be able to give characters weaknesses without giving them moves with no utility. It really is pretty bad game design (I still love this game though).

 

[LancerStaff]

Not really? His worst MU is Sheik at 40-60. SM has taking a set off of VoiD, we do have proof that its certainly a winnable MU.

Sonic loses to Ike. I think Static Manny having to go off of Sonic when going up against Ryo should say it all.

Ike most likely beats Rosalina. Not by very much mind you, I'm talking like 55-45. Its the fact that he kills Luma so easily that gives us the edge. Large number of other top tiers are in the 55-45 or 45-55 range.

Pit doesn't really stuff us on recovery. He'll tack on some extra damage for sure, but the arrows aren't going to keep us from recovering. Have yet to hear of an Ike having difficulty getting back when facing against Pit so the Side B ain't doing as much as it would appear on paper either.

Ike is reliable now. He is very much a showcase of your abilities in fundamentals, almost to an extreme point. Only Eruption can really be called cheesy. Everything else relies solely on your ability to fight in all areas. If you're good at all areas, you can reliably take out just about anyone regardless of character. If you have an area you're weak in, Ike will likely magnify that fact and the opponent will easily pick up on it. That's kinda why a lot of starting Ikes struggle badly against Sonic even though we have the edge for example: you've got to get good at sticking to the right moves in order to beat Sonic. If you don't, you'll get run over very quickly and very badly.

Pit's arrows keep you from charging your Fspecial, Dspecial pushes you away from the ledge while keeping Pit safe. It's not even hard to do. And Dark Pit has some potential in beating out Aether, but I haven't went too deep into that.

The thing with Ike... He's an unconventional character to fight right now. I don't see these even matchups keeping for long. Once the Sonics and Shieks learn their side of the matchup I believe things will sour quickly.

 

[Ffamran]

DK's cargo U-throw does 10%. His lowest damage throws are D-throw and cargo D-throw that both do 7% followed by his U-throw that does 9%. At a minimum from a cargo U-throw setup to 1 move, he's going to do 10% from that guaranteed cargo U-throw. Obvious, but it should be pointed out. Now, if he lands any aerial, he's going to do at least another 8% from a late hit Nair or Bair. Ideally, he wants to get a Fair which does 16%, but a 13% Uair or clean Bair works as well and so does an 11% clean Nair. Let's add that up: the lowest he'll get if he connects an aerial is 18% and the highest is 26%. If he can connect an entire Spinning Kong which totals at 34%, he can get at 44% from a cargo U-throw setup and even if DK only hits with just the first hit, that's another 10% totaling 20%. That's pretty insane. From a cargo U-throw, DK can do anywhere from just 10% off the grab to at least 18% to 44% and some of this is guaranteed at certain percents.

Contrast this to Ike, another heavy hitter. All of his throws do 7% and a common setup is D-throw or U-throw to Fair which does 12% totaling to 19%. He's probably not going to connect a late hit 6% Nair, but let's assume that's possible; the lowest Ike can get if he connects an aerial is 13%. If he manages a 14% Bair, he's getting 21%. I don't think Dair's possible, but if so, it's only 22% total. Aether does about 17% at most on an airborne target, so he's only going to get 24% if it fully connects. Ike is going to get at least 7% from just setting up 1 move to at least 13% and at most 24%. Aether doesn't kill until around 260% unlike Fair, Bair, or Uair. Connecting those 3 would get Ike from 16% with Uair, 19% with Fair, and 21% with Bair. The range of damage isn't that insane compared to DK.

What they did to DK's cargo U-throw really helps him, but how do you combat this now? How do you DI it if possible? Like his Uair, DK's cargo U-throw sends you straight up at 90 degrees. People are always saying don't get grabbed, but against some characters, that's pretty difficult. This also puts something where getting grabbed by DK spells death just as getting grabbed by Luigi, Diddy, Captain Falcon, Ness, and Meta Knight does. The difference is you're going to die early like against Ness. The reward DK gets now is on par with Ness not Luigi. Luigi's a step down from what DK can do you now. Luigi has to rack up damage first before he can kill at the right percent and that's around 100%; DK can murder you at 70%.

There are many volatile characters in this game. Well, all characters are, but some are just more volatile. Take Shulk. With his range, speeding him up by say 3 frames on all of his attacks would put him on par with Ike except now Shulk has a frame 2 jab, a frame 8 Utilt, a frame 10 Nair, frame 11 Fair, frame 11 Side Smash... Do you know how insane that would be? He already has more range than Ike, but now he's faster than Ike in areas Ike excels at like Nair, Fair, jab, and Utilt. Shulk's Utilt reaches up to the top platform of Battlefield. A frame 8 Utilt like that would be pretty insane and a frame 11 Side Smash would be a Marth Side Smash with the horizontal range of Triple D's.

Some changes don't even have to be major to push a volatile character past insanity. Take Falco. Wolf Bair, yeah? What if that was actually a thing... Think about it for a minute... Let's sum this up: the changes would be a removal of the late hit and reduced end lag from 38 to 30 - the same end lag for Wolf's Bair. The result? Falco would have a frame 4-5 Bair that always does 13% and can be spammed. You thought Wolf's Bair was crazy or, well, DK's Bair since that's the closest we have to a quickly repeatable Bair? No, this is even more insane. That's an "aerial jab" with the power of a Smash attack and the safety of a Wolf Bair. Wolf's Bair had separate hitboxes that did anywhere from 9% to 13% while DK's had a late hit that does 8%.This move would be freaking oppressive. Constant 13% from an instant and spammable move. They could do this and they could make it do 11% in compensation with maybe 145 growth now, but that's still a constant 11% Falco can spam with almost no repercussion. Sheik's Fair is great because of its speed and auto-cancel, but she doesn't get to act until frame 35 if she decides to remain in the air. If she had Meta Knight's Uair end lag of 27, it would be horrible for our life expectancy.

