Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Vipermoon]

Finally you guys are realizing it... Lower hit angle on Sheik's Fair. That is the main thing.

Also out-ranging Marth's Fair with just her arm is really really dumb so that needs to be fixed too. I mean, Marth sticks out his arm too... his arm PLUS his sword. But still not enough to contest Sheik's arm. Marth's arm, a.k.a. Mr. Grab Range.

 

[Trifroze]

My face after looking back at ZSS' side b in the E3 2014 videos and thinking what might've been:

but hey at least you can still gimp with it !

 

[Dre89]

It's true that Sheik will pretty much always crap on Ganon as long as their basic designs remain intact. But as of right now it's considerably more in Sheiks favor than it really has to be, and it's overall a really stupid matchup for both sides (Sheik can outplay Ganon the whole time and still lose, Ganon needs to literally guess to win).

I don't feel like thinking through specific changes right now, but if Sheik had her general safety and approach-forcing nerfed in exchange for more kill power, this matchup (and a lot of others) would be a lot less dumb, and I personally would consider Ganon a viable character.

Heavies have always had to guess against zonebreakers since at least Brawl (probably Melee too but I didn't play that so I don't know). They basically always need hard reads from neutral against anyone with mobility, especially because they're often the one that has to approach. That's the trade-off for having a large reward on making a read.

 

[Browny]

I'm just going to leave this here for anyone interested

http://smashboards.com/threads/the-misconceptions-about-mewtwos-hurtbox-end-here.416127/

If anyone wants to educate themselves on hurtboxes, intangibility and z-depth give it a read. I really am tired of the misconceptions out there of Mewtwos hurtbox. They need to be put to sleep forever.

 

[RayNoire]

I'm just going to leave this here for anyone interested

http://smashboards.com/threads/the-misconceptions-about-mewtwos-hurtbox-end-here.416127/

If anyone wants to educate themselves on hurtboxes, intangibility and z-depth give it a read. I really am tired of the misconceptions out there of Mewtwos hurtbox. They need to be put to sleep forever.

...I will never understand this crusade to mask the flaws of your character, especially in a game with balance patches.

I'll dig through some replays later and post some more hurtbox Vines I guess.

 

[meleebrawler]

...I will never understand this crusade to mask the flaws of your character, especially in a game with balance patches.

I'll dig through some replays later and post some more hurtbox Vines I guess.

Maybe because YOUR crusade is scaring away prospective Mewtwo mains in favour of holding out for buffs that may or may not ever happen.

Metagame advancement > patch prayers any day. Most people will NOT just drop whatever they were doing before just because Mewtwo managed to get big buffs.

 

[bc1910]

Maybe because YOUR crusade is scaring away prospective Mewtwo mains in favour of holding out for buffs that may or may not ever happen.

Metagame advancement > patch prayers any day. Most people will NOT just drop whatever they were doing before just because Mewtwo managed to get big buffs.

Literally a perfect explanation of why we (mostly!) stayed positive about Greninja.

And when the buffs did come, they were all the sweeter for it, because we weren't expecting them.

 

[Illuminose]

removing combos from sheik's fair is utterly silly. her damage per hit is absolutely abysmal and she wouldn't even be able to rack up damage effectively.

 

[LiteralGrill]

i got told by a jiggly main that if jiggly perfect shields a fair she gets a free rest??? like wtf

I too have heard this. In Brawly you used to be able to "perfect rest" as well which would get you free rests inbetween certain multi hit attacks. I've heard this is doable on sheik's multijab actually as well as a LOT of Luigi moves. It's obviously VERY hard to do but ikf someone took the time it'd be fun to kill people for attacking you right?

 

[Trifroze]

It's impossible for Jigglypuff to get a rest on Sheik by powershielding a fair. Jigglypuff's jumpsquat alone is enough for Sheik to get her shield up in time, but in addition to that Jigglypuff would also need to close the distance between them since fair has a lot of range which at least doubles the time it would take her.

 

[TriTails]

I too have heard this. In Brawly you used to be able to "perfect rest" as well which would get you free rests inbetween certain multi hit attacks. I've heard this is doable on sheik's multijab actually as well as a LOT of Luigi moves. It's obviously VERY hard to do but ikf someone took the time it'd be fun to kill people for attacking you right?

Wait. What? Are you implying Luigi can be free rest'd on his multiple hit attacks?

Because none of his normals except jab or DA hits multiple times. In specials he only has Cyclone. So IDK.

Though, PSing things can actually mean a FJP OoS on Luigi's side.

 

[Fatmanonice]

Maybe because YOUR crusade is scaring away prospective Mewtwo mains in favour of holding out for buffs that may or may not ever happen.

Metagame advancement > patch prayers any day. Most people will NOT just drop whatever they were doing before just because Mewtwo managed to get big buffs.

