Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Spinosaurus]

Wario doesn't force approaches as much as people think. He might initially, but once he's charged you might as well force him to approach, and he's probably not going to risk blowing it on your first stock.

Yes, but once he's charged he's essentially the scariest character in the game. Wario prefers camping not because his approach options are weak (far from that), but because his rewards when he decides to go in are low. This all changes once he has the waft.

And he will absolutely blow that fart on the first stock if he gets the opportunity, provided they aren't at kill percentage for all his other moves. Wario has a significant advantage once he gets a lead, and an optimal Wario has no issues timing you out.

 

[Djent]

So, let's talk Paragon!

With ZeRo and Vinnie dipping out, Grand Finals are guaranteed to look a lot different than at Pax Prime. I've composed a list of notable players that I recognize in each pool (with top seeds bolded). Here is the final bracket; as you can see, it is seeded directly from said pools in a fairly predictable pattern.

Spoiler

A1: Dabuz, Firefly
A2: Rich Brown, Xaltis, AposL, Ori
A3: Tearbear, Azen Zagenite, KY
A4: KDB, Scizor
A5: MVD, pluto
A6: Seagull, KiraFlax
A7: FOW, Shofu
A8: K9sbruce, Day
B1: Mr-R, Arikie
B2: Xzax, Old Man Ed(?)
B3: True Blue
B4: Mew2King, Johnny Westside
B5: DKwill, SM
B6: Dakpo, Boba Tapioca, shrooby
B7: Tyrant, Gadiel_VaStar
B8: 8BitMan, Angbad
C1: Nairo, Asa, Pitbull
C2: Trevonte, Poltergust, Vato_break
C3: VoiD, S2H, Kipa
C4: Zenyou, Captain L
C5: Larry Lurr, Pink Fresh
C6: Trela, Aphro
C7: False, Z, Wii Twerk Trainer
C8: Falln, Wizzrobe
D1: ESAM, Big D, BAM
D2: Zex, ChuDat
D3: SS
D4: 6WX
D5: Boreal_Ally, ImHip, Hungrybox
D6: [mysterious missing pool ]
D7: Dath, TLTC
D8: SlayerZ, GimR

As it stands, the biggest winners from the drop-outs are MVD (8th seed), Mr-R (4th seed), and Dabuz (the previous 5th and new 1st seed). Of those players, only Mr-R can be argued to have double-digit odds of beating ZeRo; fortunately, none of them will have to. I don't know where Vinnie was seeded; maybe the mystery pool D6?

Top 8 predictions:

Spoiler

1) Nairo
2) ESAM
3) Mr-R
4) Ally
5) Dabuz
5) SlayerZ
7) DKwill
7) Larry Lurr

I think Nairo has the best chances of winning the whole thing. Though he projects to play ESAM in WSF, Ally or SlayerZ could easily end up preventing that. And if ESAM loses to either he'll probably have to fight Larry in L8ths...yikes. Nonetheless, I see him running through losers and perhaps taking GF1, but ultimately succumbing. Mr-R is also slightly positive vs. Nairo, but he has to get through Dabuz and DKwill, who have both beaten him. My hunch is that he still makes it to WF but loses close sets to ZSS and Pika. Other talented players might just end up getting shortchanged. MVD and FOW have to fight each other before even getting a shot at Dabuz, and the loser of that match projects to play the loser of Ally/SlayerZ. Even without ZeRo, this tourney is rough.

 

[wedl!!]

In that potential top 8 SlayerZ is going to possibly play up to three Sheiks...

RIP.

 

[Charoite]

In that potential top 8 SlayerZ is going to possibly play up to three Sheiks...

RIP.

Well, depending if DKwill and Larry dont use their mains, this is actually quite interesting, 2 solo sheik mains are out, what of the remain sheik in the tourneament solo main her ?? and looking at the list chudat now plays smash 4?

 

[warionumbah2]

chudat now plays smash 4?

Just a cookie cutter Sheik nothing special.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

In that potential top 8 SlayerZ is going to possibly play up to three Sheiks...

RIP.

I'm just excited to see a Peach projected to make top 8.