Guess what? That's what happened to DK. His cargo U-throw only received knockback changes; base went from 90 to 58 and growth from 30 to 52. That lowered how far his U-throw sent people up at lower percents and setup a perfect zone for him to combo and kill. This also happened to Robin where her base went from 80 to 30 and growth from 50 to 88 along with letting her act 6 frames earlier. Tiny changes that can majorly affect characters. They aren't as visual like seeing a hitbox be fixed or seeing damage go up or down and even then, those are tiny changes that have major consequences. Fixing Ike's Fair hitbox lets him hit above him. Well, that means he can hit people above him after U-throw or D-throw now. Changing the damage from 14% to 13% made Captain Falcon's Bair kill 15%? later.

 

[san.]

If you're doing DK's max damage, you need to include Ike's footstool setup from dthrow, which is guaranteed and tournament-proven.

 

[Ffamran]

If you're doing DK's max damage, you need to include Ike's footstool setup from dthrow, which is guaranteed and tournament-proven.

I should have said after 1 aerial since in theory, you can juggle people indefinitely...

 

[chaos11011]

Not sure if this would be the right thread to post this as I don't think it warrants its own thread, but after the Youtube tier list discussion a couple days ago and the importance of match up knowledge, I came up with an idea that the Youtube active pros could do to help out the meta game. Match up videos are made by many online, but it would be cool if a Youtuber made a series where every video, they brought in a guest who mains the character they're discussing and the two have a back and forth giving insight about the match up, say, ESAM with MVD as a guest and they talk about Pikachu vs Diddy and then the next video, ESAM brings in 8bitman and they talk Pikachu vs ROB. Having two experienced mains talking about the match up at the same time is bound to be extremely insightful. Maybe even go a little further by having a battle between the two players before the discussion and one after the discussion. The first would be a mind refresher for the players and a small glimpse of the match up for the viewers while the second would serve as a "remember what we talked about and try to see us use it in our game play so you can learn" kind of thing.

Or maybe even something like a podcast where every week, the two hosts are different players who sit down and talk about their match up against the other player and discuss stages to pick against them and all that jazz.

 

[san.]

I should have said after 1 aerial since in theory, you can juggle people indefinitely...

Hm? Non-guaranteed damage shouldn't be counted, unless I read it wrong.

The footstool stuff is important to note since it really helped advance Ike's metagame and most of the top Ike players are using it regularly. It also shows how DK's reward is extraordinary, but not leagues beyond many others. Didn't even talk about things like top tier characters' reward either.

 

[FullMoon]

Greninja can get up to 68% in guaranteed footstool combos and aMSa has even used them in EVO. That's pretty big too.

 

[Ffamran]

Hm? Non-guaranteed damage shouldn't be counted, unless I read it wrong.

The footstool stuff is important to note since it really helped advance Ike's metagame and most of the top Ike players are using it regularly.

I meant like after 1 move, DK can do X amount of damage and in contrast, after 1 move, Ike can do X amount of damage. So, Luigi can get the usual ~30% from D-throw, but after 1 move he can get at most 20% from a D-throw (6%) to Bair (14%). There's also the 20% aerial Super Jump Punch, but that's not exactly guaranteed. In a guaranteed chain, that's after multiple moves that rack up damage. I don't think DK can do that, but considering he can get that much damage after 1 move from a guaranteed setup, it's pretty insane. Am I making any sense?

 

[san.]

Ah, okay. That's an interesting perspective.

Also, Ike has few problems not getting gimped vs pit unless I am underestimating the reflector windbox. Probably will take some damage though to an arrow or disjointed attack, but it will take a few good reads vs an Ike who is aware of all his options to fully gimp him.

 

[Jehtt]

If we are talking about how much guaranteed damage someone can get from a throw, we should be considering guaranteed chains. The 1 throw - 1 attack perspective doesn't supply much since, if someone has a guaranteed chain that does more damage, they will use it.

 

[Sir Tundra]

Welp I promised myself I wouldn't make myself a tier list but since so many people are making tier list in this thread I
Might as well.

Before I start I would to state a few things.

1. I'm fully aware of:

PERSONAL TIER LISTS (without openly justifying themselves and responding properly to questions and critique) is punishable by DEATH.

So I'll make explanations for as much characters as I can. I can't put one for every character since not only would that take for ever but it would also take up the writing limit for this post if there's one. If death is still my punishment then I will embrace it(Not being literal here)

2. This list is highly opinionated like every tier list these days. So their's chance's that alot of people aren't going to agree with everything I place which is fine we all have different opinions for tier's/viability. So I know some people are going to think my tier list is way off or X character's to low or X character's to high.

3. This tier list will involve no customs, no mii's, and this tier list will not be in order. character's are only based on the tier their in if two character's are in the same tier then that doesn't mean x character is higher then y character.