I agree with this and, I have to say, this is one of the things that I've come to really appreciate about the competitive fanbase of this game. So far, nobody has really been completely given up on. With Brawl, about six months in and like a fourth of the cast was given up on aside from some unusually good players like Ally leading the "He May Not Be the Best But He Sure as Hell Won't Be the Worst" Crusade for . Two years into Brawl and most people didn't even bother fiddling around with the mid tier characters either (or really even the low high tiers if we're completely honest) because the high/top tiers were so damn polarizing. I remember about 4 or 5 months ago I said that there were maybe four characters that people were just about ready to phone it in on () but, lo and behold, could eventually become viable thanks to all the buff dumps he's gotten while were saved from their anemic state by giving their players more options to work with. The amount of representation at tournaments is pretty impressive, even for characters that are widely agreed to not be all that great like . For those of us who have been around for Melee and Brawl, you have to appreciate the, dare I say, hope that this game has and how nobody's ready to close shop and resort to novelty tournaments yet.

 

[Pazzo.]

I agree with this and, I have to say, this is one of the things that I've come to really appreciate about the competitive fanbase of this game. So far, nobody has really been completely given up on. With Brawl, about six months in and like a fourth of the cast was given up on aside from some unusually good players like Ally leading the "He May Not Be the Best But He Sure as Hell Won't Be the Worst" Crusade for . Two years into Brawl and most people didn't even bother fiddling around with the mid tier characters either (or really even the low high tiers if we're completely honest) because the high/top tiers were so damn polarizing. I remember about 4 or 5 months ago I said that there were maybe four characters that people were just about ready to phone it in on () but, lo and behold, could eventually become viable thanks to all the buff dumps he's gotten while were saved from their anemic state by giving their players more options to work with. The amount of representation at tournaments is pretty impressive, even for characters that are widely agreed to not be all that great like . For those of us who have been around for Melee and Brawl, you have to appreciate the, dare I say, hope that this game has and how nobody's ready to close shop and resort to novelty tournaments yet.

Seeing characters like and played frequently, although the majority disagrees with their viability is great.

It's really a neat experience.

 

[LightLV]

I agree with this and, I have to say, this is one of the things that I've come to really appreciate about the competitive fanbase of this game. So far, nobody has really been completely given up on. With Brawl, about six months in and like a fourth of the cast was given up on aside from some unusually good players like Ally leading the "He May Not Be the Best But He Sure as Hell Won't Be the Worst" Crusade for . Two years into Brawl and most people didn't even bother fiddling around with the mid tier characters either (or really even the low high tiers if we're completely honest) because the high/top tiers were so damn polarizing. I remember about 4 or 5 months ago I said that there were maybe four characters that people were just about ready to phone it in on () but, lo and behold, could eventually become viable thanks to all the buff dumps he's gotten while were saved from their anemic state by giving their players more options to work with. The amount of representation at tournaments is pretty impressive, even for characters that are widely agreed to not be all that great like . For those of us who have been around for Melee and Brawl, you have to appreciate the, dare I say, hope that this game has and how nobody's ready to close shop and resort to novelty tournaments yet.

Can you blame anyone for dropping characters in Brawl with its character balance the way it was?

The S-tiers in this game are only slightly less polarizing in the sense their strengths aren't as painfully obvious and immediately avaliable as in Brawl, but they invalidate nearly just as much of the roster.

Maybe i'm wrong, but to hold out so much hope for many of the characters people bring up constantly require you to just ignore alot of things that are happening at the top. I mean i hope i'm wrong. But this game's results have been pretty damn consistent.

 

[Zelder]

I think that there are a lot more characters in play than there were in Brawl. Not everyone's viable (and there never will be a fighting game where everyone is viable until someone has the stones to release a game with one character), but I feel like more people characters have the chance to be viable than previous iterations of Smash.

Patches help.

 

[Browny]

I too have heard this. In Brawly you used to be able to "perfect rest" as well which would get you free rests inbetween certain multi hit attacks. I've heard this is doable on sheik's multijab actually as well as a LOT of Luigi moves. It's obviously VERY hard to do but ikf someone took the time it'd be fun to kill people for attacking you right?

A few weeks ago I rested a Mario while being his by his dair and I was grounded so I am fairly sure that much is possible.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Okay guys... It's the last time I'll be posting the /r/smashbros monthly voted tier list as my own creation ಥ_ಥ

I know they'll probably still end up here for discussion and such, but still it's weird letting the project into other hands. Anyways I'm going to post the picture below and leave off with my final thoughts on how I feel reddit looks at characters and rankings as a final massive insight. Hopefully you all enjoy!

