Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[ぱみゅ]

Brawl Falco was actually pretty well balanced aside from his chain grabs on some of the cast

Balanced? Lasers and Frame 2 jab shenanigans invalidated many characters.


Also, to make this post productive:
Only buffing leads to a huge problem called Poralization.
Let's say we have character A with good traits that invalidate a number of characters.
As per the philosophy, those vulnerable characters only get buffed, said buffs will very likely be good enough to become invalidation tools themselves, and then we'd have a matchup hell where the newly invalidated characters need more buffs to compete.
And so on.

And all of that was caused because you didn't want to nerf one single tool.

 

[Megamang]

I'm not gonna watch the whole match, but I assume he just runs away constantly to charge fart? I already knew this, but his Bike is kinda a big problem. You literally can't touch him if he doesn't want you to, because of the height and speed he gets from the Bike. It's kinda like playing against Sonic/other fast characters on big stages like Duck Hunt, except Wario can do it on any stage. :x
A Wario that doesn't run away is super fun to fight, buuut if he wants to win, it becomes very lame.

Yea, and the pika never capitalized on his ability to chain heavy characters. Ideally, you walk around PSing everything he throws at you until you are able to predict when he has to land and execute being there, then start a nice chain and damage him to at least past your damage. Then its projectile wars with the onus to hit on Wario. Of course, uniquely wario gets one insanely good try to get the lead again with Waft. Wario essentially has opportunities to take the lead handed to him over time + the best or near best ability to negate battling him.

I would like to see stats about when Wario's lose, if they got hit first or not...

 

[Jucchan]

On an unrelated note, does anyone know whether Ginko used at all at Umebura FAT?

I can confirm through twitter that Ginko beat Songun with R.O.B.

 

[Antonykun]

every time someone says to do buffs only i try to look for @Thinkaman 's posts

I lost a lot of brain cells after reading a bunch of children complaining that their #1 character might become a #2 or #3 character, and realized that this is exactly why Nintendo doesn't do patch notes.

I was about to make a really angry post, but after a well-advised pause decided I don't want to get banned.

So instead here's a map:

You know what rank Diddy or Rosalina or Falco or Sonic deserves? #33. They ideally deserve to be the 33rd best character--dead center. So does Zelda, so does Lucina, so does poor Samus and Pac-Man. In a perfectly just world, we'd wake up and tomorrow to a bloodbath of a new patch, and that is where all of the characters would be.

The characters will never be perfectly balanced, duh; thank you for that amazing piece of hard-hitting real-world facts, uncle Randy. But every single character who ranks higher than #33 should wake up every day and say a thankful prayer because in a competition that is intended to be fair, better than average is literally better than they deserve.

"Thank you for my brother, my mom and dad, and Flip Jump's invincibility frames."

But then some characters get to be extra thankful, because they live on the other side of the Moat of Blood, Tears, Salt, and Johns, in the Land of the Privileged Elite--a fabled land where the springs taste like honey and all the d-throws lead to kills. They get to wake up every day knowing that 80% of the roster is worse than them, or otherwise just not winning events.

This is why you might notice that the Land of the Privileged Elite is also labeled the Land of No Complaining. This is because the Land of the Privileged Elite is a magical and sacred place, and anyone who would defile this nirvana by complaining is automatically a certified douchenozzle--exactly like a rich child getting upset when another rich kid gets a BMW that is newer than his.

"Sebastian also has 3 gold iWatches, while father would only buy me 2. Life is so unfair."

Sure, there are kids in Africa who don't have even have Smash 4. Some don't even have a WiiU! This doesn't invalidate complaints, nor make me feel better about Sheik Needles. The fact that there will always be someone worse off than you doesn't mean that all complaining is bunk.

But it does mean that complaining while on top of the the food chain makes one aloof and embarrassingly out of touch. Complaining that your top character got nerfed is always implicitly stating that you feel entitled to an advantage.

"But no," you say in an indignant huff, "I just don't want other characters to have an advantage over me. It's not fair that my character got nerfed more than Sheik."

And your character having an advantage over others is somehow more fair? Your character is somehow more entitled to fairness than the entire rest of the cast? Sheik is somehow less deserving of the top than your character?

"But it'd be better if they nerfed Sheik!" Holy crap, shut the **** up and turn 10. Your ability to imagine superior alternatives to an event does not lessen its utility or value. Giving money to charity is a good thing, even if Bill Gates giving money to charity is an even better thing. I can't believe I'm having to explain this, Jesus.

"Disney World would have been so much better with hoverboards and hookers."


The fact is, most people like the idea of balance, but then experience a primal revulsion when they see it first-hand and realize that it actually means that things will be balanced--just like everyone likes the idea of democracy until they realize that sometimes people vote for the wrong guy.

But balance is one of the few objectively good design principles in games, and crucial for healthy competition. It's really good that so many of this game's 1540 matchups are fair, compelling contests for us to delve into and explore.

So whether it's a high-tier or low-tier, nerfed or buffed, just be grateful that your character is as good as they are, and that their worse matchup is no worse than it is. And if you want, ****ing change! There are currently 55 characters, and almost all of them are pretty solid--even the ones south of the Moat.