With that out of the way it is time to start up this bad boy

Spoiler

Top Tier: place's 1-5

S:

S-:


High Tier: place's 6-15

A:

A-:


High Mid Tier: Place's 16-25

B: ()

B-:


Mid Tier: Place's 26-35

C:


Low Mid Tier: Place's 36-42

D:


Low Tier: Place's 43-50

E:


Bottom Tier: Place's 51-52

F:

Reasons:

Spoiler

(The new SM4SH king Queen): Hands down the best character in the game.. She has the best neutral out of the whole cast, ridiculous amount of 50/50's, great edgeguarding, needles, her infamous fair, and has no bad matchup's whatsover. she also has amazing tournament result's placing high/winning alot of tournaments having huge rep's most notable being false, mr r, and zero. Despite being the best she doesn't rule the metagame like melee fox or brawl metaknight were in their respected games.

(The Space Booty): Great mobility, amazing kill confirms, great spacing, great rushdown game, amazing disadvantage state, and a god like recovery. ZSS is just an amazing character in almost everyway. Her only flaw is the fact that her grab is very bad. not her followups off of it but rather the grab itself. Since it's a thether grab it usually comes off very laggy however the trade off is range. if zss had a normal grab then she'd be on par with sheik. zss has alot of reps with the most notable one being nairo who's just killing with this character right now.

(The 64 King): amazing speed, great combo ability, quick attack, amazing disadvantage state amazing recovery, great Kill confirms, one of the best edge guarding tool's in the game, and a very small size making him hard to hit against tall characters and aerials. Despite these amazing attributes pikachu really doesn't have much reps. His most notable rep is mr esam who just straight up carries this character to success.

(The Space Waifu) : Disjointed hit's, amazing priority, kill confirms off of fast falled fair, best rapid jab in the game, little cooldown on down b, jab desynchs and mother****ing luma. Luma is basically the number 1 reason why this character is so good. Not only does luma increase's rosalinas hitbox but it also protect's her from zoners/rushdowners and hits like a truck. Rosalina biggest fault's is that her up b doesn't have a hitbox making her quite easy to edgeguard if she isn't to careful as well as the fact that she's very light and quite tall. Rosalinas most notable rep is mr Dabuz who's place's very high in tournaments with her.

(The Onett Boyz): Great spacing with aerials, great edgeguarding, pk thunder mind games, scary ledge pressure, and the best kill throw in the game being able to kill character's as lows as 80% near the ledge(with rage of course). This maybe a rather controversial placement but hear me out on this. Now alot of people think ness isn't top 5 because of his recovery and the rosalina matchup but let me explain why those shouldn't be reason to not put ness in top 5. Yes ness's pk thunder can be stopped if you just touch it, use a projectile against it, or absorb it but let me tell you this... Why is it that most people outside of rosalina mains, villager mains, and ness mains themselves don't attempt this consistently. It's because they're scared of getting hit by pk rocket. The fact that ness can easily kill if you screw up trying to gimp off stage is something alot of players fear. Until people outside of rosalina mains, villager mains, and ness mains start taking advatnage of ness's recovery and put aside the fear of getting killed by ness's pk rocket I'll still consider ness top 5. Now for the rosalina matchup. I think @Dabuz said it best:

Yeah...but i'd like to point out that Rosa vs. Ness isn't even -that- bad, probably a +2/ 60-40 Rosa's favor because they both go even in neutral (Ness flat out kills a lot earlier though) and Ness does really dirty things to Rosa when she recovers. TBH I feel like the only reason I destroy Ness players so much is because they see me and psych themselves out, realistically a good Ness can avoid the GP edgeguards because I only get them if the Ness makes one big mistake or I get a hard read.

Speaking of matchups ness only has 4 bad matchups out of 55 character's those being Sheik, Rosalina(as mentioned before), Sonic, and (arguably)Luigi. Beside's those 4 character's who else really beats ness?

And as for rep's ness has alot of them most notably Fow and Nakat and both of the place rather high in tournaments

(The Melee King): amazing mobility options, great combo ability, can make the most use of empty short hop grabs due to his falling speed, Amazing neutral game being only behind diddy and sheik, one of the best perfect pivot's in the game, great approaches, and Has the most kill confirms in the game some of which are guaranteed( to even list all of them would be an essay worth). the reason why I don't think Fox should be top 5 is because of the fact that he's very light and easy to combo because of his falling speed and due to his predictable recovery he is quite easy to edgeguard/gimp off stage. These are some very major weakness's. While people might say.. but tundra? isn't ness's recovery easy to edgeguard too? yeah but it's like I said ness's pk rocket can get you killed if you screw up however fox's doesn't. fox's recovery is rather easy to edgeguard. if fox tries to side b to the ledge you can just nair/fair him out of it. and if he tries to recovery with up b.. Well if the fox doesn't know how to tech.. he's screwed.. Fox's has quite a few reps most notably DEHF, Megafox, nakat, and Niento.

(The Green Cyclone): Despite the fact that I hate fighting this character being a fox main and all I do have to admit that luigi is a bit overrated. Sure he has a really long dash grab, fireballs has ridiculous combo's of off throws, and down throw to green cyclone/down throw to bair is the worst thing in the god damn planet. Luigi does seem to have alot of problems. For starters luigi has ridiculous traction makes it a bit hard for him to punish character's, has the worst airspeed as well as being floaty making easy to chase in the air, and he suffers against zoners/campers. I mean he has bad matchups against the likes of megaman and pacman. If luigi had the speed of falcon like speed then this wouldn't really be a problem but he doesn't. Luigi also is starting to lose reps as of late with his only notable reps being B0$$ and Mr CC. If luigi's bad matchups were to appear alot more often then I might have to move him down a tier.