 

[Djent]

Eh, that's just my prediction. I have SlayerZ beating Dath, Ally, and ESAM in winners, then losing to Nairo and Ally (rematch). He's better than Dath, Ally has lost already, and a lot has changed since he last played ESAM. But if he loses to Ally in winners, the road will be much tougher.

 

[migul]

Well, depending if DKwill and Larry dont use their mains, this is actually quite interesting, 2 solo sheik mains are out, what of the remain sheik in the tourneament solo main her ?? and looking at the list chudat now plays smash 4?

Mr. R

 

[PK Gaming]

Hopefully Dath ends up kicking ass and taking some heads

 

[M15t3R E]

Eh, that's just my prediction. I have SlayerZ beating Dath, Ally, and ESAM in winners, then losing to Nairo and Ally (rematch). He's better than Dath, Ally has lost already, and a lot has changed since he last played ESAM. But if he loses to Ally in winners, the road will be much tougher.

I've seen ESAM and Nairo play. ESAM wins. His game with Ally, should they play, will be very close.

 

[Ffamran]

So, let's talk Paragon!

With ZeRo and Vinnie dipping out, Grand Finals are guaranteed to look a lot different than at Pax Prime. I've composed a list of notable players that I recognize in each pool (with top seeds bolded). Here is the final bracket; as you can see, it is seeded directly from said pools in a fairly predictable pattern.

Spoiler

A1: Dabuz, Firefly
A2: Rich Brown, Xaltis, AposL, Ori
A3: Tearbear, Azen Zagenite, KY
A4: KDB, Scizor
A5: MVD, pluto
A6: Seagull, KiraFlax
A7: FOW, Shofu
A8: K9sbruce, Day
B1: Mr-R, Arikie
B2: Xzax, Old Man Ed(?)
B3: True Blue
B4: Mew2King, Johnny Westside
B5: DKwill, SM
B6: Dakpo, Boba Tapioca, shrooby
B7: Tyrant, Gadiel_VaStar
B8: 8BitMan, Angbad
C1: Nairo, Asa, Pitbull
C2: Trevonte, Poltergust, Vato_break
C3: VoiD, S2H, Kipa
C4: Zenyou, Captain L
C5: Larry Lurr, Pink Fresh
C6: Trela, Aphro
C7: False, Z, Wii Twerk Trainer
C8: Falln, Wizzrobe
D1: ESAM, Big D, BAM
D2: Zex, ChuDat
D3: SS
D4: 6WX
D5: Boreal_Ally, ImHip, Hungrybox
D6: [mysterious missing pool ]
D7: Dath, TLTC
D8: SlayerZ, GimR

People who caught my eye on that list: Tearbear , Mew2King , SM , Tyrant , Trevonte , VoiD , False ?, Zex , and SlayerZ as many people have mentioned.

Tearbear was the sleeper of EVO. A player who's supposedly ranked #1 for San Diego, but nobody even knows who the hell this man is. How do you become ranked in a large scene and not be known? It's like if nobody heard of Nairo in Brawl and Smash 4. What is this? Men in Black: Super Smash Bros. Edition? Does Tearbear carry around a Neuralyzer with him and erases everyone's memories of fighting him whether he wins or not? Fatality's not listed, but Tearbear is, so don't be surprised if he tears someone a new one like he did to Nietono. M2K's catching up really fast along with abusing DK's cargo U-throw. He might not be one of the greatest in Smash 4 people expected him to be, but he's not just a player with a name anymore in Smash 4. SM's pretty much the only known Ike there since Ryo, San, and Ryuga aren't there. Trevonte and Zex... It's kind of like Zex is slipping a bit while Trevonte's rising. Either way, two really good players just as False is another Sheik player with a Luigi and Marth. If both False and Ally decide to use Marth for whatever reason, it's going to be a blast.

 

[Dre89]

Umm how do you go from talking solo rosa to Rosaluma bair? Rosalina is pretty bad without Luma and her range is pretty bad without Luma. Some of actually play the damn character and we're not underrating anything

Some of us actually play against the damn character, when being used by high level players who aren't afraid to fight you without Luma

I mentioned Rosaluma bair because I was making the point that she's not bad when she's Rosaloner, she's just broken when she's Rosaluma. And no, Rosaloner still has some of the best range in the game. If you think the range on her jab, uair, dair, and smashes is bad then your perspective has been skewed by maining Rosa and being spoilt with Luma's range. They're not just long ranged, they're fast, strong, and disjointed with tons of priority. Most mid tiers would love to have the moves that Rosa has. Her killpower takes a hit without Luma but she still kills better than most mid tiers. Her kill options are still viable because you still have to approach her when she doesn't have Luma.