THE /r/smashbros MONTHLY VOTED TIER LIST!​

Spoiler

Here is my big chuck of thoughts:

Spoiler

My first big thought: Reddit is finally starting to accept some character are NOT viable at tournaments. Even if one of their choices is iffy (I'll get to that shortly) I'm hoping this is something that starts to get a bit more accepted all around. Yes this is one of the better balanced Smash games by far but some characters just cannot compete on an international level with strong often strong results. I remember when people told be a C tier shouldn't even exist so this improvement is nice.

Next: Reddit highly undervalues the characters that primarily use swords. all are placed criminally low tbh especially where Roy is placed. I think in time people will understand they all should honestly be groups somewhat close together near at least the B+ kind of area. Hopefully these characters get more representation at majors so folks can see their potential more.

As for he's actually been plummeting down the list for quite some time and I would not be surprised if he goes down even further. Frame data has held him back from the previous thoughts that his complexity might overcome it and I really believe that he takes too much work to play perfectly and still wouldn't get enough reward out of doing so (I'm guessing Reddit does too). For C tier feels too low though, B feels a bit better.

Finally and are only one tier apart. I can accept this over how far they used to be.

The B+ tier of is interesting. I've generally said that the B+ area are the characters most likely to move into A tiers but people are unsure on/want more results from when people are voting and such. So alongside the A tiers (which everyone considers 100% solo viable) take some time to think if these three are in there too. I'd love to see what you all things.

popped up a bit... surprise surprise... But the entire B tier lower than B+ is interesting. There's some characters here that I could see doing well at events with some bracket luck alongside some that could stand to move a lot higher if certain nerfs happen. A lot of the characters here just have consistency issues or certain matchups that just sort of block them out. I feel like the B tier could be rearranged a bit to be more accurate, but many of the characters in it are in the right place.

Outside of the characters I listed earlier I PERSONALLY feel most of C tier honestly ISN'T solo tournament viable or even secondary/maybe b-tier material with a few exceptions.

have both at least pulled out actual results. For WFT I feel like she actually has a lot of room to climb where Bower Jr. will probably get stuck in the crowd of kind of characters where they have lots of traps/projectiles but get walled out by certain matchups tops.

For Little Mac he can make a solid counterpick character to have in your pocket. He is literally the definition of a niche use character. Dr. Mario has a few matchups where he might be a better choice than Mario making him a bit of a niche pick as well. Jigglypuff feels the same although there is some theory that she could do good things against some top tiers so maybe she'll move out of niche to a character you pull out after you run through a bunch of the tournament just to tackle the top tiers. We'll see.

The others: are probably not actually tournament viable at the highest level IN MY PERSONAL OPINION. I know has done some things in Spanish tournaments and Aerolink has made work but I don't think that's gonna hold up on an international level nor will any of these characters hold up in the long run (assuming <Miis keep 1-1-1-1 rules).

Okay peoples... Now that I have MY feelings out of the way how do YOU feel about the latest list?

 

[David Viran]

A few weeks ago I rested a Mario while being his by his dair and I was grounded so I am fairly sure that much is possible.

At low percents I know zss can flip jump out of the last hit of Mario's dair.

 

[FullMoon]

Roy and Lucas still riding that DLC hype.

 

[Zelder]

I guarantee you that the general Smash populous will never think of Roy as a bad character. There's just something about him that causes people (who know little) to wildly overrate him. Probably the fire.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Roy and Lucas still riding that DLC hype.

I rather agree. I could see them as B tier contenders but I think they're up a bit too far atm. At least with the other swordies so low.

 

[KaptenFullkorn]

Roy and Lucas still riding that DLC hype.

idk, I think alot of ppl sleep on Lucas.

 

[Rashyboy05]

I would've thought that, over time, the Roy hype would die down and people will now realize that Marth may/may not still be the better character. I'm fine if Roy is placed slightly higher than Marth. But Roy being higher than Ike is unacceptable imo.

 

[FullMoon]

idk, I think alot of ppl sleep on Lucas.

Slept on or not, I still think most of B- and even some of the C+ characters are better than Lucas. Like Greninja, Ike, Toon Link, Megaman, Marth and Link.

 

[Djent]

Pikachu 2nd...please stop fanning the flames of ESAM's ego kthx.
ZSS is also too low and Rosa too high, but hey, for a Reddit list it's otherwise not terrible.

 

[thehard]

It will be interesting to compare this list to Shaya's list, whenever that drops. "Public vs pro" opinion.

 

[Flux0r]

People said the C-tier shouldn't exist?

lol character bias. I bet most people who believes this are below-average low-tier mains who thinks they're hot **** because they managed to beat their brother's Sheik.

 

[Steam]

Lucario probably belongs higher. Lucas is a low tier and reddit is silly, did they not learn from mewtwo?