(The Blue Blur): The fastest thing alive and the master of time outs. Sonic has a speed of 3.5 which is the fastest speed in the game, spin dash, springs can gimp with ease, Amazing recovery with spinshot, and all around an annoying playstyle. While theirs aggressive sonic mains like 6WX sonic is best played as a hit and run character. If he get's a stock lead then prepare to rip out your hairs cause sonic can run away for the whole match and theirs nothing you can do about it. Sonic doesn't have any kill confirms(thank god) and his kill options/damage output has been getting nerfed over the months. Sonic's most notable reps are 6WX(as mention before) and StaticManny.

(The Former Sm4sh King): Despite the fact that Diddy lost his infamous HOO HA and got nerfed badly twice. I still think diddy is a really good character. He has the second best neutral game imo, amazing stage control, great kill confirms most of which involve bananas. Diddy's combo game is also still pretty good. Yeah his up air and down throw have alot more lag then what they used to but their still great for comboing. Diddy also has up throw to up air which can kill if diddy's in the top platform of battlefield, Dreamland, or even Halbred. Diddy's most notable rep's are mvd, angel cortez and surprisingly zero even though he mostly plays sheik.

(The Red Plumber Shoto): This character is just the definition of solid. Mario is good in just about everything but doesn't excel at anything. Except for his combo game which he excels at. Mario also doesn't have any general weakness's which is always a plus. Mario is also one of the only characters who can hold his own against sheik yeah it's not in his favor but he can still do extremely well. Mario is also does well against pikachu having the matchup be in his favor. Mario himself has a rather great matchup spread as he doesn't really have many bad matchups against most characters. He even does well against most of the top tiers. His only bad real matchup is of course luigi but even then it ain't as bad as you'd think. Mario has quite a few reps with his most notable being Ally who is one of canadas finest and even m2k is starting to main him so that's also counts for something.

(Mr HYEZZ): 2nd fastest character in the game, a dash grab so jank that one could compare it to marth's grab range in melee, great air mobility, amazing grab game in general, great edgeguarding, raptor boost is really good for baiting spot dodge 's, amazing fox trots, and early knee setups. also on top of that he has a kill throw. Falcon isn't without his fault's though. Falcon is very easy to edgeguard having one of the worst recoveries in the game, very easy to combo, can be combo'ed into upsurd %, and has really bad matchups against character's like sheik and pikachu.

(The Brawl King): Seems like metaknight became really popular ever since leo beaten mr r in that one tournament am I right? So why do I think metaknight this high? Well for starter's he's very fast, has 4 recovery moves, 5 jumps, dash attack and f smash being lagless is just nuts, and Dash attack to up b is just stupid. Metaknight design alone being fast, have multiple jumps, and have 4 recovery moves alone should make him a good character the fact that people thought he was a bad character in the first place because he wasn't brawl metaknight is disappointing. I'm not gonna point out any names but for those who thought metaknight was a bad character in this thread.. you know who you are. Metaknight is also getting alot of reps with many players like tyrant and mr r starting to pick him and do good with him and ITO who's just been dominating with this character.

edit: shout to warionumbah2 for correcting me on nakat not being tyrany

(The Silent Dinosaur): And yet another controversial placement. Alot of people either see him as top 10, top 15, or even below top 20. We got yoshi mains saying he's not as good as most people come to believe he is and we have other people saying that yoshi is a potential top 10. So where do I stand? Well if you saw the tier list I'm pretty sure you'd know what I think about him now. Now during the early 3ds day's of smash I used to be one of the blind ones thinking oh man yoshi's so OP BRUH, he's so safe, egg's are dumb as shizz my nizz. I even thought the yoshi vs fox matchup was a nightmare hell for fox. but then I realized how vulenerable yoshi really is after fighting some pretty good yoshi mains on a few online tournaments. For starter's his neutral game is a bit meh, most of his aerials except for uair and nair come out a bit slow, Eggs are also meh, a pretty bad grab game, and he does have trouble killing certain character's. So why do I consider him top 15. Well his combo game is fairly good, Nair is fairly safe if spaced correctly which is easy due to his amazing airspeed, Fair has a pretty long range and is auto cancel able despite the long startup, his disadvantage state is amazing, Jab is really safe and can setup frame traps, and jab to up smash is a thing. Outside of Japan yoshi has no major reps. His most notable rep is raptor and even then he doesn't win major tournaty's. Esam is thinking of picking up yoshi so that could help our dinosaur out a bit.

edit: Esam has dropped yoshi since he thinks yoshi might sink him in tournaments and pikachu is enough to place high in tournaments thx for the heads up slav

(The Loud and Proud): Wario is a pretty ridiculous character. Wario has the fastest command grab in the game, Amazing air mobility, amazing recovery, Bike makes wario extremely mobile, the infamous waft, unpredictable.
Wario's only flaw's is that he doesn't have a combo throw and his combo game isn't really that great. But when you have amazing attributes like an amazing command grab and a waft that can steal games then who even needs to have a combo game. warios most notable reps are Reflex and Abadango.

