Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[A2ZOMG]

Best Smash moves in the game:

Usmash: Mario
Fsmash: Marth/Lucina (maybe even Lucina over Marth), Olimar, Rosa+Luma
Dsmash: Pit/Doc, Link is almost there

Mario's has crazy range and can throw it out usually unpunished. It's invincible and strong.

Marth and Lucina are up there with the fastest Fsmashes but extremely powerful, not too laggy, and cover great range above, in front, and below. Olimar's is one of the best normal ledge get-up punishes in the game as has 39 total freakin frames so hardly punishable. Rosa with Luma have crazy range with their Fsmash and it's very powerful.

Doc's is strong, fast, and has okay range. Not too punishable. Pit same thing except not strong, though it does share the other attributes plus it's disjointed obviously. Link's is strong and fairly fast. Good damage, range, and not much lag.

You're turn.

Of course this doesn't prove too much because while I'm saying these are the best Smash attacks there are characters like Kirby where all 3 are extremely good. Just not separately the best.

Luigi's U-smash is better than Mario's. Kills a bit earlier. Actually I would argue Link's U-smash is the best in the game, minus that it's really unsafe in neutral, but it's so extremely consistent for punishing landings, ledge getups, and out of Jab cancel that this barely matters. Mario's U-smash might be safe on block in most situations, but faster DAs still can catch it and it's not very good against most D-tilts and near useless on platform stages.

Best F-smash actually I'd argue for Zelda. Disjointed, SAFE ON BLOCK, good lingering frames and thus strong against dodges and ledge getups.

Little Mac has the best D-smash imo. His D-smash has better shield push than most and it's a strong kill move that can hit ledge snaps.

 

[san.]

1 thing that I think is unexplored (or I don't hear people explicitly talk about): Staling moves to extend kill setups.

For characters that can combo from 60-80%, if you miss your kill setup, I believe that trying that same setup again for your next attack will have a much better result.

Ex: can easily combo nair or uthrow to fair at around 80-90% on most characters, but it won't really kill. However, I believe a staled nair/uthrow at 105-110ish (probably ~95 for nair) will be able to combo and kill.

I think this is also important for Sheik's 50/50s. I believe that she should be able to miss a 50/50, initiate the same setup for the next try, and get a guaranteed attack like uair.

 

[RonNewcomb]

A move is good in neutral if you can use it in a way such that you are extremely unlikely to get punished for using it, and even better in neutral if there are a variety of such ways.

A character is good in neutral if the character has moves that are good in neutral, and the mobility to space these moves optimally.

That's what neutral is. Not getting hit. Whether you achieve that goal by hitting your opponent before he hits you or whether you achieve that goal by running away doesn't matter. Whoever is better at not getting hit, is better in neutral. That's all.

I dunno, I think you only cover an aspect of neutral. There's the Marth school of good neutral, which translates as "difficult to fall into disadvantage", and the Captain Falcon school of good neutral, which translates as "easy to transition to advantage". And maybe also the heretical Flipkick/Bouncing Fish school of 'good neutral', which is "easy to escape disadvantage".

Re: the importance of d-throw combos: shield is a good move in this game, so grabs become really important. But a grab does no damage; it's the pummel, throw, and followups which damage. Usually it's the dthrow which allows the combo, and hence the most damage, so "good dthrow" characters is a verbal substitue for "punishes shields well". Example: a list of "good dthrow" characters would include Cresent Slash Marth even though it's actually a f-throw in his case.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

In a nutshell: in neutral, you are fighting for an advantage/ avoiding a disadvantage.

The whole picture of what neutral is is very difficult to capture, as it's a very complex, elusive, and huge series of counters, situations, and circumstances.

 

[Luco]

Funnily enough plenty of characters have combo throws that aren't top tier ( ) and kill throws who aren't top tier ( ) and in some cases, even a combination of both ( - although Lucas is an anomaly because the grab itself skews the reward). It plays a part just like any other good mechanic, although it certainly carries weight.

