Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Locke 06]

Lucy is beginner Marth. Optimal Marth>optimal Lucina.

However, pocket Lucina is arguably better than pocket Marth. I know my Lucy is better than my Marth except in some MU's where I need the tipper. I don't know enough about Marth's sourspots>tipper stuff to make him better. Wouldn't be surprised if that's true with some others who play Marcina as a pocket.

People are still bad at this game. She's not irrelevant.

 

[M15t3R E]

This may hurt to some people but there's truly no need for Lucina or Dark Pit in this game.

 

[Wintropy]

Dark Pit has a couple of differences that can help him out in a competitive environment.

By which I mean Electroshock Arm is a tiny bit more useful in a small handful of matchups.

Rosalina is the obvious one. Doc and Little Mac deserve a mention too.

Irrespective of whether there's a need for them, the characters are in the game, so people will play them. That's the way it is.

 

[PUK]

There is no more need for any other character. Pls don't forget the purpose of the game.
Playing lucina or dark pit is a matter of preferences. If you just want to win, you play sheik.

 

[Rizen]

Link's in the bottom 18 where he belongs I wish Sakurai would give him some slightly better frame data.

Why is DK so high?

 

[bc1910]

People are riding Ding Dong hype pretty hard, aided by M2K's return to Smash 4.

 

[M15t3R E]

I see Lucina and Dark Pit as a mark of laziness by the development team. I'd take no issue with them if they were their own unique character, but it's hard to make that case for them.

 

[Spinosaurus]

I see Lucina and Dark Pit as a mark of laziness by the development team. I'd take no issue with them if they were their own unique character, but it's hard to make that case for them.

This is not the thread for this.

Anywho, I agree that Lucina doesn't belong in the bottom 10.

 

[Pegasus Knight]

I see Lucina and Dark Pit as a mark of laziness by the development team. I'd take no issue with them if they were their own unique character, but it's hard to make that case for them.

And you would be wrong.

Sakurai admitted that adding them as separate clone characters did not take much effort, certainly far far less than adding them as fully realized new designs would have. He had the time to do it on the side, so he did it as a favor to fans of Lucina and Dark Pit.

Could he have just tossed them in as alt-skins on Marth and Pit? Sure. I would have been happy with that too. But he opted to go this route instead, and it is what it is. This wasn't lazy, this was Sakurai being nice and slipping in a couple of 'nods to the fans' clones on the side when he was already quite busy.

The case for them is "it was low effort, we had most of the materials already here to make clones out of them, and we thought fans would be pleased by this." I'd rather low-effort clone favors on the side than not having the extra side things with nothing to replace them.

EDIT: Sorry, did not see the post immediately above saying this is off topic (it went up RIGHT before mine!). If you want me to delete this post, I will!

 

[Zelder]

I for one hate extra content in things I purchase.

Anyways, I mostly agree with pro tier list at this time. Though I think of Luigi as a tourney threat (if your character isn't ready for him you're gonna get walloped) rather than a tier threat (he's not going to be in the top 8 of major tournaments, most likely)

 

[HFlash]

I think it's important to note that even though a character might not be objectively "bad" does not mean that they are automatically better than 10 other characters or more (and conversely, that the bottom 10 in Smash 4 are absolutely unviable). People keep saying "Oh, X character isn't bottom 10, or Y character isn't bottom 10." If your character isn't bottom 10, then someone has to be. 10/54 = .185 so roughly 19 percent or so of the cast HAS to be bottom ten.

 

[TTTTTsd]

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.

Yeah it's weird, I used to think this way about Dr. Mario but the patches, while minor, kind of added neat stuff like his USmash being the best, etc.

He also does edgeguard better than Mario if I recall. I won't go as far as to say Lucina is the WORST character but, I do think that being outshined, for her, is her real largest problem IMO.

Dark Pit is basically Pit with worse arrows and weaker Ftilt + diff Side-B, not enough to really matter outside of a few specific MUs. Dr. Mario is basically an entirely different character with copypasted frame data thanks to all the property changes and just how he works, but Lucina is just...Marth without tippers and a worse Utilt + less vertical range on FSmash.

I do agree that she is way easier to pocket than Marth though, for all it's worth.