(The Terminator): R.O.B.S zoning kit is just top notch, he has a 50/50 with down throw to up air aka robo HOO HA, up throw is a good kill throw, good oos option wih up smash, and gyros/lasers give R.O.B amazing stage control. R.O.B.S biggest flaw is that once he get's rush down he's gonna have a hard time getting. This is especially noticeable against character's like Sheik, ZSS, Fox, and falcon. Noticeable reps are 8bitman and Holy.

(The Mayor): His aerials come out extremely quick, amazing zoning with loid rockets and fair, turnips are jank, up smash oos is pretty good, and his recovery is just amazing. However he has a terrible grab and barely has a combo game of any kind.
That's really all I can say really. Notable reps are captain awesome but he use's custom villager who's probably almost top tier in the customs meta.

()(The Pits): Pit/Dark Pit are the real jack of all trades. They're good in everything but don't excel at anything. And they literally don't excel at anything at all unlike mario. Pit/Dark Pit have a very good grab game, Amazing recovery, pretty good neutral, amazing offstage game, and side b is a very good kill option as it can setup mind games with it's super armor. Pit and dark pit are virtually the same character with the only differences being their jab, f-tilt, neutral b, and side b other then that they're literally the same character in everyother aspect.. Falling speed, weight, air speed, and even disadvantage state. however they're neutral b and side b make enough of a difference to give a slightly different matchup spread. Dark Pit actually does better against rosalina since his side b has shocking damage and sends the opponent horizontally which is great for killing luma while Pit's sends the opponent vertically and kills at 150%. This can help alot against lucario. The pits most notable rep is Nairo who's been doing pretty well with them in tournaments. other mention includes earth who's been doing well with pit in *** tournament.

edit: shout out to wintropy for giving me the heads up on that.

(The Blue Flame): Ike is a character who was thought to be pretty underwhelming at first but ever since he's been getting buffed in each patch he's been doing better and better. Ike has amazing spacing, Can put you at death % after a couple reads, dash attack kills, amazing jab game, great grab game, and he has ridiculous kill setups off of up throw. Ike's metagame has been developing over the months as he's been leaving the depths to mediocre to slowing being with the greats(Thanks to his buffs). Most notable Ike rep is RYO

(The African Super Sayian): I honestly don't have much to say about lucario. The only thing I can say about lucario is that he's basically aura or die. Lucario basically relies on aura the most out of anything. Alot of his attack except for side B are pretty mediocre. The fact that he can kill at 40% with aura+rage is just insane as well as the fact that his recovery increases ten fold.

(The Wannabe Disney Princess): Peach imo is an underrated character. Peach has the potential to be an amazing character but the fact that she's fairly underused in the meta is what imo holds her back. Not to mention peach is an extremely technical character and is generally hard to master meaning if you want to pull out her full potential it's often best not to use a co main/secondary. Peach has amazing spacing with float cancels, turnips is an amazing projectile, Booty launch(side b) is safe on shield and can setup mind games, great oos with bair and nair, her fair is just scary. Peach's most notable rep's include Slayerz and EOE I think theirs also this really good japanese peach player but i forgot his name can anyone plz tell me the name of that player cause that would be great.

(2PacMan): Pacman can best be described as being a crafty character. He often requires a large amount of creativity for his mixup's which is alot different compared to most characters. He also has great zoning, nair and fair are amazing, great oos options with trampoline, and hydrant is just amazing since not only can it edgeguard but it can also increase pac mans range(this tool is just scary). Pacman doesn't have much reps out side of the amazing abadango. Chef pac has also recently dropped pacman which is not good for pac.

(Better NERF BUFF Greninja): Before I begin with Greninja I would just like to say R.I.P better nerf greninja jokes. Yeah it maybe too late but whatever. The buffs that greninja has recieved are just maginificent. His down throw can actually combo now, and water shurikens gotten a startup decrease. Greninja's most notable reps are Techei, Ninjalink and Amsa. Greninja also has a bit of a representation in europe.

Edit: Thx for the headups @ FullMoon

(The Hero Of The Wind): Toon link imo is one of the most unexplored character's in the game. Yeah toon link isn't really safe on shield but his bombs are so good that they can combo into alot moves as well being able to kill confirm into fair, bair, and even up b. Toon link is also pretty fast and has a very good juggle game with his up tilt. Toon link also has the second strongest back throw in the game being able to kill as low as 120% near the ledge. The only flaw about toon link that I can think of is that his grab is pretty laggy since it's a tether grab and he doesn't have a combo throw.

(Marth vs Roy): The whole marth vs roy topic has been discussed to death. people in this thread have been arguing over and over again about who's better between these two swordsman. For marth being better it's because of the fact that he has better high tier matchups and has more reward off of his sourspots compared to roy. For Roy being better it's because he has a better grab game as well as having a more simipler gameplan. Now I know that this look's like a lose lose situation unless I were to put these two in same tier and make this tier list not be in order. yes the whole marth vs roy thing is partially the reason why i made this tier list non ordered in the first place. So anyways why are both marth and roy mid tier. Well for marth it's cause of the reward he get's off of tippered hits and his great spacining game. yes I know marth's aerials have alot of lag but he can still space quite well in this game even if he can't abuse double fair. as for roy he's really fast, has a good grab game, amazing oos option thanks to blazer, and can kill as low as 50% off of a sweet spotted f-smash. However due to the fact that he has a pretty bad disadvantage state, no good aerial approaches outside of nair, can't go deep due to his recovery, and has really bad sourspots that tends to hold him back by alot. marth's most notable rep is Mr E while Roy's most notable rep being sethalon

(The O.G Shoto): Ryu is a character who is also really under explored just not as unexplored as toonlink. Ryu has amazing footsies, Fair comes out really fast and you can even combo into it at certain %, down smash is really safe on shield when spaced, and ryu can just kill confirm alot of things into shoryuken such as close light punch(up tilt), light crouch kick(down tilt), and even jab can confirm into shoryuken(Holy ****). Ryu's disadvantage state really good with FADC being able to get him out from alot of combos. The only reason why I ryu is that there aren't much people who know how to use ryu in tournaments. I mean we do have @Emblem Lord showing off how threatening ryu can actually be as well as 6WX but that's about it really maybe I'm missing someone though not sure.