Having all those viable characters to choose from is the entire point of all this balancing malarkey, anyway.

"But what if I pick the new top character and they nerf them too?"
Then MISSION ****ING ACCOMPLISHED.

Above all, just remember: Patches exists because the devs know what they are doing and what the players to have as much fun with the game as possible. Smash 4 already had the best character balance of the series by a long shot at launch, and the 3 cautious, conservative patches have only improved it. I'm really looking forward to see where things go, and I hope to encounter many of you along the way.



And if anyone says they just want to buff weak characters instead of ever nerfing strong ones, I will snap their Smash 4 disc in half and replace it with Brawl Minus.

Controversial post time!

My game design pet peeve is the faux-profound amateur insight of "the best way to balance a game is to make everyone overpowered!" My personal hell is listening to that sentence on loop.

We achieve unique characters by establishing a unique combination of strengths and weaknesses. For this to work, the strengths have to be an appropriate magnitude greater than the weaknesses.

• If we have too little of a magnitude difference, everyone feels the same and the game is bland.
• If we have too great of a magnitude difference, everyone becomes solely defined by their strengths. The matchups become single-minded and one-dimensional, based exclusively on extreme strengths at the exclusion of everything else.

This manifests in a form of populist feel-good bullcrap that even I'm guilty of at times:

"I think they should buff low-tiers rather than nerf high-tiers!"

Politicians everywhere weep for joy at this rose-scented manure; playing to emotional character loyalty and factionalism ahead of overall game health.

This notion works because it positions against a strawman with a grain of truth. Yes, it would indeed be bad for the game to balance based on stripping high-tiers of their strengths and normalizing them--making everyone the same. But this is a very narrow outlook that approaches balance from a lynch mob mentality, where the only way to nerf Ness is to neuter b-throw.



In reality, there is some ideal target level of magnitude between strengths and weaknesses that characters should have. It can't be a mindless race-to-the-top anymore than it can be a race-to-the-bottom. The question isn't "nerfs or buffs"; the question is "Where's the target?"

The good news is, even if I think the target is all the way down at current Villager and you think the target is all the way up at current Sheik, we don't actually disagree all that much. People who think we should have balanced towards previous Diddy (or Brawl MK, or Melee Fox) are bonkers; we don't want a game of old Diddy uairs.



If it were up to me, I'd probably shave the top tiers in Smash 4 to a slightly lower haircut than most people--probably focused exclusively on safety and early KO potential. Low-tiers I'd address primarily though wider auto-cancel windows in most cases, which is the most reliable way to open up new options. (TBQH, Zelda and Mewtwo are probably the only Smash 4 character who cannot be balanced exclusively through minor hitbox tweaks and AC windows.)

But lets stop demonizing nerfs. Yes, scrubs calling for nerfs to whatever just beat them are annoying--but lets not let annoyance push us into adopting foolish principles.

and anytime someone makes a post saying to buff only kindly PM them these post and don't derail the thread with the same argument over and over again

 

[Jams.]

Balanced? Lasers and Frame 2 jab shenanigans invalidated many characters.


Also, to make this post productive:
Only buffing leads to a huge problem called Poralization.
Let's say we have character A with good traits that invalidate a number of characters.
As per the philosophy, those vulnerable characters only get buffed, said buffs will very likely be good enough to become invalidation tools themselves, and then we'd have a matchup hell where the newly invalidated characters need more buffs to compete.
And so on.

And all of that was caused because you didn't want to nerf one single tool.

I don't feel like only buffing necessarily leads to polarization, and it really depends on the power level and the character you are using as the standard for balancing. An important premise you stated was that characters must exist with tools that invalidate other characters. I'd argue that polarization only occurs if you are balancing around a character with these invalidating traits.

To demonstrate this idea, I'm going to use a thought experiment involving Balanced Brawl. Now, I haven't played much Balanced Brawl so I don't know if it's true to its name, but let's say for the sake of argument that's it's balanced very well. Now, remove all the characters that were nerfed from Brawl to Balanced Brawl (many characters actually only received buffs or neutral changes BTW, according to this article). You'd be left with a list of characters that only received buffs between Brawl and Balanced Brawl, emulating a scenario where a game was balanced through only buffs, which you suggested was not possible without polarization.

I can confirm through twitter that Ginko beat Songun with R.O.B.

I hope that match will be uploaded. From his ROB set at Hyper Sumabato, Ginko used a lot of z-drop aerial tech that I don't believe is implemented by any other high level ROB player.

 

[Foie]

If we buff everyone, others will have to be buffed to compensate, who will have to be buffed again, etc, etc.

If we nerf the biggest problems, we avoid having SSB4 be Brawl Minus 2.0.

The converse is this becoming brawl 2.0, which IMO is worse. I think the current direction the developers are taking is almost ideal. Widespread buffs on underperforming characters and moderate nerfs on the worst offenders. For example, diddy is now a strong but more reasonable character and DK is a bit more potent of a killer due to his new up throw. Perfect.

It's just slightly annoying when the developers ignore some of the weak characters repeatedly who could use some tweaking. I can only hope they'll get around to them eventually.

This argument comes up every few pages so I'll leave you with this.

