Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Antonykun]

Man all this talk of buffs and here i am praying to death ears that Swordfighter gets a throw that kills BEFORE 200%+ when that happens i can then finally push for Swordfighter being not bad.
It's just wrong that Swordfighter has sit there and be forced to not be able to kill the likes of Sheik or ZSS brcause they are so fast and he has so little range that the few times he can get to them he is forced to deal chip/non-lethal damage

 

[Zionaze]

? So is 1.1.1 happening or nah?

 

[Zelder]

? So is 1.1.1 happening or nah?

Yeah, they removed Sheik. It's crazy.

 

[Gawain]

Not sure if you completely follow, but quoting the opening post the list received input from:



The rest of us are really just in it for interesting conversation and info sharing. Also, I dare to claim that a single top player's tier list can potentially be almost as bad as something like Eventhubs voting list since everyone has subjective experiences and some have fairly strong bias or an agenda, although most probably don't. However it's only really when you combine all the top players' opinions together when you get an actually accurate tier list (let's remember a tier list reflects the meta of its time), and as far as I know SWF tier lists have always tried to do that.

Well, I'll admit I hadn't bothered to check that. So, "my b" on that.

Still, I will stand by what I said in general. It's better imo to look at a conglomerate of separate lists from multiple top players, as each one will have different reasons for their placements. Because, to one top player, a character may be higher tier than to another for totally different reasons. Looking at a variety of lists gives you a better idea of who is actually good, because besides the top 3 or 4, the next 15 can be moved around a lot imo. Around +- 4 spaces even.

I'm not saying non-top player opinions aren't valid. But top players have actual reasons with actual results to back up what they're saying. If Zero thinks Sheik beats Diddy, or the other way around, his opinions are worth paying a lot more attention to. If another top player disagrees,that's cool too, having two perspectives to look at it from is better than coming to some consensus.

 

[DunnoBro]

It'd be nice if they could elaborate on their opinions more. Of the top players, ESAM, and Dabuz seem to contribute more in-depth and helpful information than ZeRo.

 

[Gawain]

It'd be nice if they could elaborate on their opinions more. Of the top players, ESAM, and Dabuz seem to contribute more in-depth and helpful information than ZeRo.

Its probably because they just don't care. If you win with your character or if they show up a lot in tournament, then they'll prepare for them regardless of a list. Results are what matters really.

 

[Ray-Den]

My dream patch:

Sheik nerfs:

- reduce fair range slightly
- fair does not autocancel anymore. 1-2 frames more endlag than usual
- needle range reduced a bit
- grounded needle startup animation increased (so youre able to react to it)
- vanish first hitbox kb reduced
- vanish second hitbox removed, but keep windbox
- vanish less invisible frames
- vanish range slightly reduced
- vanish endlag when landing on the ground increased

Sheik would still have the best neutral, but edgeguarding her would be more rewarding. But i heavily doubt any of this would happen.

Samus, Jigglypuff, Falco, (any other low-mid tier) buffs

INB4 " we dont need any other nerfs bla": Sheik is far from being balanced. Its not Brawl MK level, but still, she has against any character of the cast a MU in her favor. In the best case its even, but this is really rare.
And yes i remember that she was already nerfed, but not in the right places. The bair kb nerf for example was pointless and i wouldnt mind if they would give her the old values back.

 

[greatbernard]

Here's my personal list, which tries to make everyone mid-tier.. I'd like to see yours too.

Rosalina
- Luma has 10 less HP
- Luma's recharge is 10 seconds slower

Sheik
- All air attacks gain +.2 sec of end-lag
- Gets KO'ed 10% earlier

Zero Suit Samus
- All air attacks gain +.2 sec of end-lag
- All attacks do 1% less damage
- Up-B has 75% of knockback and distance

Fox
- Running speed is slightly reduced
- All ground attacks gain +.1 sec of end-lag

Diddy Kong
- All air attacks gain +.1 sec of end-lag
- All attacks do 1% less damage

Link
- Projectiles have 10 seconds of cool time
+ Link's Up-B has slightly better distance

Mario
- U-tilt doesn't loop
- F-air's only gimps at 100%+ damage

Robin
+ Running speed is slightly faster
+ Charged B does 17 damage - instead of 10
+ Down-B's has 1.5x range
+ Sword/spellbook recharge in half the time

Ike
+ B reflects projectiles
+ Down B is faster
+ Side B charges faster in air
+ Up B has better recovery range.