Like I said before, it just sounds like maining her has skewed your perspective because you're so used to having broken options. So when your character gets relegated to options that aren't as good, but most of the cast would still want, you think she's bad.

 

[falln]

People who caught my eye on that list: Tearbear , Mew2King , SM , Tyrant , Trevonte , VoiD , False ?, Zex , and SlayerZ as many people have mentioned.

Tearbear was the sleeper of EVO. A player who's supposedly ranked #1 for San Diego, but nobody even knows who the hell this man is. How do you become ranked in a large scene and not be known? It's like if nobody heard of Nairo in Brawl and Smash 4.

fact 1: people dont know west coast names unless they compete on east coast or advertise heavily online
fact 2: less than 20% of the overall smash4 following know any brawl names.

then everyone acts like it's a big surprise when players like terry and slayerz "come out of nowhere". i'd be surprised if 10% or more of smash4 newgens would know who DEHF is

 

[Jehtt]

Well, it isn't fair to expect a new player to know the history of Brawl is it?

 

[RaptorTEC]

@Man Li Gi Me and Will both think the mu is only slightly in Yoshi's favor. It isn't terrible at all now with all the buffs he got.

 

[Gawain]

fact 1: people dont know west coast names unless they compete on east coast or advertise heavily online
fact 2: less than 20% of the overall smash4 following know any brawl names.

then everyone acts like it's a big surprise when players like terry and slayerz "come out of nowhere". i'd be surprised if 10% or more of smash4 newgens would know who DEHF is

I mean, do you really expect people to know Brawl competitor's names? Brawl had the shortest lived competitive scene (at least at a large scale). Smash has really taken off in recent years, but it's primarily because of a massive surge of interest in Melee and the release of Smash 4, so it makes sense that not many people know Brawl stuff.

People who caught my eye on that list: Tearbear , Mew2King , SM , Tyrant , Trevonte , VoiD , False ?, Zex , and SlayerZ as many people have mentioned.

Tearbear was the sleeper of EVO. A player who's supposedly ranked #1 for San Diego, but nobody even knows who the hell this man is. How do you become ranked in a large scene and not be known? It's like if nobody heard of Nairo in Brawl and Smash 4. What is this? Men in Black: Super Smash Bros. Edition? Does Tearbear carry around a Neuralyzer with him and erases everyone's memories of fighting him whether he wins or not? Fatality's not listed, but Tearbear is, so don't be surprised if he tears someone a new one like he did to Nietono. M2K's catching up really fast along with abusing DK's cargo U-throw. He might not be one of the greatest in Smash 4 people expected him to be, but he's not just a player with a name anymore in Smash 4. SM's pretty much the only known Ike there since Ryo, San, and Ryuga aren't there. Trevonte and Zex... It's kind of like Zex is slipping a bit while Trevonte's rising. Either way, two really good players just as False is another Sheik player with a Luigi and Marth. If both False and Ally decide to use Marth for whatever reason, it's going to be a blast.

I wouldn't really list Marth with False. When he's going hard in, it's almost always seeming like it's Sheik now. I'd like to see it too, but I rather doubt it.

whoops. My mistake, delete

 

[Vipermoon]

I mean, do you really expect people to know Brawl competitor's names? Brawl had the shortest lived competitive scene (at least at a large scale). Smash has really taken off in recent years, but it's primarily because of a massive surge of interest in Melee and the release of Smash 4, so it makes sense that not many people know Brawl stuff.


I wouldn't really list Marth with False. When he's going hard in, it's almost always seeming like it's Sheik now. I'd like to see it too, but I rather doubt it.

At this point in time Marth is more of his secondary than Luigi and Peach are. He gets bored of characters easily he said on a stream once.

 

[falln]

Well, it isn't fair to expect a new player to know the history of Brawl is it?