 

[Illuminose]

Yoshi has no kill setups? Down throw -> immediate double jump up air (true combo), up tilt -> double jump up air (true combo), fair -> up air (no tech), and egg up air frame traps come to mind. This on top of a super powerful up smash with gigantic range and partial invincibility, the potential to confirm stuff from eggs, fair dunk, hella powerful edgeguarding aerials (bair and even non sweet spot fair come to mind)...this took 5 minutes of research, how exactly is Yoshi not killing?

 

[Thinkaman]

A chapter of my life is coming to a close, one with a particular focus on Smash 4. Evo was a beautiful capstone event, and I couldn't have asked for a more fantastic time.

The next chapter will involve less Smash Bros, or at least significantly less talking about Smash Bros. on the Internet. I won't disappear completely, but as smashboards' biggest thread moves into season 2 I'll be transitioning from a series regular to a guest cameo.

I have had an utterly sublime time with the lot of you. I would tell you that I enjoyed discussions here more than the game itself, but I dunno man--this game is rather bloody great.

I would be amiss if I did not take this opportunity to screw the rules Kaiba-style one last time and inflict a final 1.0.8/9 post-EVO tier list upon the masses. Behold, my glorious opinions:

1v1, no customs, ordered within each level:







1v1, customs + Miis, ordered within each level--each level relative to the above:







Percentile friendly list:

Spoiler

Thoughts:

• Sheik is the best in the game, full stop. This is obvious, even if the gap is surprisingly small. It's interesting that default grenade is actually turning out to be better than gravity at high level play, due to ledge play.
• Watching Nairo's ZSS, I felt that ZSS being 2nd best in the game is just an unavoidable conclusion. Yes, the character has big flaws, but I look hard at every character and can't help but come back to this conclusion--my original gut instinct in 1.0.8 that I had previously discarded.
• Rosa I have lost a tiny bit of faith in. Only a little, but she definitely isn't on the "destined to get better and better" train some had her on. She is a robust character with some of the game's most polarizing matchups. (In her favor) She will never go out of style, even if she will never take Sheik's throne short of a patch.
• Pikachu is clearly solid, even if there wasn't much of him at all outside of ESAM. HSB was probably overrated, even if decidedly non-trivial.
• Diddy is not good. Diddy is great. EVO GFs showed this beyond a shadow of a doubt. It doesn't matter that it was Zero. It doesn't matter what Zero did or didn't say. It is impossible to see those matches and not conclude that Diddy is a top-tier character.
• Luigi was AWOL at EVO, but clings onto top-tier status in my eyes. His matchups are slightly polarized, but they obviously seem more in his favor than not.
• Ness: Rosalina will forever be a suppressing force preventing him from being a truly top-tier character, even if I believe he has all other qualifications to claim that title.
• Ally did a great job of showing us that we need to take not just Mario seriously, but also Marth. "But his Marth lost." Yes, his Marth lost and only got 5th at EVO, who are you again??
• Peach and Ryu are still hypotheticals. I still beleive in Greninja. Olimar has proven to be no flash in the pan.
• Custom WFT is legit; this is obvious to everyone. Customs DK is an overrated noob-stomping fraud. Customs Duck Hunt I believe in 101%.
• Little Mac is not a bad character. Just, look, trust me on this one, okay? If you take one statement I'm offering here at face value, make it that one. There's this huge, binary gap between good Little Mac play and the mediocre.
• Lucas seems underwhelming but okay to me. We see what people do with the guy.
• Lucario seems simultaneously overrated and underrated by everyone, including myself. Yeah yeah, aura, we get it; whatever. I expect people to disagree about him forever.
• I've slowly started to think less of Robin, but bottom 10? Bottom 5? Get outta here, I don't buy it. Disjoint never goes out of style.
• I've also started to think less and less of Jigglypuff, though.
• I don't know what to think of Pac-Man. Abadango's amazing performances are so surreal that I can't help but internalize them as flukes. I see him hit with things and think "Wait, why did that land?"
• G&W I heavily underrated. Dash attack and d-throw are just too good. I'm not ready to label him a mid-tier, except i nthe vague Smash 4 sense that 60% of the cast is "mid-tier", but he's not a bad character.
• Lucina and Doc are doomed to be the most underrated characters forever, with the nod going to Lucina. Living in the shadow of good characters is hard and unfair.
• Jury still out of Falco.
• Mii Swordfighter: see Pac-Man.
• Mii Gunner: 404 data not found.
• Samus is workable. Default up-b is the best; fast OoS is important to her overall workflow.
• DDD and Bowser and Mewtwo are bottom 4? It seems so.... wrong. These are simply not "bottom tier" characters by any previous frame of reference. But hell if I know who else it would be.
• Zelda... is clearly the worst 1v1 character, nothing new. She's pretty solid as far as a "worst character" goes, but it is what it is.

