Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[wedl!!]

has great overall aerials. They aren't Fox tiers of "these all autocancel, come out fast and do obscene amounts of damage" but it's still something to work with.

 

[DunnoBro]

Sheik's aerials actually aren't that great. Her fair is probably the best but after that each other aerial is pretty far down on the tier list. It's her whole kit that makes her great. (mobility + specials included)

Luigi bar none has the best overall aerials if we're disregarding mobility. Best nair in the game, likely best bair, top tier fair and those swooping auto-juggle uairs are never bad.

 

[Pazzo.]

Sheik's greatest asset IMO is her ability to rest the neutral and control it.

ZSS has some great tools, but they don't hold a candle to Sheik. That's why it doesn't matter that Sheik can't kill early, like Duck Hunt or Pikachu.

But on the topic at hand: I agree that Villager has a fantastic set of aerials.

 

[Antonykun]

a lot of good aerials are good for the character as opposed to good overall. For example Fox with Ness's Foward Air just wouldn't be as awesome as Ness with his own F-air. Villager's Aerials are good enough to be enjoyed by any character
Ryu has amazing aerial (except maybe u-air) but due to Ryu's lack of acceleration he has trouble spacing them. his entire character revolves around spacing himself to get the most out of all his moves, aerials included

 

[Nu~]

Something I wanted to bring up for a while in this thread...who do you think are the top 3 characters when it comes to ledgeguarding?

I would choose. In no particular order. Wario because bike + waft + chomp = madness, Ike because eruption is dumb, and Pac-Man because trampoline covers every get up option by itself and insta kills 10 characters when red(without even adding in the various fruit and hydrant traps he can place on the ledge)

Edit: I'll make it a top 5. I've seen and ledge traps, and they are scary enough to be up there.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Luigi definitely has the best aerials, this isn't even a contest. Nair that can punish opponents for hitting Luigi, Frame 5-6 Bair and Fair, Easy Bake Uairs, and Dair with nonexistent endlag to the point that Luigi can immediately Fair someone trying to hit from the side to avoid the Dair, or just land with Nair out of a short hop.

 

[G. Stache]

Something I wanted to bring up for a while in this thread...who do you think are the top 3 characters when it comes to ledgeguarding?

I would choose. In no particular order. Wario because bike + waft + chomp = madness, Ike because eruption is dumb, and Pac-Man because trampoline covers every get up option by itself and insta kills 10 characters when red(without even adding in the various fruit and hydrant traps he can place on the ledge)

and get honorable mentions due to gordo and Luma shenanigans:

Cpt. Falcon is decent in the regard, as his aerials are very fast and strong enough to drive you away from the ledge (and possibly just KO you). I've also seen Esam ledge guard pretty well with Pika's Thunder, so I feel as if pika should get an honorable mention

 

[adom4]

B

Something I wanted to bring up for a while in this thread...who do you think are the top 3 characters when it comes to ledgeguarding?

I would choose. In no particular order. Wario because bike + waft + chomp = madness, Ike because eruption is dumb, and Pac-Man because trampoline covers every get up option by itself and insta kills 10 characters when red(without even adding in the various fruit and hydrant traps he can place on the ledge)

Edit: I'll make it a top 5. I've seen and ledge traps, and they are scary enough to be up there.

Bowser is pretty nasty at ledgeguarding, Dtilt, Fair and fortress cover the ledge very well.

 

[Antonykun]

I wonder who has the best edgeguarding. I would like to say it's Villager
Villager goes in deep because she has Balloon Trip to back her up, has the god move (n-air), a projectile that combos offstage, a disjointed fast spike (admittedly, its rng based tho), nasty ledge traps (especially in customs with counter timber)

 

[wedl!!]

Not sure why you removed Rosa, lol. Ballerina Twirl of Chaos (the luma jab edgeguard) basically makes Rosa beat a large chunk of the roster at the ledge. It's maybe better than Gyro shenanigans.