I mean, do you really expect people to know Brawl competitor's names? Brawl had the shortest lived competitive scene (at least at a large scale). Smash has really taken off in recent years, but it's primarily because of a massive surge of interest in Melee and the release of Smash 4, so it makes sense that not many people know Brawl stuff.

People can do whatever they want, I'm just explaining the process. The initial post i responded to lists Terry as a sleeper, which might be true in the eyes of the online smash4 community, but s very far from accurate if you ask any of the high level players at a large-scale event.

Personally, I do think it's worth the time for people that like to talk/learn about smash 4 players to take the few moments to go through Brawl's history [as has been pointed out, it's quite short]. It adds quite a bit of context considering basically anyone who has the potential to top 16 (or top 32 even?) a national comes from brawl.


and again this isn't to assign blame, it's just pointing out the disparities in how the online smash 4 community receives knowledge

 

[Teshie U]

Almost every top player right now was a Brawl player of course (some weren't very good brawl players). Thats how any sequel works. As much as people will ***** about games being worlds apart, playing a previous title definitely gives you a leg up on people that started playing Smash on December 6th.

 

[Gawain]

People can do whatever they want, I'm just explaining the process. The initial post i responded to lists Terry as a sleeper, which might be true in the eyes of the online smash4 community, but s very far from accurate if you ask any of the high level players at a large-scale event.

Personally, I do think it's worth the time for people that like to talk/learn about smash 4 players to take the few moments to go through Brawl's history [as has been pointed out, it's quite short]. It adds quite a bit of context considering basically anyone who has the potential to top 16 (or top 32 even?) a national comes from brawl.


and again this isn't to assign blame, it's just pointing out the disparities in how the online smash 4 community receives knowledge

Fair enough. I have no stock in this conversation, I just think that is worth noting that a massive amount of Smash 4 players have come from melee or are just new and didn't really get info Brawl competition.

 

[Charoite]

What rare matchups you think we gonna see more in the top 64, 32 and 16?? if you look at the list the majority of the players use top,high, high or high mid tier characters, aside from dath,hungrybox, wii twerk trainer and Gimr.
correct me if , there are more players who use non high and top tier characters. (I am not saying ,,, are bad, but the high players think that they are not capable to face the majority of the high or top tier. ) there names that i dont know.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Even if Wario has a fart charging he's still the one who has to approach in a lot of cases. An opponent who doesn't approach a Wario with an uncharged waft won't approach a Wario with a charged waft either. Diddy, Sheik, Mario, Fox, Yoshi ... they beat Wario and they can beat Wario through approaching but they don't *have* to approach Wario in order to win. Waft or not, at the end of the day it's still Wario who has to do the approaching against them if they choose to not approach. You're not farting any of these characters out of neutral, if you wanna get that early kill in you're still gonna need them put in a disadvantaged position. That requires Wario to engage them in neutral first.

 

[juddy96]

So, let's talk Paragon!

]

Firefly isn't going, pretty sure FOW isn't either. D6 in all 3 games is the death pool (at the door registration). In B1, Arikie (NorCal PR #19) might be the 2nd seed in the pool, but he isn't even the top ranked NorCal player in that pool lol, Jodi Bleek is (PR #16) It really sucks that they have to play each other in losers finals

 

[Shaya]

Zomg, congratulations, we reached the next level.
I'm briefly locking (1 minute or so), so don't press post reply if you were writing one or you'll be sorry~

OP updated, hope you like it :D

 

[Shaya]

OLD~

Spoiler: Blurb

"You know nothing John Cyclone; Summer has come"
Smash 4 has now been out for close to three quarters of a year and it's crazy to think how much is different between now and the same point of time as Brawl. Even back then (about 6 months after release) we knew a tier list would be imperfect with the way the metagame advanced disproportionately across the cast. Now with balance patches coming in frequently, a major contrasting game play choice in customs on or off and a growing cast we're [hopefully understandably] behind. Behind the scenes at Smashboards we've been very wary of making an official list under these conditions, but I believe we can still proactively produce something that reflects some of our current understanding and create constructive discussion from it's results as we advance on.