Lets say you have a lawn and your lawn is perfect. All the grass is the same length and it's green af. But one day you see a weed growing. Do you kill the weed? Or do you replace all your grass with weeds?

Your analogy is terribly flawed. I'm saying pluck the weed, leave the grass, and plant new grass in the large amount of dry/dead spots. You're assuming the lawn is perfect, which it most certainly isn't.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Your analogy is terribly flawed. I'm saying pluck the weed, leave the grass, and plant new grass in the large amount of dry/dead spots. You're assuming the lawn is perfect, which it most certainly isn't.

Look man I don't balance Smash. Neither do you. It doesn't matter what they "should" do because it's not up to us.

 

[ぱみゅ]

I don't feel like only buffing necessarily leads to polarization, and it really depends on the power level and the character you are using as the standard for balancing. An important premise you stated was that characters must exist with tools that invalidate other characters. I'd argue that polarization only occurs if you are balancing around a character with these invalidating traits.

To demonstrate this idea, I'm going to use a thought experiment involving Balanced Brawl. Now, I haven't played much Balanced Brawl so I don't know if it's true to its name, but let's say for the sake of argument that's it's balanced very well. Now, remove all the characters that were nerfed from Brawl to Balanced Brawl (many characters actually only received buffs or neutral changes BTW, according to this article). You'd be left with a list of characters that only received buffs between Brawl and Balanced Brawl, emulating a scenario where a game was balanced through only buffs, which you suggested was not possible without polarization.

Dude, you have no idea how much I am glad you mentioned Balanced Brawl.
I did play it, is my favorite mod, and I'm one of the main advocates for it, I was present during its developing and testing phase, and witnessed every single one of their decisions.

While some characters remained mostly the same and some others were buffed, saying it was only buffs is untrue.
Meta Knight, Snake, Wario and Marth all received direct nerfs. Ice Climbers, Falco, Pikachu, Diddy and DeDeDe got indirect ones (removals of chaingrabs and trip infinites).
And even though they did an amazing job balancing the cast, Samus had some matchups that were better than the 60:40 aimed goal (Ike for example), and there's this huge probability that there are other unexplored matchups that didn't quite reach that goal either.

Point being, that even if their "goal character" was pretty high (everyone balanced based on Diddy Kong), they had to resort to nerfs.

 

[LancerStaff]

Look man I don't balance Smash. Neither do you. It doesn't matter what they "should" do because it's not up to us.

Considering they've nerfed the likes Zelda and Bowser for similar reasons, safe to assume the upper half is getting nerfs.

 

[Jams.]

Dude, you have no idea how much I am glad you mentioned Balanced Brawl.
I did play it, is my favorite mod, and I'm one of the main advocates for it, I was present during its developing and testing phase, and witnessed every single one of their decisions.

While most characters remained mostly the same and a huge majority were buffed, saying it was only buffs is untrue.
Meta Knight, Snake, Wario and Marth all received direct nerfs. Ice Climbers, Pikachu, Diddy and DeDeDe got indirect ones (removals of chaingrabs and trip infinites).
And even though they did an amazing job balancing the cast, Samus had some matchups that were better than the 60:40 aimed goal (Ike for example), and there's this huge probability that there are other unexplored matchups that didn't quite reach that goal either.

Point being, that even if their "goal character" was pretty high (everyone balanced based on Diddy Kong), they had to resort to nerfs.

I wish I spent more time with the mod. Brawl was a fun game that was marred by balance issues, though I just ended up selling out to Metaknight like most players.

My point was based on a hypothetical scenario though. Essentially, if none of the characters nerfed in Balanced Brawl ever existed, Balanced Brawl would have balanced Brawl by only buffing characters without polarization issues. This demonstrates that only buffing characters does not necessarily lead to polarization. I believe that for polarization to occur, the "goal character" would need to have polarizing or overwhelming tools (ie. Project M 3.02 balancing around Fox).

 

[Blobface]

I've seen people list Ganon under "should be buffed" lists over and over, and I'd really like to know, what do you think he actually needs?

I think Ganon could be 100% viable with just one single buff (even without any nerfs), but I'm not going to say it yet to avoid tinging peoples opinions.

 

[Asdioh]

One buff for Ganondorf? Faster jab, maybe frame 3-4. Every character needs at least one fast option.
Another buff? Slightly larger grab range.
More? Slightly faster move speed. I believe essentially everybody with bottom tier ground speed should be able to move around just a little bit faster, there's too much of a disparity in speed, in a game where mobility is so key.

 

[Nobie]

Make Ganondorf's Up B a teleport with low cooldown. Faithful to the character and would help deal with mobility issues without just making him faster overall.

 

[G. Stache]

I've seen people list Ganon under "should be buffed" lists over and over, and I'd really like to know, what do you think he actually needs?

I think Ganon could be 100% viable with just one single buff (even without any nerfs), but I'm not going to say it yet to avoid tinging peoples opinions.