 

[Aunt Jemima]

My biggest problem with Marth/Lucina is that Lucina is even more broken than Marth is. Marth already carries an oddly large amount of deadzones with his moves, but Lucina just accentuates on this. This makes it so A LOT of moves will outright miss despite the sword going straight through them. I'm not sure if the sword trails are generated too early/late or if the hitboxes themselves are outright broken, but it doesn't make sense when the Falchion goes straight through something.

Also, what's the difference in their sword length? Whenever I play Lucina, if I ever space in tipper length it'll just... miss. I've heard ViperMoon say that the difference isn't noticeable, so it could just be me, but after playing Marth for some time, there's just this feeling that you know a tipper is going to land, but then you swing the sword and Lucina's like "nope". I believe this is actually contributing to the deadzones for Lucina because they may have cut off some hitboxes that are used with Marth without properly adjusting them.

 

[TTTTTsd]

My biggest problem with Marth/Lucina is that Lucina is even more broken than Marth is. Marth already carries an oddly large amount of deadzones with his moves, but Lucina just accentuates on this. This makes it so A LOT of moves will outright miss despite the sword going straight through them. I'm not sure if the sword trails are generated too early/late or if the hitboxes themselves are outright broken, but it doesn't make sense when the Falchion goes straight through something.

Also, what's the difference in their sword length? Whenever I play Lucina, if I ever space in tipper length it'll just... miss. I've heard ViperMoon say that the difference isn't noticeable, so it could just be me, but after playing Marth for some time, there's just this feeling that you know a tipper is going to land, but then you swing the sword and Lucina's like "nope". I believe this is actually contributing to the deadzones for Lucina because they may have cut off some hitboxes that are used with Marth without properly adjusting them.

It has something to do with her height being different I think, there ARE actual deadzones, I encourage people to try it! Fsmash under a BF platform on vs. Bowser with Marth, and try it with Lucina. Lucina's will whiff.

I feel like all of her hitboxes warrant investigation. I'm just not dedicated enough to do it.

 

[Vipermoon]

Even when her height difference is not a factor, her moves have less range. I forgot the reason if there was one but the Lucina boards can tell you more (I never visit).

But both characters have horrible deadzones in many attacks. Short characters are not hard MUs because of height, they are hard MUs because of the dumb lack of hitboxes.

 

[ぱみゅ]

How does being outclassed affect her matchups, at all?
As in, if we pretend Marth doesn't exist at all, are her matchups good enough to separate her from that bottom 10? I think yes.
Like bottom 20 easily, but not that terrible.

Also, Sakurai said something about Lucina being slightly shorter than Marth.

 

[M15t3R E]

I apologize. I am just disappointed with clone characters on principle. Enough about that. Are we discussing Lucina's viability? I am interested in arguments for her to be higher in the tier list. I admit I know very little about her.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

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.

I didn't miss a thing, he said lucina is one of the worst characters in the game. different points entirely.
EDIT: i'm wrong, you're right.
my bad

 

[M15t3R E]

In her defense, you cannot really judge her position in the tier list by Marth's placement. Sure, wherever Marth is she will likely be lower on the totem pole but she, like anyone else, must be judged on her own merits because there are Awakening fan boys (I am one of them) who wish to use her over Marth.

 

[ItsRainingGravy]

Also, what's the difference in their sword length? Whenever I play Lucina, if I ever space in tipper length it'll just... miss. I've heard ViperMoon say that the difference isn't noticeable, so it could just be me, but after playing Marth for some time, there's just this feeling that you know a tipper is going to land, but then you swing the sword and Lucina's like "nope". I believe this is actually contributing to the deadzones for Lucina because they may have cut off some hitboxes that are used with Marth without properly adjusting them.

I remember a video being posted on the front page showing the differences between Marth and Lucina. Though unfortunately, I can't find it.

The difference in range isn't because of the small height difference, though. Rather, it is because they most likely removed the tipper hitbox entirely as opposed to just replacing it with a weaker hitbox. So yeah, basically what you said is probably correct.

 

[Wintropy]

As PUK said, when you break it right down to its core essence, we play characters because we want to play the character. The game would be a lot simpler and the state of the meta easier to define if everybody just played "the best" character. But that isn't how it works. There will be people who play a certain character with the sole intent of winning, there will be people who play the character to represent the character. If that wasn't the case, we wouldn't have Bowser players, Dedede players, Ganondorf players, Falco players - we'd just have an infinity of Sheiks vying for dominance.