The format I concocted covers roughly half the cast, focusing on the areas of viability which should be most distinct; the top and bottom contenders. The idea being that due to the volatile nature of character perception we are seeing in Smash Four that we should consider less and update on a frequent basis, hopefully having positive impact on competitive discourse (+ maybe becoming accurate/accepted... eventually). I queried over twenty high ranked players of their interest and to answer a survey of who they personally felt were the fifteen greatest threats and ten most underwhelming characters in the cast. I attempted some regional diversity but most asked were in the top thirty area of the Smashboards Rankings and were readily and easily contactable for me.

I left terms ambiguous in the survey but as responses came in that trended towards customs off and more 'tier bound' (rather than personal, the 'character main and regional ruleset' contrasting intention fell through) I informed others and they followed suit. In the future I hope to derive more from the data, increase the sampling size while making the process more seamless (what was hoping to take a week or so became over three).
Anyway without further ado...

The [15] Greatest Threats (ordered by mean)

​

Notable (unordered): []

The [11] Perceived Weakest (ordered alphabetically)

​

Spoiler: Condensed version

1. Sheik
2. Rosalina and Luma
3. Pikachu
4. Luigi
5. Zero Suit Samus
6. Fox
7. Sonic
8. Mario
9. Ness
10. Yoshi
11. Diddy Kong
12. R.O.B.
13. Falcon
14. Olimar
15. Meta Knight
16-20. Pits, Lucario, ["Customs Legal"] Mii Brawler, Villager, Wario

~

"44th to 54th"
King Dedede, Doctor Mario, Ganondorf, Jigglypuff, Lucina, Mewtwo, Mii Gunner, Mii Swordsman, Samus, WiiFit Trainer, Zelda

DISCLAIMER

1. These are only tallied opinions and are geared more towards results and the current metagame. This shouldn't be taken literally as a list of the best and worst characters but rather those which have shown the greatest impact and those of little influence.
   
   
2. I did not force any one paradigm onto surveyed players, force them to justify themselves or otherwise. How you would perceive these questions and how you would respond is your own prerogative. Just like we clash with Japanese perceptions, players at different levels can also contrast heavily (although all share relevancy).
   
   
3. The game changes fast enough for answers from an individual to be feasibly quite different now to what they provided merely recently. Every weekend things can drastically change; an upset with a relatively unseen character or balance change inferences either actuating or flopping in the short term; relaaax.

Result Synopsis
The top eleven characters in voting were virtually static, even in placement order; with the mean of subsequent character's tallies being roughly +1 higher than the previous; Sheik averaged 1.57 to Diddy Kong's 11.32 (years of Brawl Tier Lists made this surprising). Opinions for those after strayed greatly with eight frequently tallied but when scaled by frequency were far from the aforementioned eleven. Twenty-nine different characters were seen in the upper votes.
As stated, most respondents considered things with customs unavailable; however Mii Brawler appeared in several lists and also sometimes noted as "if customs legal X ... otherwise Y". Brawler, unlike most characters, can be seen as a definite instance of a huge skew of viability based only on customs. If I were to count those latter instances he would've been roughly 16th, although many indicated they felt Brawler is top 10 level with full option availability. "Four" other characters didn't make the cut while being fairly close and I felt that noting them would be constructive. For the Pits, it is a lot easier considering them as one character when considering viability and this is a growing standard.

For the bottom ten, I did not consider orderings in the results, I felt certain it would not be appropriate at this time (also significantly more difficult to answer). Unlike the top part, no characters were unanimously listed and although fielding a third less input still had a range of 27 characters. We ended up having a tied 10th place, so an eleventh has been included. As a rehash of the disclaimer, I don't believe any characters listed are definitively unviable or 'worst in the cast', but their meta advancements and exposure are under appreciated, a lot can be done to remedy this! Do all these characters deserve buffs [more so than others]?

Five characters appeared in the lists of both high and bottom; excluding outliers the three notable were Ike, Kirby and Mii Brawler. Only four characters did not appear in any list, but again excluding outliers the characters with no particular indications were Bowser, Bowser Jr, Duck Hunt, Falco, Lucas, Megaman, Pacman and Shulk.