**********

As for "what's next", well, I'm leaving you guys for two reasons:

I'm publishing a game I've been working on for quite some time via a Kickstarter that starts in 11 days. (It's a competitive social-deduction game, like mafia or werewolf.) I'll probably make a guest appearance next month begging people for money; hopefully I can do so while offering Smash 4 patch notes to avoid getting banned. I'll be exhibiting at GenCon, when I'm not winning their Smash 4 tourney. (Come fight me bro!)

Additionally, as of today I've accepted a slot at the DSGA for graduate studies in game design and production for the next year under Warren Spector. My work on Balanced Brawl was a key piece in making this opportunity a reality, so I owe a great deal of thanks to this community and @Amazing Ampharos in particular. I'll be moving to Austin, and will try to make intermittent appearances at the Texas scenes. (We'll see.)

But it's been a blast, and I look forward to everything that's coming in the future, smash or otherwise.

See ya around, space cowboys.

 

[Mario766]

Ike low tier boys.

More buffs incoming.

 

[san.]

Ike low tier boys.

More buffs incoming.

Hope he can be as good as Jigglypuff, Charizard, and Marth in the future.

Anyways, I've actually been practicing gunner for a change, and I think that 0/0 may have more potential than the others now that I know gunner's frame data.

Default height gunner has 12 frames of landing lag on fair and 18 frames of landing lag on nair and bair. 0/0 has 9 frames of landing lag on fair and 15 frames of lag on nair/bair.

9 landing lag on a projectile aerial means that 0/0 Gunner may actually be positive on shield drop with a landing fair. Unfortunately, gunner doesn't have much quicker than 5-6 frames to really pressure after that.

0/0 Gunner's smashes aren't as reliable as 25/0's, but reverse jump-cancelled usmash is alright, and Gunner can combo fair, grenade, bomb drop, and missile into kill moves. Gunner's other kill moves also become safer on shield at 0/0, which may be more important than reliability.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Customs DK is an overrated noob-stomping fraud.

SOMEONE SAID IT

 

[Locke 06]

A+ on references, and good luck on your future endeavors, @ Thinkaman .

Little Mac is not a bad character now. We have a very good one in Seattle that shows how terrifying he can be (not infrequently 0-60'ing me or getting KO punch strings). But he is, almost literally, half a character. There's not a ton of room for growth besides people generally getting better at Smash 4. Add in his awful MU with Sheik and... Kind of a bad character as far as metagame goes. Bad, of course, is relative, as he's not Zelda bad (wherever she may be).

My 2 cents on Mac.

 

[hypersonicJD]

You were a good guy and you gave some good arguments in this thread. Hope you get some awesome results in your stuff and have a great time =3.

Little Mac is an awesome character in the ground. But he just gets rekt by Rosalina, Sheik, Sonic, Mario and many other characters. It's just really sad.

Lucas is really underrated though. His grab doesn't help him that much but even then he has some good moves like Nair, Fair, Bair, Dair, PK Fire, PSI Magnet and other things.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Thinkaman moving to TX? Dang he should go to SA and Houston tournaments, we have 3 stocks no customs.

What makes Yoshi still better than the 6 characters below him in a customs on meta. He still gains next to nothing in customs environment, outside of Egg launch gimping little mac and if we're allowed stages with walkoff transitions (delfino skyloft etc.) free kills.
But what else? All UpB customs bad, same for side-b, down-b might have a niche thing for stars and Heavy downb, egg launch only good one.