Lucina is objectively weaker than Marth. That much is undeniable. But people will play the character regardless because they like the character. Competitively it's the poorer option, but there will always be a reason why people go for the poorer option. Maybe they like the character. Maybe they do it to style. But from where I'm standing, it's degrees of separation. Why play the poor man's Marth when you can just play Marth? Why play Marth when you can play Sheik?

If you want to win, you just play Sheik. Anything else is playing your favourite character for the sake of playing the character.

 

[A_Kae]

I remember a video being posted on the front page showing the differences between Marth and Lucina. Though unfortunately, I can't find it.

The difference in range isn't because of the small height difference, though. Rather, it is because they most likely removed the tipper hitbox entirely as opposed to just replacing it with a weaker hitbox.

http://smashboards.com/threads/before-you-ask-the-differences-between-marth-and-lucina.376180/

Some specific stuff is a bit out of date, (the damage stuff, mainly) but it's correct for the most part.

And no, it's not because the tipper hitbox was removed. Lucina has identical hitboxes, as far as number, placement, and sizes go, as Marth. If that was the case, the range difference would be very significant. It's small. Barely worth mentioning, really.

 

[bc1910]

Yeah it's weird, I used to think this way about Dr. Mario but the patches, while minor, kind of added neat stuff like his USmash being the best, etc.

He also does edgeguard better than Mario if I recall. I won't go as far as to say Lucina is the WORST character but, I do think that being outshined, for her, is her real largest problem IMO.

Dark Pit is basically Pit with worse arrows and weaker Ftilt + diff Side-B, not enough to really matter outside of a few specific MUs. Dr. Mario is basically an entirely different character with copypasted frame data thanks to all the property changes and just how he works, but Lucina is just...Marth without tippers and a worse Utilt + less vertical range on FSmash.

I do agree that she is way easier to pocket than Marth though, for all it's worth.

Yeah, I agree with all of this. Sounds obvious, but Doc has a lot of different properties which make him play like a different character. Most of his moves are different in terms of damage, knockback or effect somehow, and he has a totally different Dair and Down B. I wouldn't quite class him as a semi-clone but I think he's exactly how a clone should be. Melee had it right with most of its clones in terms of putting a new spin on the same moveset, and that carried over to Smash 4 with Doc.

I definitely don't think Lucina is the worst, it's just a case of her being totally outshined on a competitive level. Her being easier to pocket is probably a useful advantage though (her only one?). It's just at top level with optimal play where she becomes close to useless.

Dark Pit's competitive use is suspect but I think, ironically, he is saved by just how similar he is to Pit. People are perfectly happy to rank the Pits as one character which basically saves DP from Lucina syndrome, which he could otherwise suffer from. You don't see people ranking Marth and Lucina together.

I think Lucina's situation is similar but worse than Melee Roy's, who is also invalidated by Marth at top or even high level play. Roy, though, does have alterations that make him play differently to Marth even though he's strictly worse in most situations.

 

[Gunla]

I'd say prime examples of what a "semi-clone" should be like would be Doc; the right kind of changes to make it so they feel different in playstyle, but don't require heavy man-hours to create. (I don't really consider Wolf a clone, nor Falco at this point; Lucas I would honestly say was at Luigified status from the beginning, having a few similar properties but a lot of other different things.)

Competitively, Lucina is sadly outshined due to her design. I'm guessing she's primarily placed at Underwhelming because there's little reason to use Lucina (a bit similar to why Doc is better than Mario in Melee, or at least my opinion; at the highest level of play, Doc has that slightly better matchup with spacies, which is why he's higher) because Marth will get you better results and simply has better abilities. I personally don't see Lucina as bottom 10, but she's definitely a step down from Marth to the point where she will be at least a few spots down.

There's a reason why there's the "A skilled Roy can beat any Fox" joke. Melee Roy is completely invalidated by Marth and he's bottom 5, 3 or even sometimes considered the absolute worst character in Melee. (But this thread isn't about Melee, yeah? It's about Smash 4) because of the fact that his changes just make him even worse, giving him less effective tools. Fortunately for Lucina, she at least has a carbon copy of Marth's moveset, save for physical attributes and her blade.

