Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[TriTails]

I'm not sure if I can take your whole post seriously if you don't even know about your main's up smash.

 

[meleebrawler]

I am willing to sit 8 minutes mashing B and I WILL wait until you make the move in even sudden death if I have to. Why? Because you are literally in no position to harm me.

Or hell, I'll just stop spamming Fireballs and do the same thing with your Hadokens. PS everything and Fireballing the fiery ones. We'll see who is the most patient then. If I'm the one who is spamming Hadokens? You screw up, you take damage or shield damage. I screw up? I take nothing~.

Players' mental fortitude is not relevant when most players have different way of play. Me? You either approach or I'll spam Fireballs until your shield button breaks or you make a move. Plain n' simple.

-Luigi tries spamming Fireballs to get Ryu to approach
-Ryu powershields his way through and eventually dsmashes which handily outranges anything Luigi has and can't punish except
on powershield due to slipperiness. And it's a frame 5 move so hard to do on reaction.
-Repeat
-In the event that Luigi ever tries to jump to approach his air speed his bad enough to easily dragon punch, or use one of his normal anti-airs against short-hops (mainly usmash) to avoid fair.

 

[Smog Frog]

am i being baited? i have the strongest urge to tear this post to bits

e: the giant 20 paragraph post about

 

[Wintermelon43]

I'm not sure if I can take your whole post seriously if you don't even know about your main's up smash.

I made that a few months ago, I need to update it a little.

am i being baited? i have the strongest urge to tear this post to bits

e: the giant 20 paragraph post about

???

 

[Emblem Lord]

This x100.

The last like 4 or 5 personal tier lists [including Thinkaman's] that have been posted in this thread all had Roy a whole tier above Marth, which doesn't make sense as Marth is better at just about everything. The only thing about Roy that's better than Marth is his dthrow but I can't think of a single matchup where Roy would be a better choice than Marth regardless.

@ ~ Gheb ~ Im gonna need you to stop being so intelligent. You making alot of people look bad.

 

[shane3x]

He said it in a recent video too, about a month ago I believe. "I already thought without customs he could potentntially be high tier character, but with customs he could even be top tier, but I can't put him there because no results so far"

He never said high tier or top tier in the entire time he talks about Kirby in "ZeRo's Smash Bros Wii U Tier List - Mid Tiers - Part 3". He said "I could see him being higher". Considering Zero put him 23rd on his list this isn't Top tier "even with shiek and advantage against zero suit" by any means.

 

[bc1910]

Roy's Fthrow is better than Marth's in customs off. Customs on, Crescent Slash is a thing, so yeah...

 

[TriTails]

-Luigi tries spamming Fireballs to get Ryu to approach
-Ryu powershields his way through and eventually dsmashes which handily outranges anything Luigi has and can't punish except
on powershield due to slipperiness. And it's a frame 5 move so hard to do on reaction.
-Repeat
-In the event that Luigi ever tries to jump to approach his air speed his bad enough to easily dragon punch, or use one of his normal anti-airs against short-hops (mainly usmash) to avoid fair.

Then I go mindgames with him. If he tries to PS in, I go for DG, which can be countered by spotdodge, which can be countered by dash to shieldgrab, which is countered by grab.

If I shorthop, I retreat back and shoot a Fireball. Or just bait the Shoryuken and punish. Fireball to 'punish' the U-smash. Or use my spaced B-air which is safe on shield.

This is why I'm not good at discussing MUs lol. I usually don't know what I did there and there unless I saved a replay and go like 'Eh, I usually do this... wait, why did I do that?'.

 

[Wintermelon43]

He never said high tier or top tier in the entire time he talks about Kirby in "ZeRo's Smash Bros Wii U Tier List - Mid Tiers - Part 3". He said "I could see him being higher". Considering Zero put him 23rd on his list this isn't Top tier "even with shiek and advantage against zero suit" by any means.

He mentioned it in his "Most underrated charcters in the metagame" video (Or something along those lines)

 

[shane3x]

He mentioned it in his "Most underrated charcters in the metagame" video (Or something along those lines)

That video was May. The Mid Tiers Video was June.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Underrated in Zero's mind = can fight Sheik

 

[Shaya]

It says a lot about a character.