 

[Nu~]

Not sure why you removed Rosa, lol. Ballerina Twirl of Chaos (the luma jab edgeguard) basically makes Rosa beat a large chunk of the roster at the ledge. It's maybe better than Gyro shenanigans.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Wasn't sure which was better. Recoveries with a hitbox can beat it out. With ROB, if you get up from the ledge at all, you may die.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Just caught up...if people want zss' up b to be nerfed then wait until ryu develops even more. Some characters die to his up b at like 70 on the ground and it can still be used like a reversal and kill too. People should learn how zss works before wanting her nerfed.

Yo I thought we were cool man.

What the ****?

 

[Jehtt]

Mega Man's edge guarding is amazing.
First off, his Bair is a great edge guarding move. It comes out frame 4, lasts until frame 10, does 12 damage (if every hit connects) and has good knockback. It's also disjointed so he doesn't have to trade with characters like Fox in order to hit them. Combine all of that with Mega Man's good recovery and good aerial mobility (tied with Sheik and Captain Falcon) and that alone makes a pretty scary tool.

But that's only the beginning. Mega Man's Metal Blade is also a great edge guarding tool. Z-dropping the blade is a fantastic way to limit your opponent's recovery and set them up for a back air, plus the blade combos into back air if it does hit. You can also throw it raw at 8 different angles, 3 of which are very useful for off stage edge guarding. Diagonally down is very good against characters like Villager who can go super low to recover.

If the character is too close to the stage to risk chasing them off, Mega Man has the Leaf Shield. That move is a constant hitbox around Mega Man's entire body that stays out for a long time. If Mega Man stands near the ledge with it, the opponent's getup options are severely limited. Neutral, Jumping and Attacking getups are all beaten by the move. The opponent's best option is to roll in which can be read and punished with a grab. Back throw then does a minimum 11 damage (more if the leaf shield is still up + 3 damage pummel) and then the situation is reset. The edge guarding properties of leaf shield, I feel, are criminally underutilized.
The opponent can avoid the leaf shield altogether by recovering high. Keep in mind, however, that the shield also functions as a projectile that is transcendent and goes 3/4ths the length of FD.
Sometimes, Mega Man can just stand right on the ledge and certain characters (mainly Captain Falcon) will have a very hard time ledge snapping.

The thing even has uses off stage. You can put on the leaf shield and hang off of the ledge to prevent some characters from snapping to it. Hitting them with this also sets them up in a good position for a "leafstool." See, you can only footstool someone when they are not in an attacking animation. Since the leaf shield hits them, it resets them to neutral position so, with good spacing, a footstool can be guaranteed or at least done muuuch easier.

I didn't even mention Mega Man's other aerials (Dair and Nair) but I feel like that's enough for now.

 

[Nobie]

Mega Man's edge guarding is amazing.
First off, his Bair is a great edge guarding move. It comes out frame 4, lasts until frame 10, does 12 damage (if every hit connects) and has good knockback. It's also disjointed so he doesn't have to trade with characters like Fox in order to hit them. Combine all of that with Mega Man's good recovery and good aerial mobility (tied with Sheik and Captain Falcon) and that alone makes a pretty scary tool.

But that's only the beginning. Mega Man's Metal Blade is also a great edge guarding tool. Z-dropping the blade is a fantastic way to limit your opponent's recovery and set them up for a back air, plus the blade combos into back air if it does hit. You can also throw it raw at 8 different angles, 3 of which are very useful for off stage edge guarding. Diagonally down is very good against characters like Villager who can go super low to recover.

If the character is too close to the stage to risk chasing them off, Mega Man has the Leaf Shield. That move is a constant hitbox around Mega Man's entire body that stays out for a long time. If Mega Man stands near the ledge with it, the opponent's getup options are severely limited. Neutral, Jumping and Attacking getups are all beaten by the move. The opponent's best option is to roll in which can be read and punished with a grab. Back throw then does a minimum 11 damage (more if the leaf shield is still up + 3 damage pummel) and then the situation is reset. The edge guarding properties of leaf shield, I feel, are criminally underutilized.
The opponent can avoid the leaf shield altogether by recovering high. Keep in mind, however, that the shield also functions as a projectile that is transcendent and goes 3/4ths the length of FD.
Sometimes, Mega Man can just stand right on the ledge and certain characters (mainly Captain Falcon) will have a very hard time ledge snapping.