King Dedede
+ Down B reflects projectiles
+ Grab has better range
+ Forward air has half the end-lag

Charizard
+ Side B inflicts half the recoil damage
+ Down B reflects projectile
+ Up B has 1.25x the range
+ Air attacks have half the end/falling lag

Ganondorf
+ B (even in startup) reflects projectiles
+ Up B has 1.25x the range
+ Side B has 1.5x the range in the air

Samus
+ Down B does 4% more damage per hit
+ Side B does 3% more damage per hit

Mewtwo
+ Down B has 1.5x the range
+ Mewtwo gets knocked out 10% later

Shulk
+ Temporary (3 second) shield when picking a Monado art

Wii Fit Trainer
+ Down B heals 10% more damage

 

[David Viran]

I don't know about the other characters but zss's nerfs are very excessive. You want up b killing at 230% from center stage and 160% near the ledge when it doesn't even connect that reliably? You do know that a half a second is 30 frames right. So that would give zss's aerials 30 frames more end lag.

 

[Xermo]

>gives half the characters a reflector
>removes mewtwo's reflector and calls it a buff

 

[DunnoBro]

The only nerfs I want for sheik are mostly her recovery. Her normals are fine.

There's characters that contend with her in neutral and those are considered good MUs vs her, but the issue is that there's still one-sided edgeguarding giving her the edge. She shouldn't have that.

Its probably because they just don't care. If you win with your character or if they show up a lot in tournament, then they'll prepare for them regardless of a list. Results are what matters really.

I'm not so sure, the game is young and variable enough that researching other characters, and the meta is an appealing endeavor to most top players. I think it's more they just lack the eloquence/organization to properly explain things.

 

[Charey]

None of those would help Charizard much.

The main thing that would help Zard would be less landing lag so he could fastball aeiarl moves instead of being forced to go for the auto-cancel to make nair/fair safeish.

 

[Minordeth]

I don't really get the hostility towards top-player input. Yeah, they can have misinformed opinions. But so can everyone else, as demonstrated by the number of tier lists posted in this very thread since release. Tier lists have always been based on what is basically expert opinion (and results). If you are learning some science or have a science background, you know that expert opinion is actually pretty low on the "level of evidence" scale.

It's part of the reason why tier lists, especially early on, can be fairly volatile. No one has figured out (or seemed to want to) statistically study fighting games, so expert consensus is the best we have. In other words, tier lists will always have a giant "grain of salt" asterisk. But they are still useful, even with their inherent limitations. Which in this case, just means we haven't kidnapped top players, put them in a randomized trial (tournament), and put animal masks on their faces for blinding purposes.

This would be for science, of course.

 

[Zelder]

I don't really get the hostility towards top-player input. Yeah, they can have misinformed opinions. But so can everyone else, as demonstrated by the number of tier lists posted in this very thread since release. Tier lists have always been based on what is basically expert opinion (and results). If you are learning some science or have a science background, you know that expert opinion is actually pretty low on the "level of evidence" scale.

It's part of the reason why tier lists, especially early on, can be fairly volatile. No one has figured out (or seemed to want to) statistically study fighting games, so expert consensus is the best we have. In other words, tier lists will always have a giant "grain of salt" asterisk. But they are still useful, even with their inherent limitations. Which in this case, just means we haven't kidnapped top players, put them in a randomized trial (tournament), and put animal masks on their faces for blinding purposes.

This would be for science, of course.

Complaints about top tier input come in two flavors: people who are mad that top players realize their low-tier hero of choice is bad/irrelevant, and thus wish to ignore those opinions.

The other flavor is people who recognize when top tier players are mis-informed, but also recognize that their misconceptions will be bandied about everywhere as evidence because it came from a top player.