(The Nowhere Boyz): Lucas is a pretty good character. His throw game is just amazing. forward throw kills,back throw kills,up throw kills, and his down throw can 50/50 into upair at high %. Lucas zoning game is also really good with tools such as zair, pk fire, and his really fast tilts. lucas's recovery is alot better then ness since he has a tether recovery and pk rocket has a longer distance. Zair can even kill confirm into fair. Lucas's biggest flaw is that his grab is very laggy since it's a tether grab. the reason why i put lucas so low is because he's very under developed and very underused. Lucas most notable rep's are nakat and pink fresh.


(That Ain't Falco): Falco is a really underrated character. Yeah his neutral game isn't the best and his jab sucks but his edgeguard is amazing with stuff like fair/bair, his grab is really good since he can do stuff like down throw to nair to regrab/down throw to fair/down throw to bair/down throw to up/up throw to up air/up throw to bair, and bair is just so good. I honestly hate how people just tend to underrate falco so much in this game by putting him into low tier or low mid tier. Falco has alot more tools compared to low tiers/low mid tiers. most Rep is cyro.

(The muther**** Doctor): Dr mario is not that bad of a character. Sure he's slow mobility holds him back alot, his combo game isn't as good as his red plumber counterpart, and his recovery is down right ASS. But doc has some impressive attribute's like having a really good shorthop, a better bair then mario, great edgeguarding with down b and up b, and amazing OOS with up b and mario tornado. Doc also has almost the exact same frame data as his red plumber counterpart. Doc sadly doesn't have any notable reps of anykind nor has he placed high in regional's/majors.

(The Fat Penguin): Sorry @ S slavoslav but I'm about to break your heart. When you have a projectile that can be reflected off of luigi's down taunt you know your destined for failure right from the start. D3 is Combo food against alot of characters, Easy to chase in the air, laggy slow attacks, and just gets demolished by rushdowners. The only way you could lose to D3 is if you don't know the matchup. I know I said that this tier list isn't in order but **** it. If i were to place d3 I'd put him in borderline bottom just above Jigglypuff. Yes I think he's that bad. Seriously Slav how do you win with this character?

(you aint an air fighter mac): Little mac sounds like a pretty good character having super armor when in the ground, really fast running speed being(third fastest in the game), and long disjointed tilts giving him a pretty good footsies game. But then you get to his sh***y recovery,his terrible air game, and his terrible approach options and then you realize just how bad little mac actually is. Little mac had the potiental to be an amazing character but his terrible design just holds him back. I mean why must his recovery be this bad and why must his air game be complete ass? Little macs best stage is final destination but let's be real guys you know the opponents going to strike that stage anyway.

(The most disappointing legendary ever): Mewtwo is a really bad character. He's very tall and really light being the 2nd lightest character in the game, no throw combos(this character serisously needs it), laggy tilts, terrible command grab(makes for a good reflector though), and his tail is still a hurtbox. they manage to make him even worse then what he was in melee. Mewtwos only redeeming traits are shadow ball and up throw aside from that he's just terrible. INB4 anyone post yes I know mewtwo can combo off of tilts and he can kill confirm from up tilt to up smash but doing the up tilt to up smash kill setup is so hard to pull off consistently in a match that it's nearly impossible to even commit in the first place. also mewtwo's down tilt can only combo if you hit it up close so keep that in mind.

(The Hungry Box): Man jigglypuff what happened to you? You used to be alright in 64 and you were a beast in melee with your rest setups and amazing bair. Then Brawl happen and stripped you away of what you used to be. And smash 4 didn't do you any justice. Your bair is slow as **** now and you have no throw combo's whatsoever. All you got is fair of pain. What happen jigglypuff? what the **** happened?! Even hungrybox can't look at you for what you are now. It's just sad really it is.

( The bottom tier princess): It's just amazing how zelda's been bad in every smash game she was in. Except for project M oh wait that's a mod which doesn't count. Neutral is ass, Sweetspot Lighting kicks is hard to hit, slow as ****, can't escape pressure, and has such an awful matchup spread. Imo the reason why zelda is so bad in every smash is the way she's design. Like a slow but powerful magic user just doesn't work. I honestly have no idea how the pm dev team manage to make it but I salute them for actually being able to pull it off.