The thing even has uses off stage. You can put on the leaf shield and hang off of the ledge to prevent some characters from snapping to it. Hitting them with this also sets them up in a good position for a "leafstool." See, you can only footstool someone when they are not in an attacking animation. Since the leaf shield hits them, it resets them to neutral position so, with good spacing, a footstool can be guaranteed or at least done muuuch easier.

I didn't even mention Mega Man's other aerials (Dair and Nair) but I feel like that's enough for now.

Mega Man's edgeguarding IS pretty amazing for all the reasons listed above, but one thing I think that makes it extra special is how much freedom he has out of Up B. No character can do as much out of a third jump as Mega Man, and it means he can go deep, miss, then come back and kill you when you think you're safe. On the flip side, the Rush Coil is pretty predictable so it can go south very quickly (I've been hit by a few too many Villager bowling balls for comfort).

Re: Ganondorf's issues with combos and followups, one solution might be to reduce his Knockback overall but greatly increase his Knockback growth to compensate. This could potentially allow Ganondorf to get combos at lower percentages, and by the time people start falling out of those combos...then it's time for them to die.

 

[outfoxd]

I feel like once evolved DHs edgeguarding can be vicious (one of the few ways we can put down stocks). Can harassment, can to cover multiple ledge options, can as a backup plan for missing ledge options, gunmen off ledges, reverse can stage spiking or upair confirms, a spike that, while weak, is still a spike. also, being close to the sides mitigates our weaker aerials mildly.

 

[Teshie U]

Best edgeguarding is situational really. Only one character has the toolkit to apply dangerous pressure to everyone offstage.

 

[Zelder]

Best edgeguarding is situational really. Only one character has the toolkit to apply dangerous pressure to everyone offstage.

...Little Mac?

 

[C0rvus]

Pikachu and Duck Hunt imo have the best edgeguarding. Pikachu can go super deep and has an aerial kit build for dragging people to the depths of hell. Duck Hunt can just cover so many options with certain setups that I feel he has the most edgeguarding potential possibly in the game. He oozes frame traps.

 

[Megamang]

Pika's fair is an insane offstage tool.

Its weakness on the stage is that its final hitbox isn't safe on shield (tho some characters have a much harder time dealing with it than others, and it can be spaced to be safer), and if someone just jumps up and trades with you, it only does tiny damage because its multi-hits get canceled.

Offstage, the multi-hitting property is great because it eats airdodges AND defensive projectiles (like how TL will throw rangs to cover his return.. it also helps it pass thru luma). Trade all you want, you are knocking pika towards the stage (not that he can't make it back from fking anywhere anyways) and if you take the knockback you are probably dead, especially if you are near the blastzone. Its hilarious when the red sparks shoot out at 50% and people are like WHAT?!? but ya, you're dead.

If he's below you, you pretty much have to airdodge or you are getting u-aired. So just nair or fair the opponent (nair hits further, fair is nice near the blastzones for the aforementioned reasons + I can drag you further out a low % to make up for the less knockback) after the dodge...

Of course, they can just eat the u-air and recover high... but then they might get ceiling thunder'd at 50%. Is that ledgeguarding? Idk, some aspects of gameplay bleed over in smash.

For example, I would say Mac's ground game is mediocre against pika, due to his ****ty time in disadvantage. I mean, sure he is scary... but if I get a grab he is getting SO much more punished than shiek/zss/anyone really, so its really lopsided. My grab having insane reward/Forcing recovery makes his neutral ****tier by its reward. You could argue that this isn't his ground game, but that is a semantic argument at best.