 

[Speed Boost]

A chapter of my life is coming to a close, one with a particular focus on Smash 4. Evo was a beautiful capstone event, and I couldn't have asked for a more fantastic time.

The next chapter will involve less Smash Bros, or at least significantly less talking about Smash Bros. on the Internet. I won't disappear completely, but as smashboards' biggest thread moves into season 2 I'll be transitioning from a series regular to a guest cameo.

I have had an utterly sublime time with the lot of you. I would tell you that I enjoyed discussions here more than the game itself, but I dunno man--this game is rather bloody great.

I would be amiss if I did not take this opportunity to screw the rules Kaiba-style one last time and inflict a final 1.0.8/9 post-EVO tier list upon the masses. Behold, my glorious opinions:

1v1, no customs, ordered within each level:







1v1, customs + Miis, ordered within each level--each level relative to the above:







Percentile friendly list:

Spoiler

Thoughts:

• Sheik is the best in the game, full stop. This is obvious, even if the gap is surprisingly small. It's interesting that default grenade is actually turning out to be better than gravity at high level play, due to ledge play.
• Watching Nairo's ZSS, I felt that ZSS being 2nd best in the game is just an unavoidable conclusion. Yes, the character has big flaws, but I look hard at every character and can't help but come back to this conclusion--my original gut instinct in 1.0.8 that I had previously discarded.
• Rosa I have lost a tiny bit of faith in. Only a little, but she definitely isn't on the "destined to get better and better" train some had her on. She is a robust character with some of the game's most polarizing matchups. (In her favor) She will never go out of style, even if she will never take Sheik's throne short of a patch.
• Pikachu is clearly solid, even if there wasn't much of him at all outside of ESAM. HSB was probably overrated, even if decidedly non-trivial.
• Diddy is not good. Diddy is great. EVO GFs showed this beyond a shadow of a doubt. It doesn't matter that it was Zero. It doesn't matter what Zero did or didn't say. It is impossible to see those matches and not conclude that Diddy is a top-tier character.
• Luigi was AWOL at EVO, but clings onto top-tier status in my eyes. His matchups are slightly polarized, but they obviously seem more in his favor than not.
• Ness: Rosalina will forever be a suppressing force preventing him from being a truly top-tier character, even if I believe he has all other qualifications to claim that title.
• Ally did a great job of showing us that we need to take not just Mario seriously, but also Marth. "But his Marth lost." Yes, his Marth lost and only got 5th at EVO, who are you again??
• Peach and Ryu are still hypotheticals. I still beleive in Greninja. Olimar has proven to be no flash in the pan.
• Custom WFT is legit; this is obvious to everyone. Customs DK is an overrated noob-stomping fraud. Customs Duck Hunt I believe in 101%.
• Little Mac is not a bad character. Just, look, trust me on this one, okay? If you take one statement I'm offering here at face value, make it that one. There's this huge, binary gap between good Little Mac play and the mediocre.
• Lucas seems underwhelming but okay to me. We see what people do with the guy.
• Lucario seems simultaneously overrated and underrated by everyone, including myself. Yeah yeah, aura, we get it; whatever. I expect people to disagree about him forever.
• I've slowly started to think less of Robin, but bottom 10? Bottom 5? Get outta here, I don't buy it. Disjoint never goes out of style.
• I've also started to think less and less of Jigglypuff, though.
• I don't know what to think of Pac-Man. Abadango's amazing performances are so surreal that I can't help but internalize them as flukes. I see him hit with things and think "Wait, why did that land?"
• G&W I heavily underrated. Dash attack and d-throw are just too good. I'm not ready to label him a mid-tier, except i nthe vague Smash 4 sense that 60% of the cast is "mid-tier", but he's not a bad character.
• Lucina and Doc are doomed to be the most underrated characters forever, with the nod going to Lucina. Living in the shadow of good characters is hard and unfair.
• Jury still out of Falco.
• Mii Swordfighter: see Pac-Man.
• Mii Gunner: 404 data not found.
• Samus is workable. Default up-b is the best; fast OoS is important to her overall workflow.
• DDD and Bowser and Mewtwo are bottom 4? It seems so.... wrong. These are simply not "bottom tier" characters by any previous frame of reference. But hell if I know who else it would be.
• Zelda... is clearly the worst 1v1 character, nothing new. She's pretty solid as far as a "worst character" goes, but it is what it is.