Well what do you guys think? is it accurate or am I just full of it. Feel free to discuss this

 

[FullMoon]

(Better NERF BUFF Greninja): Before I begin with Greninja I would just like to say R.I.P better nerf greninja jokes. Yeah it maybe too late but whatever. The buffs that greninja has recieved are just maginificent. His down throw can actually combo now, water shurikens gotten a startup decrease, fast falled nair can now setup into fair for a kill, and he has better footstool combos. Like peach though he doesn't have that much representation outside of teichi and Amsa which could prove to be a problem for his viability.
[/Spoiler]

Well what do you guys think? is it accurate or am I just full of it. Feel free to discuss this

• N-Air always could combo into F-Air, hell, N-Air was never changed at any point.
• NinjaLink wins tournaments with Greninja as well
• D-Throw -> Footstools are actually more unreliable than we first thought and are easier to get out of than the N-Air combos.
• You spelled Techei wrong if that's who you're refering to
• It was already stated in this very thread that Greninja actually has quite a bit of representation in Europe, we don't get to see much of it but it exists.
• Thank god the jokes are dying.

 

[Sir Tundra]

• N-Air always could combo into F-Air, hell, N-Air was never changed at any point.
• NinjaLink wins tournaments with Greninja as well
• D-Throw -> Footstools are actually more unreliable than we first thought and are easier to get out of than the N-Air combos.
• You spelled Techei wrong if that's who you're refering to
• It was already stated in this very thread that Greninja actually has quite a bit of representation in Europe, we don't get to see much of it but it exists.
• Thank god the jokes are dying.

My mistake. I totally forgot Ninja link forgot mains greninja.

Also yes I was referring to Techei.

I never really knew he had a bit of representation in europe.

Thx for the heads up I'll change this immediately

 

[slavoslav]

Seriously Slav how do you win with this character?

idk
maybe i'm just good

Oh and I don't necessarily disagree with DDD being bad, comparatively to the rest of the cast at least. His placing in your tier list is certainly plausible. In fact, I'm happy to see him outside of bottom 5 for once lol.

 

[Sir Tundra]

idk
maybe i'm just good

Oh and I don't necessarily disagree with DDD being bad, comparatively to the rest of the cast at least. His placing in your tier list is certainly plausible. In fact, I'm happy to see him outside of bottom 5 for once lol.

Well you gotta consider that this list is not in order and since bottom tier only has Jiggly puff and zelda theirs a good chance that D3 might be bottom 5.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

• N-Air always could combo into F-Air, hell, N-Air was never changed at any point.
• NinjaLink wins tournaments with Greninja as well
• D-Throw -> Footstools are actually more unreliable than we first thought and are easier to get out of than the N-Air combos.
• You spelled Techei wrong if that's who you're refering to
• It was already stated in this very thread that Greninja actually has quite a bit of representation in Europe, we don't get to see much of it but it exists.
• Thank god the jokes are dying.

I'd just like to point out that rep isn't really meaningful if it's not high level representation. I doubt there's any significant rep of Greninja in EU. Whenever I hear anything out of the EU scrne I don't hear about greninja. I've seen people say the region isn't as strong as compared to the US. In the brawl days I remember Gluttony Leon and Mr.R were the best players over there and it serms like Mr.R is the only one that's traveling. I know there's a couple of EU people here so they can correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[FullMoon]

I'd just like to point out that rep isn't really meaningful if it's not high level representation. I doubt there's any significant rep of Greninja in EU. Whenever I hear anything out of the EU scrne I don't hear about greninja. I've seen people say the region isn't as strong as compared to the US. In the brawl days I remember Gluttony Leon and Mr.R were the best players over there and it serms like Mr.R is the only one that's traveling. I know there's a couple of EU people here so they can correct me if I'm wrong.

Greninja already has 2 top players playing him even if you don't count Europe (NinjaLink and aMSa) which is already more than other top characters like Pikachu and even Mario I think. Even if we discount Europe (which is hard to say much about because we just don't get to see much of it) it's already good representation.

I've heard of someone called Eddy in Europe that supposedly does well with Greninja for what it's worth.

And while we're at this topic, I'm just gonna say I'm very amused that Greninja is a popular character in France. Such patriotism.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Greninja already has 2 top players playing him even if you don't count Europe (NinjaLink and aMSa) which is already more than other top characters like Pikachu and even Mario I think. Even if we discount Europe (which is hard to say much about because we just don't get to see much of it) it's already good representation.

I've heard of someone called Eddy in Europe that supposedly does well with Greninja for what it's worth.

And while we're at this topic, I'm just gonna say I'm very amused that Greninja is a popular character in France. Such patriotism.

You do realize that pikachu and mario have Ally and Esam repping them right? Even if those are the only reps they've shown way more than greninja. I also don't agree with what you're saying about them being top players. But that's just semantics.

 

[slavoslav]

I've heard of someone called Eddy in Europe that supposedly does well with Greninja for what it's worth.

He's more of a Falcon main these days to be honest.

tier list

Apart from the very, very glaring flaw that Lucina is a whopping 20 (holy shіt TWENTY) places below Marth, your decision to order your list from A to F is kinda dumb. That implies a difference in viability that just isn't there. We've got a couple of obvious top tiers and a fairly well established idea of who the high tiers are. Then there's the huge middle tier chunk followed by a small selection of characters who are currently considered legitimately bad, with Zelda, Dedede and Samus being the staples in that category.
You could easily condense your list into a mere 4 tiers. As of now only the Mid tier might warrent a distinction between B+ and B-.

Esam is thinking of picking up yoshi so that could help our dinosaur out a bit.

Newsflash

 

[FullMoon]

You do realize that pikachu and mario have Ally and Esam repping them right? Even if those are the only reps they've shown way more than greninja. I also don't agree with what you're saying about them being top players. But that's just semantics.