Credits
All of the following contributed and they're all great people who care for our community. Right now many are competing at Evo2k15 and you can show your support to them through messaging them through Twitter or here. Most have helpful youtube channels or frequently stream and are fantastic to learn from and for getting to know them, so if you haven't already you should check them out.
A lot more "things" should be coming in the near future on Smashboards and this is hopefully a good precursor for that. I didn't contribute a vote but I'm a pretty keen metagame analyst, feel free to ask me questions here or to my Twitter @ShayaJP

@Nairo @Dabuz @LarryLurr @MVD @ESAM
@6WX @NickRiddle @Seagull Joe @RichBrown @8Bitman
@Xzax @AeroLink @Rayquaza07 * @Espy Rose @J.Miller
* respectable hermit (but maybe with enough love will get a twitter account)

"this will be a magic post"

 

[TriTails]

Even if Wario has a fart charging he's still the one who has to approach in a lot of cases. An opponent who doesn't approach a Wario with an uncharged waft won't approach a Wario with a charged waft either. Diddy, Sheik, Mario, Fox, Yoshi ... they beat Wario and they can beat Wario through approaching but they don't *have* to approach Wario in order to win. Waft or not, at the end of the day it's still Wario who has to do the approaching against them if they choose to not approach. You're not farting any of these characters out of neutral, if you wanna get that early kill in you're still gonna need them put in a disadvantaged position. That requires Wario to engage them in neutral first.

So, uh, you're basically saying to let Wario charge a move that can kill you as low as 50%, comes out almost instantly and I'm friggin' sure it's unreactable, and got a huge*** hitbox.

Then he can approach. Okay. You put him in numerous disadvantage state and he can still be alive thanks to his weight. He put you in disadvantage state once or twice and you're ****ed.

 

[Smog Frog]

@ Shaya when you're taking results into account, are you weighting them?

 

[Pazx]

Top 23 (/"Greatest Threats") looks REALLY good to me. So good, in fact, that if you compare it to the top 25 (discounting Miis) of my own tier list from a few weeks ago the only characters I've "missed" are Peach and Megaman (#26 and #30 respectively). If I were to make a prediction I'd say that Ike and Greninja are the two characters most likely to join the "Greatest Threats" category over time, they probably already belong there but the lack of representation is likely what holds them back. Pleased to see the update released and pleased to see that my own opinions aren't far off that of top players (am I criminally overrating Wario? Yes. Opinion on Marth/Pac-Man has also fallen a little).

@ Shaya when you're taking results into account, are you weighting them?

I don't think results are taken into account, as this is (or was originally) just a survey of top player opinions.

 

[Ghostbone]

lol at WFT being bottom 11 again.

Someday people will realise this character is good.

 

[Shaya]

I don't think results are taken into account, as this is (or was originally) just a survey of top player opinions.

It still is, just I'm showing how the top 15/bottom 10 of nineteen players reflects on all 54 characters~

-
Perhaps I haven't been saying it outwardly enough when people have been talking about Luigi's spot, but Luigi appeared between 3rd and 5th for 61% of his inclusions this time around. Despite his flaws, he is a scary and relevant character still in many player's eyes. Maybe not forever, but still... for now.
Besides Sheik, everyone else is kinda indeterminate in that area I find... too reflective of just individual player's results at the highest level, with the characters with large and/or growing forces of players doing well falling behind them, although they may not necessarily be better either.

lol at WFT being bottom 11 again.

Someday people will realise this character is good.

I do think this will be less likely to happen in the next one... I hope.I try to avoid pointing people in certain directions but with wii fit... ughhh

 

[Ghostbone]

Edit: I'm looking at the wrong thing RIP

Palutena still criminally underrated.

 

[Routa]

These are only tallied opinions and are geared more towards results and the current metagame. This shouldn't be taken literally as a list of the best and worst characters but rather those which have shown the greatest impact and those of little influence.

This does explain why Luigi is so high and Mii Swordfighter so low.

A bit odd to see Rob over Wario, but then again I really don't know anything about Rob's theory.

 

[Browny]

Outside of Megaman in the same tier as DK (seriously wtf, does not compute), Falco in the same tier as Pacman and Marth 2 tiers above Lucina, I think its fine.