 

[bc1910]

I think Sheik's normals and needles need addressing. I would rather have her normals nerfed and give more characters a chance against her, than nerf her edgeguarding and have her still dominate everyone she dominated before but maybe lose to Diddy.

It'd be nice if they could elaborate on their opinions more. Of the top players, ESAM, and Dabuz seem to contribute more in-depth and helpful information than ZeRo.

I think so too, both ESAM and Dabuz are eloquent and present well-informed opinions. I didn't agree with ESAM's tier list but at least it made sense from his explanations.

Some might see this as minor but I find ZeRo's analysis far too sensationalist. Everything is "amazing" or "ridiculous" and everyone has "insane combos". Nothing is properly explained and those words just lose all their meaning.

 

[Wintropy]

I'm sorry, but this doesn't solve any issues for any characters. This would have unintended consequences that far exceed the intent of the project.

I don't know if it applies to the entire board, but buff / nerf suggestions are frowned upon here. @ Shaya will tell you if this is acceptable or otherwise.

 

[wedl!!]

speaking of low tier heroes...

 

[ZeGlasses!]

Complaints about top tier input come in two flavors: people who are mad that top players realize their low-tier hero of choice is bad/irrelevant, and thus wish to ignore those opinions.

BUT DUDE, Zelda is totally viable. She has a really good neutral, lots of combo potential, her dthrow has combos, her aerials and smashes do lots of knockback, lots of the frame data that everyone talks about, neutral b has INVINCIBILITY(OH SHIZNAP), and she totally has a good matchup with tah high tiers!!1!! I know this cuz i play on FG a lot. She's upper mid tier, just so you know I'm not biased ;;;)))

/s

 

[TTTTTsd]

I think Sheik's normals and needles need addressing. I would rather have her normals nerfed and give more characters a chance against her, than nerf her edgeguarding and have her still dominate everyone she dominated before but maybe lose to Diddy.

Needles and Fair are pretty much the only things I can see really needing a change. Fair could use a range reduction, maybe tone down the AC but I'd take a range cut over that priority-wise, and Needles just need a startup you can react to and a bit less range.

That's probably all I'd do initially, see how it pans out and if more is necessary or not. Gotta go slowww with patch adjustments to prevent reverse power creep/balance crap

 

[ItsRainingGravy]

Yeah, they removed Sheik. It's crazy.

And NOT Sonic? Blasphemy.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

The problem about fair is that it doesn't really make sense how fast that hitbox extends to its maximum range. Like, you get hit by that move way before she's stretches out her arm fully. You can clearly tell at times that you get hit by something even though the animation doesn't show it yet.

 

[Charoite]

Zero didn't mention the thunder, elthunder, and arcthunder buffs, nor how them help robins in their zoning and punish game, amplified with the d-throw buff, and mencioning Nario, but not dath or Raziek.He only talked about the obvious, and missing more information, and i dont think people were saying that robin was a top tier, even high tier, most people were saying that robin was no longer low tier, o that robin now is at least mid tier.

 

[greatbernard]

I made fixes based on the suggestions above.

 

[bc1910]

Needles and Fair are pretty much the only things I can see really needing a change. Fair could use a range reduction, maybe tone down the AC but I'd take a range cut over that priority-wise, and Needles just need a startup you can react to and a bit less range.

That's probably all I'd do initially, see how it pans out and if more is necessary or not. Gotta go slowww with patch adjustments to prevent reverse power creep/balance crap

Agreed, that's exactly what I'd do. Changes that will make a difference, but not an excessive amount of changes. Though I'd take the AC nerf over a range nerf but really, both would be appropriate. I'd probably look at Needles' travel speed as well.

I think giving Bair its old kill power would be reasonable too, even as just a compensation buff for going further with Needles.

 

[hypersonicJD]

And NOT Sonic? Blasphemy.

>People still want to remove Sonic.
>People still want Shadow over Sonic.

KEK. Sonic is getting the hate because it's a trend now. Everyone loves to hate Sonic on every possible way.