**********

As for "what's next", well, I'm leaving you guys for two reasons:

I'm publishing a game I've been working on for quite some time via a Kickstarter that starts in 11 days. (It's a competitive social-deduction game, like mafia or werewolf.) I'll probably make a guest appearance next month begging people for money; hopefully I can do so while offering Smash 4 patch notes to avoid getting banned. I'll be exhibiting at GenCon, when I'm not winning their Smash 4 tourney. (Come fight me bro!)

Additionally, as of today I've accepted a slot at the DSGA for graduate studies in game design and production for the next year under Warren Spector. My work on Balanced Brawl was a key piece in making this opportunity a reality, so I owe a great deal of thanks to this community and @Amazing Ampharos in particular. I'll be moving to Austin, and will try to make intermittent appearances at the Texas scenes. (We'll see.)

But it's been a blast, and I look forward to everything that's coming in the future, smash or otherwise.

See ya around, space cowboys.

Nice lists! Best part about Smash 4 is worst character can beat the best character, even at the highest level of play. I remember watching Nairo beat Neitoneo's Sheik with his Zelda before Apex.

Good luck with all your endeavors @ Thinkaman

 

[Baby_Sneak]

When we form opinions on characters we don't play, how many of is visit their respective character boards?
Just curious.

 

[|RK|]

Good luck, @ Thinkaman

We love you!

 

[CyberHyperPhoenix]

A chapter of my life is coming to a close, one with a particular focus on Smash 4. Evo was a beautiful capstone event, and I couldn't have asked for a more fantastic time.

The next chapter will involve less Smash Bros, or at least significantly less talking about Smash Bros. on the Internet. I won't disappear completely, but as smashboards' biggest thread moves into season 2 I'll be transitioning from a series regular to a guest cameo.

I have had an utterly sublime time with the lot of you. I would tell you that I enjoyed discussions here more than the game itself, but I dunno man--this game is rather bloody great.

I would be amiss if I did not take this opportunity to screw the rules Kaiba-style one last time and inflict a final 1.0.8/9 post-EVO tier list upon the masses. Behold, my glorious opinions:

1v1, no customs, ordered within each level:







1v1, customs + Miis, ordered within each level--each level relative to the above:







Percentile friendly list:

Spoiler

Thoughts:

• Sheik is the best in the game, full stop. This is obvious, even if the gap is surprisingly small. It's interesting that default grenade is actually turning out to be better than gravity at high level play, due to ledge play.
• Watching Nairo's ZSS, I felt that ZSS being 2nd best in the game is just an unavoidable conclusion. Yes, the character has big flaws, but I look hard at every character and can't help but come back to this conclusion--my original gut instinct in 1.0.8 that I had previously discarded.
• Rosa I have lost a tiny bit of faith in. Only a little, but she definitely isn't on the "destined to get better and better" train some had her on. She is a robust character with some of the game's most polarizing matchups. (In her favor) She will never go out of style, even if she will never take Sheik's throne short of a patch.
• Pikachu is clearly solid, even if there wasn't much of him at all outside of ESAM. HSB was probably overrated, even if decidedly non-trivial.
• Diddy is not good. Diddy is great. EVO GFs showed this beyond a shadow of a doubt. It doesn't matter that it was Zero. It doesn't matter what Zero did or didn't say. It is impossible to see those matches and not conclude that Diddy is a top-tier character.
• Luigi was AWOL at EVO, but clings onto top-tier status in my eyes. His matchups are slightly polarized, but they obviously seem more in his favor than not.
• Ness: Rosalina will forever be a suppressing force preventing him from being a truly top-tier character, even if I believe he has all other qualifications to claim that title.
• Ally did a great job of showing us that we need to take not just Mario seriously, but also Marth. "But his Marth lost." Yes, his Marth lost and only got 5th at EVO, who are you again??
• Peach and Ryu are still hypotheticals. I still beleive in Greninja. Olimar has proven to be no flash in the pan.
• Custom WFT is legit; this is obvious to everyone. Customs DK is an overrated noob-stomping fraud. Customs Duck Hunt I believe in 101%.
• Little Mac is not a bad character. Just, look, trust me on this one, okay? If you take one statement I'm offering here at face value, make it that one. There's this huge, binary gap between good Little Mac play and the mediocre.
• Lucas seems underwhelming but okay to me. We see what people do with the guy.
• Lucario seems simultaneously overrated and underrated by everyone, including myself. Yeah yeah, aura, we get it; whatever. I expect people to disagree about him forever.
• I've slowly started to think less of Robin, but bottom 10? Bottom 5? Get outta here, I don't buy it. Disjoint never goes out of style.
• I've also started to think less and less of Jigglypuff, though.
• I don't know what to think of Pac-Man. Abadango's amazing performances are so surreal that I can't help but internalize them as flukes. I see him hit with things and think "Wait, why did that land?"
• G&W I heavily underrated. Dash attack and d-throw are just too good. I'm not ready to label him a mid-tier, except i nthe vague Smash 4 sense that 60% of the cast is "mid-tier", but he's not a bad character.
• Lucina and Doc are doomed to be the most underrated characters forever, with the nod going to Lucina. Living in the shadow of good characters is hard and unfair.
• Jury still out of Falco.
• Mii Swordfighter: see Pac-Man.
• Mii Gunner: 404 data not found.
• Samus is workable. Default up-b is the best; fast OoS is important to her overall workflow.
• DDD and Bowser and Mewtwo are bottom 4? It seems so.... wrong. These are simply not "bottom tier" characters by any previous frame of reference. But hell if I know who else it would be.
• Zelda... is clearly the worst 1v1 character, nothing new. She's pretty solid as far as a "worst character" goes, but it is what it is.

**********

As for "what's next", well, I'm leaving you guys for two reasons:

I'm publishing a game I've been working on for quite some time via a Kickstarter that starts in 11 days. (It's a competitive social-deduction game, like mafia or werewolf.) I'll probably make a guest appearance next month begging people for money; hopefully I can do so while offering Smash 4 patch notes to avoid getting banned. I'll be exhibiting at GenCon, when I'm not winning their Smash 4 tourney. (Come fight me bro!)

Additionally, as of today I've accepted a slot at the DSGA for graduate studies in game design and production for the next year under Warren Spector. My work on Balanced Brawl was a key piece in making this opportunity a reality, so I owe a great deal of thanks to this community and @Amazing Ampharos in particular. I'll be moving to Austin, and will try to make intermittent appearances at the Texas scenes. (We'll see.)

But it's been a blast, and I look forward to everything that's coming in the future, smash or otherwise.

See ya around, space cowboys.

I like those Ganon placings.
I thought he would be lower tbh.

Good luck on your future endeavors Thinkaman :D

 

[iVoltage]

What is everyones opinion on greninja? Hes honestly not that bad in practice, and has some good stuff going for him with his bait and punish game.

 

[Ghostbone]

Nice lists! Best part about Smash 4 is worst character can beat the best character, even at the highest level of play. I remember watching Nairo beat Neitoneo's Sheik with his Zelda before Apex.

Good luck with all your endeavors @ Thinkaman

This is always the case early in a game's life, I wouldn't expect Zelda to even scratch a good Sheik as the game continues to develop (ignoring patches of course)

 

[PMMikey]

You were a good guy and you gave some good arguments in this thread. Hope you get some awesome results in your stuff and have a great time =3.

Little Mac is an awesome character in the ground. But he just gets rekt by Rosalina, Sheik, Sonic, Mario and many other characters. It's just really sad.

Lucas is really underrated though. His grab doesn't help him that much but even then he has some good moves like Nair, Fair, Bair, Dair, PK Fire, PSI Magnet and other things.

I love Lucas and you're right his grabs are kinda meh but they are good against people who really like to just rush in.

 

[Ikes]

my question is why Lucas and Toon link are hand-in-hand solid middle tier? They seem upper mid to me, around Villager and Mega Man, Lucas maybe being one space above Villager, with Toon link one below Mega Man.