 

[Ghostbone]

Underrated in Zero's mind = can fight Sheik

Well it is the most important factor for a character's viability.
And if you have the tools to compete with Sheik you probably have the tools to compete with anyone.

 

[bc1910]

I always take it with a grain (more like mountain) of salt when ZeRo describes a character as underrated because despite the fact he apparently thinks they're good, competitively he still wouldn't touch them with a barge pole.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Well it is the most important factor for a character's viability.
And if you have the tools to compete with Sheik you probably have the tools to compete with anyone.

Except no. Other higher tiers still give him problems.

He may be a legit counter pick which would give him a place in the meta, but thats it.

At least from what we have seen thus far.

 

[Ghostbone]

So can we talk about the real elephant in the room more?

Wii fit trainer

A bottom 10 character doesn't outperform staples like Luigi, Yoshi and Falcon, customs or no. We didn't see any DK's in top 32 of evo, despite wind kong being allowed, clearly the rest of the character's traits are still important. (sure we saw custom villagers but villager is already considered a good character in default, look at ranai) I'm of the opinion that her best set is 1121 anyway so she's not actually that different between the metagames.

She has the best chargeable projectile in the game (compared to stuff like samus or lucario), has dumb combos from neutral air, good mobility (wavebounce/b-reverse air-dodges are super dumb), amazing kill power with deep breathing or just bair OoS, one of the best ledge games because her side-b is so good, her throws don't combo but do good damage and set up opponents for landing/air-dodge traps, etc.
She has trouble with super short characters but most of the cast aren't pikachu height.
She just has better results than 70% (random number) of the characters in this game yet people think she's bottom tier, doesn't make sense.

 

[Antonykun]

All these people with infractions, its like they don't understand that shaya hates baseless tier lists
anywhos as a mii main i feel like i must give my opinions on mii size modification
I personally don't beleive they should be used. The miis are desinged around their mobility and mii modifications allow them to have better mobility than that granted the miis aren't really doing much outside of knee jerking with brawlers up b

I wont force any mii mains to make themselves default seeing as they really don't do much an their optimal sizes have been found i will just try to stick default swordfighter when i can

 

[Man Li Gi]

Before anyone makes anymore tier lists, can we agree on a unified meta? I mean, all the Smash Tourneys seems to be TO based, not ruleset or meta based.

I mean I have my own preferences how the meta should function, but since no one is really going out of their way to say this. Also, if someone does, they find themselves under immense hell fire. I've been to all Illinois tourneys have gone through a lot of different rulesets. Just a sample: 1 stock 2/5, 2/6,3/8, 3 Stage ban, 5 stage ban, 7 stage ban, 9 stage, FLSS, customs, banned customs, default miis, custom miis, heavy landing, that badge that reduces landing lag (I think smooth lander?????).......in other words, a lot of varied styles to play relatively the same game.

This is and would be immensely confusing for someone who is in our scene to just pick up and adapt to all the different ways to play the same game. I'm not even going to speak about how difficult it is to come in as a new player at this point because that deserves it's own post.

My thing is, I feel like the Smash 4 community bends over back for a lot of new players only for the newer players to be ultimately dissatisfied for the slightest inconvenience or disagreement leading to inflated numbers for attendance, but poorer numbers in views.

Back to the topic at hand, tier lists. If we want to post tier lists (I really hate doing that though since we haven't agreed past stating that Sheik is number 1), I feel it's necessary to put Sheik as 1 in her own group, then group high tier, then upper mid, borderline, mid, bl2, lower mid, bl3, the bottom. When I mean group them, I mean put them in that tier, but know the order you list them as doesn't matter because there have been so many petty arguments about the placement of which rank they are in instead of which class they belong to.

Sorry if this post is long/wrong on this thread, but I didn't know where else to keep it.

 

[H.O.U.S.E.]

Um... Why is Doc bottom 10? I mean, nobody plays him so he doesn't have the results but he's an amazing defensive character with a great punish game due to fast smash attacks and Up B OoS. Not only that, but his sheet is better than Mario's cape in terms of edge guarding and his strings are quite deadly once you've taken control of the pace of the match. He has a tough time approaching, though if he gets approached he has many options to quickly and effectively punish most of the cast. Sure, he's got a bad recovery, lacks range and is inferior to Mario, but that is no reason for him to be bottom 10. He isn't the best, but absolutely not the worst. I believe he does well against Rosalina and has even matchup with Mario and Luigi, and if he ever gets more representation, it is not going to be something to be underestimated.