Also.. Thunder walls are tough for many characters to return against, and I get a lot of kills with low hitting thunders (when they recognize they have to get hit to live lol) true comboing into the aforementioned fair.


Of course, shiek can take you offstage from the center, so her ledgeguarding is easy to initiate. Again, semantics. is that part of her ledge game?

 

[PUK]

Pikachu and Duck Hunt imo have the best edgeguarding. Pikachu can go super deep and has an aerial kit build for dragging people to the depths of hell. Duck Hunt can just cover so many options with certain setups that I feel he has the most edgeguarding potential possibly in the game. He oozes frame traps.

The question is: who you can't edgeguard. Pikachu can't edgeguard a large variety of character. Zelda, ganondorf, wario have no limitation. They can edgeguard sheik, zelda, ZSS, pikachu and every other god tier recovery because they put a hitbox: you die is their credo.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

To add to Ike's ledgeguarding beyond Eruption:

Walk off/ledge drop Counter absolutely destroys some recoveries like Roy or Ness/Lucas. We only just now started seriously looking at it but in some cases it might be better than Eruption even as there can be less of a guessing game and less time needed to set it up. Also have Fair being a giant hit box to try to get past, Bair's speed, and Dair... well its a spike at least. Or if we have a stock lead we can just aethercide you and close out the game. Or we could get fancy and use Dtilt and then follow it up with Fair.

And then we have the option of just letting you grab the ledge and then use Utilt, Nair, or Eruption to cover all of your options. Or Usmash. Or a PP Ftilt while angling if we think its needed.

 

[Illuminose]

how is missing from this conversation

sheik can make characters with linear recoveries look like they might as well not even have an up b. bouncing fish covers so many options, dtilt can be used for one frame punishes, needles allow sheik to nab double jumps and can lead into combos on a dime, grenade can apply safe pressure from on-stage, fair and bair are fast moves with good enough knock back for edgeguarding/solid range/low cooldown. sheik can often cover all the options. her edgeguarding is likely second best (pikachu has the best edgeguarding).

 

[Vipermoon]

To add to Ike's ledgeguarding beyond Eruption:

Walk off/ledge drop Counter absolutely destroys some recoveries like Roy or Ness/Lucas. We only just now started seriously looking at it but in some cases it might be better than Eruption even as there can be less of a guessing game and less time needed to set it up. Also have Fair being a giant hit box to try to get past, Bair's speed, and Dair... well its a spike at least. Or if we have a stock lead we can just aethercide you and close out the game. Or we could get fancy and use Dtilt and then follow it up with Fair.

And then we have the option of just letting you grab the ledge and then use Utilt, Nair, or Eruption to cover all of your options. Or Usmash. Or a PP Ftilt while angling if we think its needed.

None of these things you mentioned are that great or reliable and many aren't character specific.

Even the counter isn't anything special because it doesn't have much base knockback. Marth's has 90 base kb and counters earlier.

 

[Routa]

One does not simply edgeguard Wario.

But if you ask me Pit(s) have one of the best edgeguarding game. You have: Fair wall to death, Dair spike, Nair intrerruption, Dat Shock Arm, Arrow and dem Reflextors. The best part is that they are always able to recover back (well "always"). Want to go deep? Pick Pit(s).

 

[DunnoBro]

Pikachu and Duck Hunt imo have the best edgeguarding. Pikachu can go super deep and has an aerial kit build for dragging people to the depths of hell. Duck Hunt can just cover so many options with certain setups that I feel he has the most edgeguarding potential possibly in the game. He oozes frame traps.

Nah duck hunt's edgeguarding is too inconsistent to be the best. Just doesn't work vs a lot of characters and his ledge coverage isn't very good either.

It's weird cause he edgeguards traditionally amazing recoveries like Sheik and Pikachu's fine, but weaker ones like olimar and luigi have aspects that really negate duck hunt's ability to edgeguard them effectively.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

None of these things you mentioned are that great or reliable and many aren't character specific.

Even the counter isn't anything special because it doesn't have much base knockback. Marth's has 90 base kb and counters earlier.