I mean, I've been using him since the game first came out and he's already very much viable (at least as a strong secondary). The only two things he ARGUABLY needs is a better recovery (though if you ask me, his ledge grabbing range is long enough so you can usually make it back fairly easily since edgehogging isn't a thing anymore) and a faster dash speed (which would help, but I think that's hardly a thing that's going to happen). Point is, is Ganondorf the best character: no, I don't think he ever will be. But is he viable? Of course he is. This is probably the most balanced smash game I've played (though I've only just started with PM, so I could be wrong). Just about every character in this game can be used to some sort of success. And while a few nerfs and buffs could potentially work wonders, it's not like melee. We don't have a completely trash character like melee Kirby or Pichu. And it's not like brawl where the best character wins major tournaments 95% of the time. Everyone is viable to an extent and, while it's not perfect, it's better than we've had it in the past.

 

[Shaya]

We know, nearly with utmost certainty, that no move "design" is going to change. Hitbox angles, power and speed (i.e. kill focus / combo focus) have been changed. But no, they're not going to make ganon's up-b a teleport.

So if you want to make an extremely niche balance suggestion that has a 0% chance of happening, why not go to the character boards itself?
Don't have it here. It's really silly. Balance suggestions are most often stupid as it is and I have to evaluate myself whether I should be infracting them, the extremely-dumb ones should be a no-brainer. But people are going to do it anyway. Meaning I need to infract them.

So don't do it.

 

[LancerStaff]

They wouldn't even give Dorf any big movement buff without stripping something else, much less a low lag teleport. Look at Bowser.

 

[Zionaze]

I like what they did with Falco, Faster animation + startup and the removal of sour spot Uairs. After the patch I felt like I was playing a different character.

 

[Ffamran]

Very much agree with that. Sakurai has been trying to kill Falco since melee. It's sad how much they took from him in this game.

Took what? This isn't English class, but please specify what they, the developers including Masahiro Sakurai, took from Falco. From the top of my head of what happened to him from game to game...

Spoiler

Melee to Brawl:

• Removal of wave-dashing, wave-landing, L-canceling, etc. aka universal engine changes i.e. all characters were affected/nerfed.
• Jab, Utilt, Nair, Fair, Uair, and Side Smash changes. Not buffs or nerfs when they're different moves now just like what happened to Ganondorf from Melee to Brawl.
• Frame 1 Reflector altered for Falco and Fox. Falco's was nerfed and altered while Fox's was just nerfed and it was justified with how stupid the moves were.
• Blaster gains range - covers beyond Final Destination at either end -, increased rapid fire, decreased startup, and increased startup. They managed to make a broken tool even more broken. Massive buff that logically should have never happened.
• Falco Phantasm and Fox Illusion gain intangibility frames and Falco Phantasm gains lowered startup. Why? I don't know. Brawl Falco was a mess of dumb ideas that somehow made it past Q&A.
  
• Fall speed reduced from 3.1 to 1.708. In general, all characters had reduced fall speed i.e. all characters had their fall speed affected/nerfed.

Brawl to Melee:

• Removal of chain-grabs, a universal change.
• Jab 1 gains 5 total frames and jab 2 gains 7 total frames. Minor nerf except when given context to characters like Mario, Luigi, Ryu, Fox, Marth, etc. with quick interrupt punishes.
• Dash attack gains 4 frames of startup while Fox's is left alone. Why? I don't know; ask the developers why they let Fox's jab exist in Smash 4 until patch 1.1.0. Also, the ability to gatling combo was removed. I still don't understand how he can cancel or confirm a dash attack into an Up Smash like that. What? Was this a leftover of Falco being able to normal cancel into other moves? That would be and an even stupider idea. Oh, look, Falco just canceled a jab to Ftilt to Side Smash. Totally normal and fair.
  
• Nair, Fair, and Uair, from start or patch were all buffed; Nair links better, Fair links much better, has lower landing lag than Brawl's by 8 frames, and Uair is faster. Overall, buffs, but in context to how he works in Smash 4, minor buffs happened to them as they're not game-changing; his air game was good and now it's better. That's nothing like fixing a bad air game to a good air game.
• Bair loses front hitbox and some active frames, but gains 30 knockback growth making it probably the strongest/fastest ratio aerial in the game; Zelda's Bair would count, but it's not as fast - just 2 frames slower - and it's not as reliable.
  
• Up Smash gains 4 active frames and does 6% more all at the cost of 5 total frames. Even though it didn't link well before patch 1.0.6, it's a buff.
• Blaster loses range, travel speed, rapid fire speed?, and auto-cancel windows with the end lag from Melee and Brawl left untouched. Nerfed improperly when you consider they didn't compensate with anything.
• Falco Phantasm and Fox Illusion loses intangibility frames and has shorter hitboxes with Falco Phantasm's being halved. Falco Phantasm gains startup; it regains Melee's startup. Justifiably nerfed in some ways; questionably nerfed in other ways.
  
• Frame 5 Dair becomes a frame 16 Dair. Justifiably nerfed when you consider that a spike that fast should not have been that strong. Made even more justifiable when it worked like that because it was a programming error in Melee, but kept the same in Brawl for whatever dumb reason like Blaster getting buffed in Brawl.