Then again, who am I to say that? Until there are results, I cannot prove my point.

 

[Browny]

So I finally bothered to look at Evo results and... I'm not surprised in the slightest!

Not a single captain falcon in top 32, or secondary. And neither in doubles!

I'm so ready for him to get knocked down a tier or two in peoples tier lists. He never deserved a spot in high tier to begin with.

Now before you infract me Shaya, I'm not starting a flame war. I'm just pointing out that Captain Falcon has never had results to justify his high-tier placement since the game came out and its not getting any better.

 

[Vipermoon]

Ryu's Bair has 12 frames of landing lag and does not auto cancel until frame 25, which you can't do out of a sh. If you call that safe then we aren't playing the same game, especially considering Smash 4 is a game where hitting a shield is worse than whiffing an attack. His frame data on the ground is pretty above average yeah, but the problem is getting in so that you can abuse it.

He has zero safe approach options outside of using Hadoukens to cover himself, and even then, you only need to block the first hit of his HCF variation to dispel the projectile.

I'm open to video analysis if you have anything to offer. Frame data suggests

Please don't start this conversation again but FRAME 25 AUTOCANCEL IS REALLY GOOD. Please don't use that as a negative point in your discussions.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Before anyone makes anymore tier lists, can we agree on a unified meta? I mean, all the Smash Tourneys seems to be TO based, not ruleset or meta based.

I mean I have my own preferences how the meta should function, but since no one is really going out of their way to say this. Also, if someone does, they find themselves under immense hell fire. I've been to all Illinois tourneys have gone through a lot of different rulesets. Just a sample: 1 stock 2/5, 2/6,3/8, 3 Stage ban, 5 stage ban, 7 stage ban, 9 stage, FLSS, customs, banned customs, default miis, custom miis, heavy landing, that badge that reduces landing lag (I think smooth lander?????).......in other words, a lot of varied styles to play relatively the same game.

This is and would be immensely confusing for someone who is in our scene to just pick up and adapt to all the different ways to play the same game. I'm not even going to speak about how difficult it is to come in as a new player at this point because that deserves it's own post.

My thing is, I feel like the Smash 4 community bends over back for a lot of new players only for the newer players to be ultimately dissatisfied for the slightest inconvenience or disagreement leading to inflated numbers for attendance, but poorer numbers in views.

Back to the topic at hand, tier lists. If we want to post tier lists (I really hate doing that though since we haven't agreed past stating that Sheik is number 1), I feel it's necessary to put Sheik as 1 in her own group, then group high tier, then upper mid, borderline, mid, bl2, lower mid, bl3, the bottom. When I mean group them, I mean put them in that tier, but know the order you list them as doesn't matter because there have been so many petty arguments about the placement of which rank they are in instead of which class they belong to.

Sorry if this post is long/wrong on this thread, but I didn't know where else to keep it.

This. Especially the fact that new players are just going to believe anything they hear without giving it a second thought. For example, if you ask people "how is Roy in this game" almost everyone says "omg he's so good better than Marth he's exactly like marth in Melee!" And if you ask them to name anything Roy is better at they'll say down throw combos but that's it. People just believe whatever they hear. If they hear that Customs Palutena is broken they'll believe it. They don't even have to play against one and yet they'll believe it.
People will make tier lists backed by nothing but how they "feel." They probably haven't even played as most of the characters they're ranking. It's just how it works. It's sickening.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Nah, I think zage was saying Ryu cant really take advantage of the AC because his SH is fast. I need to test if he can do a SH instant bair then jump again before he lands. If he can then whooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Also he has a really good empty SH game thanks to great dash grab, fast SH, and really strong close range options/pokes.

 

[san.]

is NOT as good as or . I don't even think belongs in the same tier as either.