I mean, given that there is always going to be bias I can't expect some perfect results based list. That is mostly related to WFT who to me, has the worst representation : potential ratio of any character (While falcon has the highest)

 

[Trifroze]

Looks decent, although I'd label myself as one of the Samus heroes and say that Japan's got her situation right whereas we still keep putting her in the bottom 3 for whatever reason. The way most of her moves work together in advantage and allow tons of follow ups based on DI and percentage is pretty much like Pikachu, just more damage and hell, probably more possibilities because of the range she has as well as charge shot. Take DA -> uair -> uair -> up b at 0% for instance: 23 hits, 42 damage. Dthrow is also obviously a low-mid percent combo throw.

Disadvantage for her isn't bad as she's heavy and floaty, and her aerial mobility (accel/decel) is amazing. Getting off the ledge with her and generally playing around in there seems easy since she can just drop off and jump with fair or uair and then retreat if it didn't work out and try something else before the opponent can punish. Probably has the best initial walk speed (and animation, also shoutouts to pummel) in the game as well, and can shield only 8 frames after starting a dash (same as Sheik).

Samus' kill options are good enough as well, her bair being almost as strong as Ganondorf's with faster startup, more range and hitting a lot of characters from a rising shorthop. Charge shot is obviously strong and also has some trap setups into it (not sure of combos personally, that'd be amazing though) and fsmash is quick, strong and relatively safe for a smash like that. Up B kills ridiculously early OoS with rage, off of combos or on low ceiling stages.

It's Samus' neutral that's actually bad about her gameplay and it's among the worst in the game, something that would change a lot if her ridiculously dumb jab got fixed and if missiles received a considerable buff of some sort, although I'm down for more functioning bombs as well. Zair is good and that's about it, in some matchups you get to play around with CS and in some you don't, same with rising SH aerials like nair and bair. Falling uair to up b is a frame trap that works decently well because it's hard for the opponent to know when to drop their shield. DA punishes things and catches people by surprise, setting up for massive combos at low and mid percents.

This is the character I'm waiting for to receive some gamechanging overall buffs. I don't get why such an iconic gun/missile fighter character has such terrible missiles and bombs, and a victory taunt jab that's clearly better than the one she uses for fighting.

 

[Ze Diglett]

And R.O.B. continues to be overrated. At least he went down, I guess.
also lol @ lucas and shulk still being criminally underrated

 

[Nidtendofreak]

And R.O.B. continues to be overrated. At least he went down, I guess.
also lol @ lucas and shulk still being criminally underrated

Its less a true tier list and more "likelihood of running into one of these characters and them being a legitimate threat on top of it" tier list. Slightly different criteria, more experienced based and almost no potential factored in which is why I haven't commented really on Ike's placement there. But in this criteria you're absolutely not going to think you're going to run into a Lucas or a Shulk, and if you do you are by far rather likely to be facing a scrub. They aren't threats in tournaments.

Frankly, its Lucina that's underrated: I can name a few high level players that will whip her out from time to time like Ryo and NEO. You're more likely to run into her AND have somebody behind her that's competent than Lucas or Shulk.

 

[PUK]

What that's ROB bashing today? Seriously he's not overrated, he has very strong tool and very strong weaknesses like most of the low high tier. I bet you want the uthrow back...

 

[bc1910]

I feel like while Lucina probably is a better character than that, the fact that for competitive purposes she is almost entirely outclassed by Marth in such an extreme way, she is indeed one of the worst characters in the game competitively if not THE worst. Even though she as a raw character is certainly not the worst. It's pretty bizarre.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

I feel like while Lucina probably is a better character than that, the fact that for competitive purposes she is almost entirely outclassed by Marth in such an extreme way, she is indeed one of the worst characters in the game competitively if not THE worst. Even though she as a raw character is certainly not the worst. It's pretty bizarre.

Then Marth would be bottom 10 because they're identical in almost every way and the tipper mechanic isn't strong enough to make Marth that much better than Lucina

 

[Amadeus9]

Then Marth would be bottom 10 because they're identical in almost every way and the tipper mechanic isn't strong enough to make Marth that much better than Lucina

You missed the point entirely. Lucina is not competitively viable because Marth is so much better. There is no reason to ever use her over Marth in a competitive environment. That's the definition of being an underwhelming character. And yes, the tipper is that strong, it's been beaten to death the past few weeks so I'm not going to do your work for you by digging up those posts.