So, what exactly did he lose or they took away from him? Ask this question for every character before you say anything about what they "lost" or gotten "taken away". 'Cause from what I'm seeing, his losses are pretty much universal changes with broken moves such as Blaster further made broken in Brawl, a frame 1 Reflector, a frame 5 Dair spike, and a frame 16 Falco Phantasm aka get out of jail card all being altered. Some done well like Reflector functions decently as a reflect and poke, Dair was homogenized, and Falco Phantasm functions, albeit not as safely as Melee's. Blaster is the biggest offender of poorly nerfed moves along with the biggest offender of a poorly buffed move: a broken move made even more broken. Hell, he even got buffed from game to game, especially his air game in Brawl to Smash 4. The "Falco has trouble killing" doesn't really exist when his (relevant) aerials are well-rounded, quick, and strong.

Brawl Falco was actually pretty well balanced aside from his chain grabs on some of the cast.

kyokoro already went through this, but how are a Blaster that not only zones, but locks down, can be used to camp, setup?, fires quickly, can occupy short hop height and standing height, and travels the entire screen, his fast, but powerful Dair spike, and his frame 16, intangible dash that can spike - kind of and still is useless and situational - and has little to no end lag when IAP'd considered balanced? If you want a balanced Star Fox character, then you go play as Wolf who was handicapped not only by the game's mechanics, but by oversights from the developers such as a 60 frame meteor cancel and a nonexistent fast fall speed. It's freaking ironic when a bad guy, space pirate, and considered murderer of Fox's father is the most fair Star Fox character.

Balanced? Lasers and Frame 2 jab shenanigans invalidated many characters.

I'd argue his Blaster and Dair were more of an issue than his jab. Sure, it's frame 2 and he could get a grab or whatnot out of it, but it was nothing like Smash 4 Fox's pre-patch 1.1.0 jab; Brawl Falco's jab was more like Sheik or current (1.1.0) Fox's jab.

 

[Fatmanonice]

If it's possible to gimp Ness' recovery, (Rosa down b, mario cape) than yes, that alone would merit Ness having heavily one sided match ups against him. However, this isn't the case with Shiek. What does Shiek have on Ness that she doesn't also have on the rest of the cast? (Shaky has not had any notable difficulty with Shieks in particular, it's pretty much Rosas that make the Ness MU look silly).

Mario has a lot of great offstage options against Ness. Like you mentioned, the cape can really mess him up along with FLUDD and fireballs. Mario also has good ledge trump options and some of the things Mario can do out of grab releases to Ness off the edge can easily catch you off guard thanks to Ness's weird second jump. As for Sheik, there's also the issue of ledge trumps, needles while trying to recover, and the fact that Sheik can chase Ness off stage with little fear of not making it back.

 

[NairWizard]

I think it's safe to say that Ranai is the ESAM of Japan: really good with an obscure character but sometimes inconsistent in tournament performances, which leads to conflicting opinions of his main's top tier status. The Japanese seem to think as highly of Villager as we do of Pikachu in general, but being a Pikachu main myself I know that Pikachu is significantly worse than American perception would suggest.

Is the same true of Villager? From what I saw as Ranai was playing, it seems like there are many things about the character that we just have not thought of trying or seen before, but the similarities to the Pikachu situation make me cautious about throwing out an evaluation.

 

[Mario766]

One buff for Ganondorf? Faster jab, maybe frame 3-4. Every character needs at least one fast option.
Another buff? Slightly larger grab range.
More? Slightly faster move speed. I believe essentially everybody with bottom tier ground speed should be able to move around just a little bit faster, there's too much of a disparity in speed, in a game where mobility is so key.

No they don't.

Toon Link's fastest move is frame 6. Link's fastest ground move is frame 7 with only back air at 6. Ganon's jab is fine where it's at for a character who shouldn't have any business playing footsies. Marcina has frame 5 at best. Ganon has a frame 8 jab that does 10, which is more than most characters jab combos fully. He also has frame 10 killing tilts and a frame 10 back air that does 17 damage. He's fine.

 

[ぱみゅ]

I wish I spent more time with the mod. Brawl was a fun game that was marred by balance issues, though I just ended up selling out to Metaknight like most players.

My point was based on a hypothetical scenario though. Essentially, if none of the characters nerfed in Balanced Brawl ever existed, Balanced Brawl would have balanced Brawl by only buffing characters without polarization issues. This demonstrates that only buffing characters does not necessarily lead to polarization. I believe that for polarization to occur, the "goal character" would need to have polarizing or overwhelming tools (ie. Project M 3.02 balancing around Fox).

The thing is that having this much diversity leads to certain designs having natural advantages against others, and certain archetypes are prone to shut down others, even if not intended.
So "only buffing" might end up accentuating any possible advantage. Same with "only nerfs".
In order to truly balance a game, a careful selection of nerfs and buffs is needed, and you must be specially careful so your character still have weaknesses.
We might not end with matchup being 50:50, but if no character (or set of) is dominating or underwhelming, you must be doing something right.

I think it's safe to say that Ranai is the ESAM of Japan: really good with an obscure character but sometimes inconsistent in tournament performances, which leads to conflicting opinions of his main's top tier status. The Japanese seem to think as highly of Villager as we do of Pikachu in general, but being a Pikachu main myself I know that Pikachu is significantly worse than American perception would suggest.