At that point it becomes more of a question of whether it's the character or the player that's winning if it's only one person who's carrying the results.

In general I think using representation for judging a character is actually pretty dumb because that's really restrictive. We could have amazing players in regions others than the US or Japan but that won't be seen as "top" players because they don't get exposure for whatever reason such as not having enough money to travel around, the tournaments they do go to not being able to do streams or whatever, their life outside of Smash conflicting with it and so on.

Hell I've seen an amazing Greninja player who's from Haiti (going from their profile at Anther's), of all places, and most likely nobody is going to hear of him.

Character representation should be the least important aspect to make a judgement on a character. The only reason I don't say that it shouldn't be taken into consideration at all is because well, we kinda need to see the character being played at top level to see how they can compete, so if nobody plays that character there's not much to be seen there, but even that is still flawed for the reasons above.

People should judge a character based on their tools, not who's playing them.

 

[bc1910]

NB: I'm not getting sucked into arguing with someone who doesn't think Greninja's good because it's just pointless. But I'm not having misconceptions going around about his results.

Let me make it clear that aMSa is Greninja's ONLY top level player. He barely travels to the US and he focuses way more on Melee. Another Japanese Greninja (Leo I believe) barely attends tournaments but placed better than aMSa when he did. As good as he is, aMSa isn't showing this character's potential.

Greninja does not have strong national level results. No-one's denying that. But few characters have seriously notable national results and, it's old, but we at least have an example of him placing 9th right after he was nerfed to HELL. He is a significantly better character now than he was back then, by literally about 10 tier spots.

His regional results and results in other places are good though. I made a big post on this only a few pages back. Many names have been mentioned but another is Serudos (also seconds ZSS) who ranks well in the SoCal area, I think Serudos is top 10 power ranked there. I imagine PUK would be able to tell you more about Greninja's French presence than I can.

Greninja's results fit a 20-25th tier position just fine. Is he viable? Who can say. He has no national rep. He has one top level player who focusses on another game (before someone mentions ESAM and Brawl, competition for that game has all but died out). We don't know how good he could be. But there is no reason he shouldn't be viable based on the results that DO exist.

 

[Sir Tundra]

Apart from the very, very glaring flaw that Lucina is a whopping 20 (holy shіt TWENTY) places below Marth, your decision to order your list from A to F is kinda dumb. That implies a difference in viability that just isn't there. We've got a couple of obvious top tiers and a fairly well established idea of who the high tiers are. Then there's the huge middle tier chunk followed by a small selection of characters who are currently considered legitimately bad, with Zelda, Dedede and Samus being the staples in that category.
You could easily condense your list into a mere 4 tiers. As of now only the Mid tier might warrent a distinction between B+ and B-.


Newsflash

You make a very strong point. Mid tier really does take up a huge chunk of the cast but the reason why I did this in the first place is because of the fact of I honestly didn't know how else to order them. I thought making a C and C- tier would have alot of people questioning why is character x lower then character y. If I were to make another tier list I might take your advice on putting in only 4 tiers this time.

also esam decided to drop yoshi? How could I've missed that I'll update that right away.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

People like to mention Eddy and istudy as european Greninja reps but their placings aren't actually amazing. Eddy comains Greninja and Falcon and I don't think he places in the top 8 too often [which doesn't say a lot as Germany has a relatively high skill density] and istudy only places well in the Netherlands which isn't too strong a region in smash 4 apart from Mr.r ... both are good players but neither serves as a good argument for Greninja's viability.

I really wish I knew what it is that holds the character back from performing well. I think he's just really good.

 

[TriTails]

Okay. Maybe I'm just ridiculous as of now but I think the only time when Lucina is not bad is when people stop comparing her to Marth.

 

[Minordeth]

I don't know if this has been covered, but Peach main SlayerZ took out K9sbruce and notably Vinnie to take Grands in Summer of Smash last week. Maybe it's because I'm fantastically jealous of the manual dexterity that Peach mains have, but Peach herself is looking fairly legit.

What I find interesting is that SlayerZ doesn't really rely on turnips for approaches, instead using Peach's absurd movement options. She seems like Bizarro World Shulk, where the effort put into her actually produces results.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

SlayerZ has always been doing amazingly well with Peach, since the days of Brawl. He's just an incredibly skilled individual, both technically and mentally. Peach always had her fair share of dedicated mains that would make the character look amazing. Not sure where I'd rank Peach in this game yet. Right now I'd say she's somewhat better than the average mid tier character.

 

[Minordeth]

I guess I'm just noticing. I didn't follow the Brawl scene as much because life. I have no idea where Peach is either in Smash 4. I think her complexity, low-key player rep on the boards, and lack of anything near a national appearance, makes her fly under the radar. We've probably discussed Zelda more than Peach.

She seems like a character that, by necessity, needs to be solo-main'd due to her steep learning curve. I have no idea if that is at all viable though, so it's good to see some recent results with her.

Also:

Okay. Maybe I'm just ridiculous as of now but I think the only time when Lucina is not bad is when people stop comparing her to Marth.

Lucina isn't bad, but until Nintendo patches her out of Marth's shadow, she is going to remain a more or less redundant character.

 

[Nintenpro]

About France and Greninja, we have some Greninja's players but only one do well in tournament. Elexiao was 2nd in our last tournament (results here: http://smashboards.com/threads/smashdown-3-9th-august-paris-france.413780/ ) by playing mostly Greninja (he also played Pacman).