I'm not convinced yet, either. Pikachu actually has landing lag and long duration on his aerials, is one of the lightest characters in the game, and has slow air speed. However, Pikachu's size, ground speed, and back-and-forth movement in the air are good, and that's before talking about QA and combo potential. I'm just thankful that Sheik is combo bait at least.

Pikachu receiving the nerf to his ledge grab duration really hurt his edgeguard game. I just don't see it being all that dominant anymore after that change. Pikachu's sizable landing lag for his weight class also makes Pikachu quite difficult to use really well since it requires extra precision and knowledge. Once QA starts, there are only a few viable patterns available to him, and even less after the first movement. Even with the powerful smashes, default pika is balanced enough imo.

Please don't start this conversation again but FRAME 25 AUTOCANCEL IS REALLY GOOD. Please don't use that as a negative point in your discussions.

12 frames of landing lag, 25 frame autocancel, and like 13-16 damage. I wish my bair did that and I use Ike! Thank God that the hitlag modifiers are there to balance out that move (as well as lowish knockback for its damage), as well as Ryu's other intrinsic properties.

 

[A_Kae]

Nah, I think zage was saying Ryu cant really take advantage of the AC because his SH is fast. I need to test if he can do a SH instant bair then jump again before he lands. If he can then whooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Also he has a really good empty SH game thanks to great dash grab, fast SH, and really strong close range options/pokes.

http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Ryu

According to this, Ryu's SH is too fast to jump after bair, but it will autocancel.

 

[Antonykun]

Please don't start this conversation again but FRAME 25 AUTOCANCEL IS REALLY GOOD. Please don't use that as a negative point in your discussions.

To give another example of a good ac is Swordfighter up air frame 30 ac of doom and juggles

 

[Emblem Lord]

Curses. But on the upside I was messing with Ryu and he can SH nair then do any other action before he lands. It has good IASA frames. He can also SH instant FADC and still has time to jump again.

Movement bruh.

GET SUM!!!!

 

[TTTTTsd]

I mean, I'd never argue that Roy is better than Marth at this point (not with his new jab, hahaha) but there are also people who are calling him outright bad which I totally disagree with. I wouldn't put Roy a tier below or above Marth, probably a few places (3-4, maybe 5-6) places down at this point, but they're not separated by a large amount IMO.

They're both good characters, not great, but good.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

They're both good characters, not great, but good.

Neither is a good character. Wario is a good character ... Fox is a good character. Marth and Roy are okay.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Neither is a good character. Wario is a good character ... Fox is a good character. Marth and Roy are okay.

Your criteria of a good character is pretty high.

 

[Vipermoon]

To give another example of a good ac is Swordfighter up air frame 30 ac of doom and juggles

IKR!? And Marth who used to be the juggle king now has freaking frame 38 Uair AC.

 

[Ghostbone]

Your criteria of a good character is pretty high.

Characters that aren't viable aren't good, I'd say it's a pretty standard definition.

 

[san.]

Curses. But on the upside I was messing with Ryu and he can SH nair then do any other action before he lands. It has good IASA frames. He can also SH instant FADC and still has time to jump again.

Movement bruh.

GET SUM!!!!

Short hop double nair seems pretty dang good, too. Can get easy 30+ % combos from low%+ with something as simple as nair(sourspot)->nair(sweetspot)->jab->SRK or pretty much anything after the nair sweetspot.

Pretty safe since nair is 6 frame landing lag lol.

 

[Vipermoon]

http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Ryu

According to this, Ryu's SH is too fast to jump after bair, but it will autocancel.

Not only that but he only has 2 frames to jump out of a FH Bair.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Your criteria of a good character is pretty high.

It's not really high though. You just gotta be realistic and look at how them high scale tournaments turn out to see that Marth and Roy aren't relevant factors. What good is a character that doesn't get anywhere? Roy even has some pretty solid representation with Masashi and Gnes and he still never breaks into the top 4 on a local level. At least in Marth's case you could argue that nobody plays him to deliver his potential but I still don't see him making it very far as a solo character.