Is the same true of Villager? From what I saw as Ranai was playing, it seems like there are many things about the character that we just have not thought of trying or seen before, but the similarities to the Pikachu situation make me cautious about throwing out an evaluation.

Except ESAM doesn't really drop many Major's Top 8.
iirc he only dropped Paragon, consistently placing at every other Major he has attended to.
Ganbaranai does not consistently win or even place top 8 at his regionals/locals/whatever they are.
/cherrypick

 

[thehard]

Ally, Vinnie, and False are all expressing interest in maining ZSS. Ally because he thinks Mario can't close stocks easily. Not sure of the motivation behind the other two but Nairo @ F.A.T. was obviously encouraging.

With all that and a patch October will be interesting

 

[Ffamran]

Ally, Vinnie, and False are all expressing interest in maining ZSS. Ally because he thinks Mario can't close stocks easily. Not sure of the motivation behind the other two but Nairo @ F.A.T. was obviously encouraging.

With all that and a patch October will be interesting

Vinnie I don't know, but he had a decent ROB during that secondaries-only agreement with Larry Lurr who used ZSS and Falco and Mr. R who used Ryu in that one tournament. False I'm guessing got bored again. He did this with Peach, did this with Marth, and is now doing this with ZSS. People might mention the coincidence of them maining Sheik and the connection of the assumed patch... Look, Sheik is one volatile character where if something goes wrong she can suddenly drop to low tier or even sky rocket up further. Her low damage and knockback per hit will hurt her if something wrong happens. This isn't like Diddy where one move gets nerfed and he's fine since his other moves are already strong. Best bet would be something like making her Needles less of an abusive zoning tool or making Vanish and Bouncing Fish a bit easier to challenge.

Ally's weird; he tried to pocket Luigi and Meta Knight, got bored and said he'll use Marth during patch 1.0.6, said Falco was good while ignoring Marth in patch 1.0.8, ends up using Marth albeit not as well as Marth players who know more about him or as well as his Falco in my opinion, and has a Captain Falcon for whatever reason. All of these characters hold no candle to his Mario since they're kind of barebones while his Mario is in total control.

 

[wedl!!]

False literally switches mains every week lmao. No surprise that he'd be changing.

On the subject of ZSS, I would honestly be surprised if Flip Jump wasn't tweaked in some manner. Like not making it kill at 90% and also be difficult to punish.

 

[Ghostbone]

Balanced? Lasers and Frame 2 jab shenanigans invalidated many characters.


Also, to make this post productive:
Only buffing leads to a huge problem called Poralization.
Let's say we have character A with good traits that invalidate a number of characters.
As per the philosophy, those vulnerable characters only get buffed, said buffs will very likely be good enough to become invalidation tools themselves, and then we'd have a matchup hell where the newly invalidated characters need more buffs to compete.
And so on.

And all of that was caused because you didn't want to nerf one single tool.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, you end up with homogenisation.
Everyone is balanced because they're all essentially the same character, with the same kill power, similar frame data, throw combo potential, etc. Which is what happens if you continuously nerf a character's strengths.

The power level of Smash 4 is far below previous smash titles so I hardly think we have to worry about matchups becoming super polar.

 

[Teshie U]

I think ZSS is being a bit overrated because she keeps up with Sheik so well. If Sheik was as nerfed as Diddy (just enough to make the frauds jump ship), Zss would spend more time playing other matchups that might be less favorable for her. Her Up B feels far less silly when you are playing a character that can kill her for missing with it.

Ganondorf doesn't really need jab to be fast, her just needs it to function as something other than a weaker ftilt. If it had lower lag and knockback it would be a refreshing setup tool for him. He doesn't really need speed, just more safety from it.

His recovery is fine as it is. Magnet ledges and trumping make it very doable for him and DJ Uair is something pretty much no one can brush aside so he has viable mixups. If you aren't a stock up, you also have to watch out for Ganoncide. I would like to see his Up B grab become safer, IIRC in balanced brawl it was a semi spike that would just push people gently under the stage so they couldn't tech jump and spike him.

 

[C0rvus]

Since when was ZSS able to keep up with Sheik? This is news to me.

 

[Teshie U]

I figured the mobility, combos, flailing her legs around for attacks and invincible flip jump thingie + all the up B cheese = handles sheik better than most.

Zero suit plays high risk high reward and I think it only pays off consistently vs a character like sheik that can only punish you so hard when you are left wide open.

Just look at how Ranai destroyed Nairo in the crew battle. Most characters that aren't sheik will straight up kill you under 80% for whiffing ZSS grab, boost kick or even getting careless in a juggle.

 

[bc1910]

I think it's safe to say that Ranai is the ESAM of Japan: really good with an obscure character but sometimes inconsistent in tournament performances, which leads to conflicting opinions of his main's top tier status. The Japanese seem to think as highly of Villager as we do of Pikachu in general, but being a Pikachu main myself I know that Pikachu is significantly worse than American perception would suggest.

Is the same true of Villager? From what I saw as Ranai was playing, it seems like there are many things about the character that we just have not thought of trying or seen before, but the similarities to the Pikachu situation make me cautious about throwing out an evaluation.

I've changed my mind on Pikachu a bit.