Honestly Charizard is only a little bit too high and DK might want to be dragged about ten spots down TBH, both of them are a bit too high.

talking about the non-customs list here

TBH in the customs list Toon Link deserves to be much higher, Fire arrows are phenomenal, they allow you to shut down potentially half the stage for a couple seconds (if you fire off a few) and the explosion from touching them pops enemies up and puts them in hit stun making them phenomenal combo tools, not to mention they stop most low-priority projectiles that hit them, like Luigi's fireballs, diddy's peanuts, and Pikachu's thunder jolt/wave.

Floating boomerang is good too, since it sets up into combos so much easier due to allowing more time to react to its presence as the user, and curving in very unexpected ways, often taking the opponent offguard, as the boomerang very well couldve flown around, under, and through the stage before it hits them. It's basically a flying mixup.

 

[bc1910]

What is everyones opinion on greninja? Hes honestly not that bad in practice, and has some good stuff going for him with his bait and punish game.

He's not bad at all in practice.

Thinkaman's placement of him is pretty accurate for this point in the game's life, and he has nowhere to go but up IMO.

Actually the more I use other characters besides top tiers, the more I appreciate how much Greninja has going for him. He has such good options in so many MUs. It's starting to baffle me how umore people aren't using him.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

my question is why Lucas and Toon link are hand-in-hand solid middle tier? They seem upper mid to me, around Villager and Mega Man, Lucas maybe being one space above Villager, with Toon link one below Mega Man.

Honestly Charizard is only a little bit too high and DK might want to be dragged about ten spots down TBH, both of them are a bit too high.

talking about the non-customs list here

TBH in the customs list Toon Link deserves to be much higher, Fire arrows are phenomenal, they allow you to shut down potentially half the stage for a couple seconds (if you fire off a few) and the explosion from touching them pops enemies up and puts them in hit stun making them phenomenal combo tools, not to mention they stop most low-priority projectiles that hit them, like Luigi's fireballs, diddy's peanuts, and Pikachu's thunder jolt/wave.

Floating boomerang is good too, since it sets up into combos so much easier due to allowing more time to react to its presence as the user, and curving in very unexpected ways, often taking the opponent offguard, as the boomerang very well couldve flown around, under, and through the stage before it hits them. It's basically a flying mixup.

Lucas isn't close to Villager or the tier list. Lucas is a bad character he has some nice things going for him but overall that's about it.

I thinj fire arrows are just alright. They don't have the same effect on hit or on block as they do when they hit the ground which makes the move rather mediocre.

With that said even though I say lucas is bad I'm not saying he's bottom 5 or anything. Just *meh*

 

[warionumbah2]

-Meta Knight

-Good in customs

This is funny as hell.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Can we talk about how great Custom!Shulk is? Hyper Monado Arts and Power Vision are ****ing bonkers.

 

[Luco]

@ Thinkaman you're a top tier poster, someone who always puts a hell of a lot of thought into every post they make, and ingeniously mixes good game design with what they know of the meta. It's sad to see you go, but at least it's not forever! Give it some time and hopefully I'll be following on the same or similar path of game design. I'll always be looking forward to those "guest cameos".

Custom Shulk is a beast that has the capacity to kill you at 0% off whiffing so much as a jab. He's pretty great.

 

[Routa]

Can we talk about how great Custom!Shulk is? Hyper Monado Arts and Power Vision are ****ing bonkers.

But but but... Lag man...

He is indeed good, but still his slow moves keep him from rising tiers with customs on. But ofc my knowledge of Shulk is meh so...

 

[~ Gheb ~]

his slow moves keep him from rising tiers with customs on.

When you get killed by a Hyper Smash buffed Power Vision at ~50% you'll realize how wrong that statement is ....

 

[Routa]

When you get killed by a Hyper Smash buffed Power Vision at ~50% you'll realize how wrong that statement is ....

Well he isn't the only one. Doc can kill at 50% with low ceiling and customs so... Nothing special.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

When you get killed by a Hyper Smash buffed Power Vision at ~50% you'll realize how wrong that statement is ....