My dream buffs and nerfs for Sonic:

1.- Spin Dash not shield cancellable anymore.

2.- Fair is now frame 4.

3.- Back Throw kills at 120% at the edge of Final Destination.

4.- Nair landing lag reduced: 14 - 11 damage reduced: 12 - 10

5.- U-tilt duration: 7 - 8 (or maybe enough so that Sonic can move and make an Up Air or Back Air)

This will take campy Sonic out of the map forever and make aggressive Sonic a more common thing. This just looks really stupid but it's my dream! ;_; I don't like campy Sonic at all and this is the only way possible to achieve it.

 

[FullMoon]

Campy Sonic is never going to go away as long as Sonic keeps moving at the speed he currently does.

 

[DunnoBro]

A spindash nerf but combo buff would be fun.

Homing attack homing during invincibility (or going upward like surprise attack) would make sonic way more aggressive since has more to get off them.

Fun fact: Sonic can dair off stage then rising surprise attack. The linger lets it easily catch the 1-frame ledge grab or jumps away from the initial dair.

Of course it's super weak and the speed of it is different than default, but I'd like to see the situations enabled by it simply going upward instead of downward after not homing be implemented into default.

 

[ItsRainingGravy]

I don't really dislike Sonic as a trend kind of thing. I just think that his design is REALLY terrible for a game like Smash Bros.

With Sheik and all of her ridiculousness, I still think that she is a much better designed character than Sonic. Once you fix her Needles and Fair, she's not all that bad. But Sonic has a huge CONUNDRUM of problems that a few simple patches won't fix unless they nerfed him to the ground.

Such as Up B being invulnerable temporarily despite how fast and far it goes (and despite Sonic's other recovery options), being able to DJ or use any aerial or an airdodge after an Up B which almost no other character can do, Uair being a true confirm after a Uthrow (thanks to Up B) at high percents which can easily seal stocks, pretty much ignoring the Neutral a good portion of the time due to his ridiculous speed ON TOP of canceling Spin Dashes with a DJ or any aerial or even Air Dodging, having a frame 6 grab and an okay dash grab in conjunction with the Uair followup mentioned earlier. And I'm not even getting in to the REALLY dumb stuff like Double Spring + Hammer Spin Dash customs BS. This is all part of his standard toolkit.

I don't dislike the character actually. But his design in Smash Bros is just plain awful imo :|

 

[Charoite]

somebody hasn't playing a good defensive Wii Fit Trainer,to want a Down B buff of 10%, i dont think nobody want a stall battle.

 

[Man Li Gi]

2.- Fair is now frame 4.

3.- Back Throw kills at 120% at the edge of Final Destination.

4.- Nair landing lag reduced: 14 - 11

5.- U-tilt duration: 7 - 8 (or maybe enough so that Sonic can move and make an Up Air or Back Air)

Maybe it's me, but I can't take this seriously here. Truth Sonic don't need buffs nor nerfs. He has enough speed to be headache inducing in stall tactics and he has enough power in key aspects that he can hurt people bad. I always laugh from Sonics when they say something like high commitment. The character is a run and shoot player. Many times he can go for simple strings and dip real easy. Now, time to wait for airforce Shaya, Ffamran, Reserved, and who else for that warning.

 

[DunnoBro]

Bouncing fish is essentially a horizontal spring though lol

I don't think sonic's that bad, though in general defensive character gimmicks (spindash, luma, double jump armor) tend to be more frustrating than aggressive ones (trick shot, ryu inputs, megaman pellets)

 

[DanGR]

You guys gotta understand that Zero appeals to a much broader audience in his videos than other content providers. The average, more casual player wants to hear that their character has some "insane" combos (which in all honesty, zero probably can do pretty ridiculous strings with those characters, as good as he is) or that they might be underrated. He could elaborate further on why he thinks Luigi is top 5, but why should he? Most of his subscribers won't understand advanced concepts anyways. The guy's trying to make a living. I don't blame him.

 

[warionumbah2]

I don't like campy Sonic at all.

Well thats how he fights in his games like vs Silver, runs around, homing attack Silver, runs away, hits him again.