I'm not convinced Pika is top 5 any more either. This comes from having picked him up myself and observing not only ESAM's inconsistency but the lack of... well, ANY other notable Pikachu player. There's NAKAT but he focuses way more on other characters. ESAM mentioned one in one of his videos but I've forgotten his name and never seen him place high in a tournament. I pay a lot of attention to the Japanese scene and Pika is basically nonexistent.

I think Pika is just that bit too sensible to be top 5. His frame data and especially landing lag data isn't as stupid as Sheik's or even Diddy's. His kill setups are not as reliable as Sheik's or ZSS' and he doesn't really rack damage any faster, though he is good at it. Tjolt isn't on the level of needles or fireballs, it's good for space control but it's easier to get past a Pika camping with it than a Sheik or Luigi camping. Or hell even a Link/Tink camping.

I'd say my top 5 is Sheik, ZSS, Fox, Diddy in order, but I don't know who I'd put 5th. Probably Rosalina or Sonic, who I still think is crazy good. Pika would still round out my top tier but he would be around 7th.

 

[Megamang]

Since when was ZSS able to keep up with Sheik? This is news to me.

Idk, her huge rewards are great and in some ways outpunish Shiek in a dynamic, aggressive neutral. The problem is shiek slowing the game down to "You can't really break my shield as long as I don't way WAY over-respect you, you can't run in and grab because its too slow... now die slowly to needles each time you land -> my super safe grab - u-air can close out stocks better than you can as long as im super safe/respectful of flip kick"

That quote went on too long, but that is my experience in a nutshell.

 

[juddy96]

The thing is that having this much diversity leads to certain designs having natural advantages against others, and certain archetypes are prone to shut down others, even if not intended.
So "only buffing" might end up accentuating any possible advantage. Same with "only nerfs".
In order to truly balance a game, a careful selection of nerfs and buffs is needed, and you must be specially careful so your character still have weaknesses.
We might not end with matchup being 50:50, but if no character (or set of) is dominating or underwhelming, you must be doing something right.


Except ESAM doesn't really drop many Major's Top 8.
iirc he only dropped Paragon, consistently placing at every other Major he has attended to.
Ganbaranai does not consistently win or even place top 8 at his regionals/locals/whatever they are.
/cherrypick

Wut? Ranai's last 8 placings before Umebura FAT: 2nd, 1st, 1st, 5th, 1st, 1st, 3rd, 7th

 

[ぱみゅ]

At the opposite end of the spectrum, you end up with homogenisation.
Everyone is balanced because they're all essentially the same character, with the same kill power, similar frame data, throw combo potential, etc. Which is what happens if you continuously nerf a character's strengths.

The power level of Smash 4 is far below previous smash titles so I hardly think we have to worry about matchups becoming super polar.

I mostly addressed the kind-of-popular comment of "buffs only".
This game definitely needs much more buffs than nerfs, but that other train of thought is not the most feasible.

Wut? Ranai's last 8 placings before Umebura FAT: 2nd, 1st, 1st, 5th, 1st, 1st, 3rd, 7th

I got my Ganbaranai facts wrong.
The rest of the point that ESAM doesn't drop many placings still stands, if any other than Paragon.

 

[PUK]

I've seen people list Ganon under "should be buffed" lists over and over, and I'd really like to know, what do you think he actually needs?

I think Ganon could be 100% viable with just one single buff (even without any nerfs), but I'm not going to say it yet to avoid tinging peoples opinions.

Side b always leading to something with no tech. That's would be a good fix. More grab range to make the shield more useful too maybe.
And more power in the fair (in KB) because when a move is not supposed to be used against someone smart it should at least be ridiculously powerful (ganon fair, DK fair, zelda uair fair and bair, bowser uair and some other aerials in the game have a risk/reward/opportunity ratio completely screwed). I would personnaly add a spacing mechanic (sws, srs) with the tilts. I like spacing mechanic as it increases the reward of the skill.

 

[adom4]

Side b always leading to something with no tech. That's would be a good fix. More grab range to make the shield more useful too maybe.
And more power in the fair (in KB) because when a move is not supposed to be used against someone smart it should at least be ridiculously powerful (ganon fair, DK fair, zelda uair fair and bair, bowser uair and some other aerials in the game have a risk/reward/opportunity ratio completely screwed). I would personnaly add a spacing mechanic (sws, srs) with the tilts. I like spacing mechanic as it increases the reward of the skill.

Ganon's Fair isn't bad lol.
It already hits like a nuke, & it's safe against shield 90% of the time.

 

[PUK]

Ganon's Fair isn't bad lol.
It already hits like a nuke, & it's safe against shield 90% of the time.