As things stand this game is nowhere near as balanced as a whole lot of people want to believe. Of course, balance patches can always change things but right now the game is quite clearly centered around Sheik with ZSS and Rosie being the only characters even close to give her a run for her money [results-wise]. And then you have a batch of characters who are either quite good or whose viability hasn't been 100% figured out yet. So basically what we're looking at is:

[Great Characters]:
Sheik
ZSS > Rosalina

[Good Characters]:
Fox, Pikachu, Ness, Sonic, Yoshi, Mii Brawler, Diddy Kong, Wario, Luigi [not ordered]

Past that the only oppportunities outside of a balance patch that remain are
a.) Ryu turning out to be a threat.
b.) Certain characters having enough matchups that are even or only slightly disadvantaged to allow an outstanding individual to perform extremely well with them [Ranai @ Villager, Brood @ DHD or Ally @ Mario come to mind].

So if we're VERY generous we have about 15 characters at the absolute best that have a somewhat realistic chance to make it to the ~top12 of a huge [inter]national and as far as actually winning the whole damn thing is concerned ... is there really much of a point in assuming that anybody except Sheik or ZSS or MAYBE Rosalina will take it?

... Marth and Roy are quite irrelevant in all this. They are not good characters.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Hit a toon link with the sourspot nair to true shoryu at like 77% in tourney the other day. Yes it combos. The look of disgust and bewilderment on his face as TL was sent to the next world.

My heart was filled with such glee.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Neither is a good character. Wario is a good character ... Fox is a good character. Marth and Roy are okay.

I guess our definitions of good are wildly varied, which is fine. Comes down to different backgrounds I suppose. The crux of my point is I don't see either far from each other (in the default metagame anyways. Customs Marth is definitely much better)

Hit a toon link with the sourspot nair to true shoryu at like 77% in tourney the other day. Yes it combos. The look of disgust and bewilderment on his face as TL was sent to the next world.

My heart was filled with such glee.

LMAO that's great. Another cool detail about Ryu is that he has both of his crossups from ST in this game, LK and MK/HK in the air, which is Nair and Fair in this game respectively.

Ryu's a threat because of insane stuff like this. Out of this world punish game is something to behold (his shield game is incredible too, with shield being a good option I think this is largely relevant as well, Ryu has some of the best shield options in the game even if you don't count shield drop Shoryu. His Fair, for instance.)

 

[san.]

Hit a toon link with the sourspot nair to true shoryu at like 77% in tourney the other day. Yes it combos. The look of disgust and bewilderment on his face as TL was sent to the next world.

My heart was filled with such glee.

Indeed. Double nair seems much safer than single nair, and Ryu can mix it up with fast falls, double jumps, and specials. There's hardly any downside to landing nair in general vs. an empty landing at the last moment outside of 2-4 frames extra landing lag and possible hitlag modifier hijinx.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Also as an addendum I'm going to go ahead and say that Mewtwo's entire character design is just destroyed horribly by the game's base mechanics. Character just seems really counterintuitive. Being super light and floaty is hard enough but when you're in a game with rage it really sinks in. I think he may be by and large one of the more dysfunctional characters i.e. they attempted to compensate for his strengths far too much.

Just my two cents on him, my friend and I have talked about it a lot and the game's mechanics go directly against him in terms of how momentum is. It's a shame his strengths are so largely held back by his survivability because he would be an ok character otherwise. But tall, floaty, and SUPER light (not even like, Marth light) is just not good news. I feel like he needs rage to get even his best kill throw options to work but his weight steals that opportunity from him.

 

[Man Li Gi]

Also as an addendum I'm going to go ahead and say that Mewtwo's entire character design is just destroyed horribly by the game's base mechanics. Character just seems really counterintuitive. Being super light and floaty is hard enough but when you're in a game with rage it really sinks in. I think he may be by and large one of the more dysfunctional characters i.e. they attempted to compensate for his strengths far too much.

Just my two cents on him, my friend and I have talked about it a lot and the game's mechanics go directly against him in terms of how momentum is. It's a shame his strengths are so largely held back by his survivability because he would be an ok character otherwise. But tall, floaty, and SUPER light (not even like, Marth light) is just not good news. I feel like he needs rage to get even his best kill throw options to work but his weight steals that opportunity from him.

That would require.......you know, the development team to care about character concepts and make fighters with.....logic. I dunno if the Smash development team has that. I mean Samus was the strongest character on their "testing" (probably was just FFA with all the items on non standard stages).