Dark Pit I think should still be placed right next to Pit and I agree with the stick to it. Yes, there's changes and the arrows and the Ftilt are notable, but they are literally carbon copies of each other with slightly different tools for each occasion. A minor advantage shouldn't really put Dark Pit a few spots behind Pit unless it's a major issue of turning one matchup from an advantage to even or disadvantage.

 

[Ffamran]

Lucy is beginner Marth.

In theory, that's what the developers and most people think, especially in say, FFA or even doubles, but in 1v1 and doubles, a mastered, TAS, optimal, perfect play Marth is the "beginner's" character and Lucina's the hard mode character.

In games with difficulty settings and ways to limit yourself for challenge runs, Marth is the 100%, regular, and mastered run. Marth is like going through Master Ninja mode of Ninja Gaiden knowing everything, having back plans for backup plans, and having all your options available to you. Lucina is like going through that, but limiting yourself to no upgrades, no Izuna Drops, and using only the wooden sword. Lucina is like playing Metal Gear Solid 3 on the hardest difficulty while using only CQC - I don't think that's possible - unless a situation requires using a weapon like the Shagohod boss fight and using only the Naked camo.

Marth's tippers are more than just more kill power on Side Smash reads. Tippers are a mechanic that opens up options for Marth which considering all his moves have them means Marth has twice the options as Lucina. Having that many options makes Marth easier to use, but a bit difficult to understand as you'll have to figure out when to use what option. Lucina is consistent, but so is Marth except he has 2 consistent options.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

If you are a Pit main you are, by definition, a Dark Pit main too and vice versa. The same can't really be said about any other characters. For this reason, Pit and Dark Pit should be considered the same on a tier list. If you disagree, I ask you this:
Who is both better than Dark Pit and worse than Pit?
That is all.

 

[Amadeus9]

Don't get me wrong on Lucina. I'd put her somewhere around 20 or so from the bottom. She's pretty solid, you can't have Marth's move set and not be solid, but it makes sense that top players would rate her so poorly because of her relationship with Marth. And I think they're pretty justified in that stance, too.

 

[Wintropy]

It's totally justified.

It isn't a strict tier list in the sense of "who's the most viable?"

It's a bunch of top players discussing who's reckoned to be best / poorest characters in terms of doing stuff and defining the state of the meta.

Lucina has, for better or for worse, had no discernible impact on the meta.

I love the character, she's mah gurl, but it's fair that competitive players who'd otherwise go for Lucina and who want to win would go for a better character.

I think it's totally unfair to say she's objectively a poor character in terms of mechanical structure, but she is definitely outdone by her better half.

 

[Vipermoon]

Even as a pocket character Marth is a better choice. Anyone with good fundamentals can perform better with Marth. If you assume low level play, maybe Lucina is the better pocket. But we don't assume that here.

In this video, it shows the weird range difference using Fsmash (I don't know if it applies to more than Fsmash). Character height shouldn't matter on frames 12 and 13 of Fsmash. So the fact the Lucina's whiffed (didn't even phantom hit) and Marth's hit is weird. I know everything we can see about their hitboxes are the same (like A_Kae said) so there must be something else at play.

Also ignore Marth's attitude in this video, in the FE games he is the complete opposite.

This comes to mind... (attached)

 

[bc1910]

And now, a chilling expose on Greninja's nerfed hurtbox.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

And now, a chilling expose on Greninja's nerfed hurtbox.

This hardly matters. My proof? We didn't even notice it until now. What's more is that this is specifically a nerfed hurbox on his crouch, making it even less meaningful than your post implies. There is nothing "chilling" about this. It's about as important is that 1% nerf to Kirby's Fsmash when angled up.

 

[A_Kae]

Even as a pocket character Marth is a better choice. Anyone with good fundamentals can perform better with Marth. If you assume low level play, maybe Lucina is the better pocket. But we don't assume that here.

In this video, it shows the weird range difference using Fsmash (I don't know if it applies to more than Fsmash). Character height shouldn't matter on frames 12 and 13 of Fsmash. So the fact the Lucina's whiffed (didn't even phantom hit) and Marth's hit is weird. I know everything we can see about their hitboxes are the same (like A_Kae said) so there must be something else at play.