They actually stayed true to how he fights in his games: Like a sissy.

The gap between Sonic and Falcon in run speed is very noticeable. He will always be lame.

 

[DunnoBro]

TFW You realize eggman was actually the victim

 

[hypersonicJD]

Well thats how he fights in his games like vs Silver, runs around, homing attack Silver, runs away, hits him again.

They actually stayed true to how he fights in his games: Like a sissy.

You just mentioned Sonic 06. One of the worst Sonic games to ever exist. And Sonic in Generations actually uses his speed to catch-up Silver and then do a homing attack. Sonic Adventure 2 also makes Sonic use Spin Dash and homing attack. He is chasing down Shadow and when Shadow is trying to use Chaos Spear, Sonic attacks him. He never uses his speed to stall enemies. He uses it to confuse them or chase them down and then attack them at full speed.

I knew everyone would be laughing his ass from my comment of buffs and nerfs. And why the hell would you nerf Sonic's speed? IT'S SONIC THE HEDGEHOG. THE FASTEST THING ALIVE. It's like making him go at normal speed at the Olympic games. It wouldn't make sense. If you want to go with that logic, then let's take out Samus weapons and charge shot. Or make Mario and Luigi don't have any special moves at all. Or even just take out Captain Falcon's speed and make him move as slow as Dedede or Ganondorf.

 

[FullMoon]

You're only doing away with campy Sonic if you nerf his speed, unless that happens then your dream is never going to be realized, that's the harsh truth.

If you keep nerfing Sonic's moves that's just more incentive for him to run away

If you buff him then he's still going to run away while making your life more miserable when he does decide to go in.

 

[Man Li Gi]

No one said nerf Sonic speed. Many here just rather not have to face a character that racks damage and kills then leaves and then says "ur 2 sloe". Sonic taunt OP.

Also CF never came out his care before Smash, so we didn't know his running speed.

 

[Zelder]

You just mentioned Sonic 06. One of the worst Sonic games to ever exist. And Sonic in Generations actually uses his speed to catch-up Silver and then do a homing attack. Sonic Adventure 2 also makes Sonic use Spin Dash and homing attack. He is chasing down Shadow and when Shadow is trying to use Chaos Spear, Sonic attacks him. He never uses his speed to stall enemies. He uses it to confuse them or chase them down and then attack them at full speed.

I knew everyone would be laughing his *** from my comment of buffs and nerfs. And why the hell would you nerf Sonic's speed? IT'S SONIC THE HEDGEHOG. THE FASTEST THING ALIVE. It's like making him go at normal speed at the Olympic games. It wouldn't make sense. If you want to go with that logic, then let's take out Samus weapons and charge shot. Or make Mario and Luigi don't have any special moves at all. Or even just take out Captain Falcon's speed and make him move as slow as Dedede or Ganondorf.

What in the absolute hell are you talking about.

You guys gotta understand that Zero appeals to a much broader audience in his videos than other content providers. The average, more casual player wants to hear that their character has some "insane" combos (which in all honesty, zero probably can do pretty ridiculous strings with those characters, as good as he is) or that they might be underrated. He could elaborate further on why he thinks Luigi is top 5, but why should he? Most of his subscribers won't understand advanced concepts anyways. The guy's trying to make a living. I don't blame him.

Oh I definitely get that. I'm not going to begrudge a guy for trying to make a living from Smash bros, working sucks. I just wish he'd do more research before he says things, because as the best player in the game, his words (unfortunately) carry a lot of weight.

 

[DunnoBro]

No yea ZeRo's gotta do what he's gotta do. At least he isn't pulling an Etika or Omni and at least bringing some decent info to the table rather than throwing up on it when DLC arrives.

 

[hypersonicJD]

Meh, just forget it. Forget everything I said. As I said before: Everyone loves to hate Sonic. Even here.

I would love Lucas to have ending lag on his grab reduced. Maybe make it equal to Zero Suit Samus ending lag. But this isn't the thread of buffs + nerfs.

What do you guys think of Zero Suit Samus as secondary? Is she a good choice to have as a secondary?