It's not the problem of it being bad. It's a general lack of balance between "hard to hit with and risky but damned powerful" and " fast and safe but not as powerful".
Basically if you increase marth's smash tippered's power, ganondorf's fair's power and every other moves who shared the same issue it's a very healthy buff as it won't unbalance the game unless you make them able to ohko someone.
A move with a high risk (ganon fair is not that safe on shield against most of the cast bacause ganondorf response against a dash are limited by his frame data and because not everyone is called luigi) cannot really have a "too high reward" (it can, but it needs to be really high) because there is a lot of counter play. At the opposite, a very low risk move (aka most luigi and sheik kit) cannot have a "too low reward" because this reward is basically guarented by the lack of counter play against this move.
Now why luigi is balanced while sheik is not? Because his low risk/ high reward kit come with a lack a mobility that limits his ability to land his deadly grab. His reliance on an opportunity means that you can outplay him.
A contrario falcon is good even after the patches because his general mobility means that while his kit has counter play, it's harder to foresee because you can't really limit the opportunities.
The problem inherent to moves like ganondorf fair's is that you need to outplay the opponent and that even then you can be counter played and punished for a reward that imo should be higher. A buff like that won't make ganondorf viable by itself, but instead of changing you playstyle at 80% you will have to do it at 60%. With a side b buff it will increase the cost of failure and error.

 

[Routa]

As far as I know Ganondorfs Fair has really good Risk/Reward ration. But I do get your point tho. But I guess we should jump back to the topic.

Hmmm... We really havent talked about Little Mac other than "Omg he lacks air game and that is why he is bottom tier!". He is the few characters that I think is a bit underrated. Bad recovery =/= Bottom tier.

 

[adom4]

It's not the problem of it being bad. It's a general lack of balance between "hard to hit with and risky but damned powerful" and " fast and safe but not as powerful".
Basically if you increase marth's smash tippered's power, ganondorf's fair's power and every other moves who shared the same issue it's a very healthy buff as it won't unbalance the game unless you make them able to ohko someone.
A move with a high risk (ganon fair is not that safe on shield against most of the cast bacause ganondorf response against a dash are limited by his frame data and because not everyone is called luigi) cannot really have a "too high reward" (it can, but it needs to be really high) because there is a lot of counter play. At the opposite, a very low risk move (aka most luigi and sheik kit) cannot have a "too low reward" because this reward is basically guarented by the lack of counter play against this move.
Now why luigi is balanced while sheik is not? Because his low risk/ high reward kit come with a lack a mobility that limits his ability to land his deadly grab. His reliance on an opportunity means that you can outplay him.
A contrario falcon is good even after the patches because his general mobility means that while his kit has counter play, it's harder to foresee because you can't really limit the opportunities.
The problem inherent to moves like ganondorf fair's is that you need to outplay the opponent and that even then you can be counter played and punished for a reward that imo should be higher. A buff like that won't make ganondorf viable by itself, but instead of changing you playstyle at 80% you will have to do it at 60%. With a side b buff it will increase the cost of failure and error.

What does Luigi & Sheik have to do with all of this?
I never said once that Ganondorf is viable or a high tier but he's definitely workable at worst, you're treating Ganondorf like he's Brawl Dorf when it's the farthest thing from the truth.

 

[Nobie]

We know, nearly with utmost certainty, that no move "design" is going to change. Hitbox angles, power and speed (i.e. kill focus / combo focus) have been changed. But no, they're not going to make ganon's up-b a teleport.

So if you want to make an extremely niche balance suggestion that has a 0% chance of happening, why not go to the character boards itself?
Don't have it here. It's really silly. Balance suggestions are most often stupid as it is and I have to evaluate myself whether I should be infracting them, the extremely-dumb ones should be a no-brainer. But people are going to do it anyway. Meaning I need to infract them.

So don't do it.

Whoops, sorry about that. I thought it fairly obvious that the change I suggested is a little too crazy for them to do, it's just something I think would be cool and maintain most of the character's identity.

If you want a change I think they'd actually be willing to make, it'd probably be increasing KB/KBG on Up B on either or both parts of the Up B. There's a tendency in the balancing to try and bolster moves that are less effective/don't do as much, and I think Dark Dive is very much a potential target for that. The only thing is that this might cross wires with Dark Fists, and they might want to maintain a strong distinction between those moves, even if the developers seem to care a bit less about Customs.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Ganon's Fair is ****ing OP. The only thing that holds it back is the fact that it's locked to Ganondorf.

Ally because he thinks Mario can't close stocks easily.

And he's damn right.

I've been preaching it forever - if you put your focus on covering/avoiding his usmash at kill % then he actually has trouble finishing stocks. And I mean serious trouble. He doesn't really have a plan B in such a scenario, the next best thing is bair which is safe but also somewhat telegraphed and dsmash which starts killing at like ... i dunno, 150%+ or more from the middle of the stage? No kill setups and from about 80ish% upwards his combos stop working which makes his damage output a bit shaky at times. Those aren't numbers that fit a character that's supposedly a contender for top tier.

Ally dropping Mario [at least as his main] would not surprise me in the least, what really surprises me is that it took this long for a real ZSS hype to emerge. From the game's release onward the character has consistently been agreed to be a solid top tier and yet nobody except Choco and Nick really got into the character initially. And even up until now nobody except Nairo cared for her. Strange but better late than never, I guess.

I got my Ganbaranai facts wrong.
The rest of the point that ESAM doesn't drop many placings still stands, if any other than Paragon.

His point still stands though. ESAM 'dropped' paragon, Ranai 'dropped' Umebura FAT, both normally place very consistently, win tournaments in their region and place outside of top 8 once in a blue moon. It's valid to compare their results and draw the same conclusions regarding the characters as NairWizard did.