Also ignore Marth's attitude in this video, in the FE games he is the complete opposite.

This comes to mind... (attached)

Mario is in a different idle animation when Lucina hits, maybe that has something do with it?

 

[Ffamran]

And now, a chilling expose on Greninja's nerfed hurtbox.

It kind of looks like it's hitting his ear... Those are ears, right?

 

[bc1910]

This hardly matters. My proof? We didn't even notice it until now. What's more is that this is specifically a nerfed hurbox on his crouch, making it even less meaningful than your post implies. There is nothing "chilling" about this. It's about as important is that 1% nerf to Kirby's Fsmash when angled up.

Chilling was just a fun word to use, why do people in this thread take everything so literally... Sometimes things are tongue-in-cheek.

I noticed this immediately after it happened because I couldn't crouch under Falco's lasers any more, I'm only just getting round to making a video about it.

Fixing this shouldn't be the highest priority for Greninja but it would be nice. It's far more important than you're making it sound, at least. We used to be able to crouch Sheik's needles, for one thing.

@ Ffamran I think the exact hurtbox is that little spike between his "ears"? It's slightly higher than that spike, and I think the front of his head still has the old hurtbox judging by the glancing blow caused by Hadoken and other things like Samus' Super Missiles. It glances in the middle of his head, not the front.

 

[FullMoon]

If nothing else Greninja has the dubious honor of being the only character to have his hurtbox nerfed, of all things.

 

[Blobface]

Weren't Dark Pit and Lucina originally intended as alternate skins, but they started adding different properties to them and eventually just decided to make them have their own slot? I imagine they figured it would be really unintuitive for your color choice to affect how your character plays, so they decided to make them their own character. I don't think the clones "replaced" any potential characters.

The only game where clones might've replaced potential characters is Melee, which wasn't a result of laziness, but having only 13 months of development.

And thank god, people finally aren't calling Ganondorf a bloody clone.

I'm surprised that top players rate Ganondorf as one of the weakest, but there's not a lot of Ganon mains to begin with and really good ones that can also frequent tournaments are pretty rare. I don't think Kalm/Verm have even been able to make anything bigger than a regional between them.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Weren't Dark Pit and Lucina originally intended as alternate skins, but they started adding different properties to them and eventually just decided to make them have their own slot? I imagine they figured it would be really unintuitive for your color choice to affect how your character plays, so they decided to make them their own character. I don't think the clones "replaced" any potential characters.

The only game where clones might've replaced potential characters is Melee, which wasn't a result of laziness, but having only 13 months of development.

And thank god, people finally aren't calling Ganondorf a bloody clone.

I'm surprised that top players rate Ganondorf as one of the weakest, but there's not a lot of Ganon mains to begin with and really good ones that can also frequent tournaments are pretty rare. I don't think Kalm/Verm have even been able to make anything bigger than a regional between them.

Dr. Mario was intended as a skin too (which would've been totally fine as long as the game still called him "DOCTORRR MARIOOO" but hey, I'll take a unique clone I guess. Even if he's dubiously low tier he's still pretty decent and a lot of fun.

And yeah calling Ganondorf a clone or any variation of it is really a pet peeve of mine. Sharing animations doesn't equal a full on clone. Plebs will never understand.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Yay! We're talking about Lucina again! I love talking about Forward Smash, the character.

Are we still all putting her 80 places below Morth? I think that the hitlag changes has helped Marth, but his tipper attacks are probably still less safe on shield compared to Lucina's, but it's just less than before.

I would probably put Marth and Lucina next to each other on the tier list at this point. They're both in a pretty good spot at this point in time.

 

[ILOVESMASH]

Since when has a character being completely outclassed led them to being the worst character in the game? Most people considered mario to be completely outclassed by doc in melee, yet he still considered a high / mid tier character.

 

[|RK|]

Lucina's placement really depends on what the tier list represents. Is it primarily ranking characters in order of viability? Then maybe she shouldn't be too far below Marth. Is it ranking characters depending on whether they're worth playing? Then she can be way below Marth.

Since I assume tier lists primarily represent the former, Marth's clear superiority doesn't affect Lucina's placement much. So she probably shouldn't be too far below Marth. That's my logic, anyways.