"When"?
You mean "if." Not everyone is constantly throwing out hitboxes within Shulk's range.

 

[Kirbech]

I'm going to jump feet-first into this thread with a bold statement, after lurking in it since day 1; Pac-Man is a character that will not be theorycrafted into the correct tier for a long, long time. The sheer amount of pressure he puts out once he gains stage control is unique across all Smash games, and until players figure out that the only way to take him on is to never let him set up in the first place (or counterpick to Sonic and play incredibly lame) then good Pacs will always place well, and he will keep winning matchups that theorycraft says should be bad for him.

 

[Nu~]

I'm going to jump feet-first into this thread with a bold statement, after lurking in it since day 1; Pac-Man is a character that will not be theorycrafted into the correct tier for a long, long time. The sheer amount of pressure he puts out once he gains stage control is unique across all Smash games, and until players figure out that the only way to take him on is to never let him set up in the first place (or counterpick to Sonic and play incredibly lame) then good Pacs will always place well, and he will keep winning matchups that theorycraft says should be bad for him.

Which is still difficult considering how easy it is to set up a trampoline in nuetral. Once that goes up, the set up can commence. Shiek keeps us in check because she can pressure us faster/better than any other character.

Sonic would be a problem if pac-man mains didn't just set up a trampoline next to the ledge, sat and behind it, and then laugh as he tries to approach safely.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

"When"?
You mean "if."

No, I mean "when".

 

[NachoOfCheese]

No, I mean "when".

Hyper Smash doesn't last long enough to justify the risk of trying to hit Shulk. It's easier to time it out. So if you're playing the matchup right, the situation you just described should never happen.

 

[RonNewcomb]

(This sucks; I'm just getting to know the pleasures of @ Thinkaman posts, and now he's leaving to become an upstanding member of society. Blah.)

Congratulations Thinkaman on your success in life. Please don't be a stranger. Despite the fact I don't know you at all, when you said you accepted a grad student position as a game designer I was 0% surprised. I wish you the best of luck at the.. ::googles:: ... Delaware State Golf Association (Texas branch).

-------------

I don't see this character climbing any higher. He has all the same issues that Link does, and a lot of players are unfamiliar with high-level Pac. Angel Cortez spent the first minute of his match with Abadango just watching and learning, and he still was thisclose to taking it anyway. A Bo7 would've went to Angel, I'm pretty sure. I think Abadango did unusually well at EVO just on the unfamiliarity factor, for the same reason that a lot of the other Japanese player did unusually poorly at EVO because of customs unfamiliarity. A lack of knowledge really will sink you in this game.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Thinkaman plz dont put Ryu in upper mid tier. People will think he is competent. I need my opponents to underestimate me so when I kill them at 80% I can see that soul crushing look in their eyes.

 

[Nu~]

(This sucks; I'm just getting to know the pleasures of @ Thinkaman posts, and now he's leaving to become an upstanding member of society. Blah.)

Congratulations Thinkaman on your success in life. Please don't be a stranger. Despite the fact I don't know you at all, when you said you accepted a grad student position as a game designer I was 0% surprised. I wish you the best of luck at the.. ::googles:: ... Delaware State Golf Association (Texas branch).

-------------

I don't see this character climbing any higher. He has all the same issues that Link does, and a lot of players are unfamiliar with high-level Pac. Angel Cortez spent the first minute of his match with Abadango just watching and learning, and he still was thisclose to taking it anyway. A Bo7 would've went to Angel, I'm pretty sure. I think Abadango did unusually well at EVO just on the unfamiliarity factor, for the same reason that a lot of the other Japanese player did unusually poorly at EVO because of customs unfamiliarity. A lack of knowledge really will sink you in this game.

I fail to see any similarities in their weaknesses outside of grab. Care to elaborate?

 

[Routa]

Hmm... Is there any great custom move that buries your foe other than Sonic's spin?

 

[Nu~]

Hmm... Is there any great custom move that burrows your foe other than Sonic's spin?

Meteor trampoline

 

[Vipermoon]

For what frames of an air dodge can you grab items? Anyone know where I can find this?