 

[LiteralGrill]

People said the C-tier shouldn't exist?

lol character bias. I bet most people who believes this are below-average low-tier mains who thinks they're hot **** because they managed to beat their brother's Sheik.

People on Reddit and here used to spout off ALL THE TIME that every single character could be used in tournaments and place well and that Smash 4 was balance nirvana. We've thankfully moved on from that silliness.

 

[hypersonicJD]

How many times do I have to say it? Lucas is not Low Tier. He is a good character, what he is lacking is a good grab. Everything else about him it's really good and is easily Mid Tier, I would even dare to say High Tier. Don't get me wrong, Greninja is actually a better character than Lucas since he can get the job done easily. Lucas sometimes struggles to get a kill, if he actually had a normal grab like Ness he would be so damn better. Nair strings are amazing for damage racking and can end-up in high damaging attacks (Nair to Dair, Uair, Bair and Fair, he can finish a combo with every single of his aerials,so he some mix-ups). Up Smash kills pretty early, he has his own Hoo Haa that kills at like 120% or less and every single one of his throws kill.

Lucas is really underrated. He isn't overhyped at all. Everyone just forgets about Lucas and goes into Roy. Which I may agree is ass compared to Ike right now. I have been using Ike for like 2 days and I have to say: WHY THE HELL I WASN'T PLAYING AS THIS CHARACTER BEFORE!? He is so damn good.

 

[Jabejazz]

I guarantee you that the general Smash populous will never think of Roy as a bad character. There's just something about him that causes people (who know little) to wildly overrate him. Probably the fire.

People with **** spacing get completely bodied by Roy. Besides TripleD side B spam, he's the most perfectly designed scrub-stomper.
Definitely explains Marcina's poor placements compared to him. Pretty sure most people on reddit still believe Marth is unusable garbage.

 

[Nobie]

I keep trying to explain to Reddit how important walking is to Marth as a character but they don't listen. Someone literally said to me, why walk when you can run, while also saying that Marth has no mobility because he can't dashdance or wavedash (in a game where no one can).

??????

As for Roy, he has high-speed specs but is only decent at spacing, but because a lot of players don't understand the difference between moving quickly and spacing, it comes out as "Roy incredible neutral!" vs. "Marth neutral BAD."

 

[Vipermoon]

Yeah I can't believe some people.

Marth's neutral is one of the best things about him. And walking is really important because Marth has a bad dash attack and dash grab. However, running is really important for Marth too. His hurtbox is HUGE when's walking. His walk has crappy acceleration. Lastly, he runs almost at crouch level.

 

[ZeGlasses!]

I hate the idea of just slapping on combo throws on a less-than-viable character as an attempt to buff them, but I think Marth would genuinely improve if dthrow could actually have decent follow-ups.

 

[Zionaze]

A techchase situation would be kinda cool

 

[Dexmaster]

I know has done some things in Spanish tournaments and Aerolink has made work but I don't think that's gonna hold up on an international level nor will any of these characters hold up in the long run (assuming <Miis keep 1-1-1-1 rules).
[/collapse]

Okay peoples... Now that I have MY feelings out of the way how do YOU feel about the latest list?

Can someone link me to vods of one of these spanish tournaments? I'd really like to see more high level dedede play, despite the fact you literally just said he probably isn't viable.

 

[Sir Tundra]

People on Reddit and here used to spout off ALL THE TIME that every single character could be used in tournaments and place well and that Smash 4 was balance nirvana. We've thankfully moved on from that silliness.

Honestly the whole every character is tournament viable statement is complete BS. Never has their been a fighting game that has every character deemed viable(Project M doesn't count it's a mod). Smash 4 is no exception to this. Don't get me wrong smash 4 is pretty balanced infact it's probably the most balanced game in the series. But that doesn't mean that your gonna see characters like ,,, or win a national.

 

[Zelder]

People with **** spacing get completely bodied by Roy. Besides TripleD side B spam, he's the most perfectly designed scrub-stomper.
Definitely explains Marcina's poor placements compared to him. Pretty sure most people on reddit still believe Marth is unusable garbage.

I will say, you only need to be killed by the Flare Blade whiff --> F-Smash immediately after "technique" once to feel like a perma-scrub.

 

[KaptenFullkorn]

Slept on or not, I still think most of B- and even some of the C+ characters are better than Lucas. Like Greninja, Ike, Toon Link, Megaman, Marth and Link.

I wont argue that the list is fine, and i agree with at least megaman higher than lucas. I think that Lucas is placed pretty allright in B / B+.

 

[Vipermoon]

Yeah unless you have perfect timing, approaching Roy after Flare Blade is not a good idea. Approaching MK after his Fsmash is the same situation. You have to have something huge, disjointed, and preferably transcendent like Dancing Blade.