Ike's counter has a higher kbg. Takes less damage than Marth's to send them farther.

Utilt is great. Space it right and it covers rolls, jumps, ledge attacks, and has lingering frames. Same with Nair. Pretty reliable. Just that Eruption is better.

 

[PK Gaming]

Robin is my candidate for underrated character of 1.1.0.

His grab range is trash, but kill confirms off a grab is pretty much a trump card in this meta.
His rapid jab (Elwind) kills, all his Levin attacks kill, and he can zone you out on most stages with Thunder and Arcfire.
He even has a command grab that heals. People are scared to try the character because he's slow, but Robin becomes very rewarding once a player masters his fundamentals.

For sure.

When NickRiddle brought out his Robin and beat Seibrik's Sheik, I knew that character had potential. Robin has a surprisingly decent matchup against Sheik.

 

[Vipermoon]

Ike's counter has a higher kbg. Takes less damage than Marth's to send them farther.

Utilt is great. Space it right and it covers rolls, jumps, ledge attacks, and has lingering frames. Same with Nair. Pretty reliable. Just that Eruption is better.

I understand that and I'm sure at higher percents it works a lot better as a kill move (since most recoveries don't do much damage to a counter) but for low percent kills and gimps you want base KB because of being so close to the blastzone.

 

[DunnoBro]

Duck hunt would be viable if pit wasn't the only character this happens to: http://gfycat.com/DownrightYellowishJunco

No clue why but no matter how hard i try or much I test i just can't do more than 2-3 multi shots on anyone but pit.

 

[Mario766]

Ike's counter hits on the same frame as Marth's, 5.

Mac's ground game is not the best. His tools aren't safe on shield besides down tilt. His recovery problems isn't that they are super short in length, it's that they are super easy to beat. Up-B doesn't auto snap, and side-b is counter bait or can just be beaten out with a disjoint. One hit and they are most likely dead if they don't have their double jump so they can air dodge.

 

[TurboLink]

Call me a cynic but i doubt Gannondorf's only "so bad that he can't be goodr" MU is Sheik. I know Villager and Megaman are also torture sequences for the king of evil and one of their worst matchups is Sheik as well (ok I'm not TOO sure about Megaman but definitely so about Villager).

As an aside, if only sheik gets nerfed ZSS/Luma/Some other top tier will be the one who is so dominant. People are too busy thinking about Shiek to really notice the dumb stuff other characters can do and when that character becomes dominant, all we'll ever think about is how to nerf that character. This was eacactly what hapened to Sheik in the transition form 1.0.4 . Some people acknowledged how dumb she was but no one really cared because Diddy Kong existed. When 1.0.6 rolled about and Sheik only got a back air nerf she showed off how perfect she can really be.

Instead of talking about Sheik getting nerfed or how the metagame will be once she's nerfed, focus on what the other top tiers can do, because once Sheik gets inevitably nerfed to the point where only people who genuinely like her would want to play her (as opposed to those who just want to win), Those characters will be the ones invalidating your main.

Finally. People seem to focus on Sheik so much to the point where they forget the other characters that surround her.

 

[Megamang]

DunnoBro how do you edgeguard pika? And, how do you plan on recovering without a hitbox against pika? I'd imagine the universals like DJ + aerial/airdodge have significant counterplay, but im not familiar with DHD's ability to cover himself with items.

 

[Cereal Bawks]

Ike's counter hits on the same frame as Marth's, 5.

Yeah, but it comes out slower. His counter is active on frame 9, while Marth's is frame 5:
http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Ike
http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Marth

 

[LancerStaff]

Duck hunt would be viable if pit wasn't the only character this happens to: http://gfycat.com/DownrightYellowishJunco

No clue why but no matter how hard i try or much I test i just can't do more than 2-3 multi shots on anyone but pit.

That looks pretty sketchy to me...

 

[⑨ball]

Best edgeguarding depends on what you consider to be most important since even the best characters at it tend to be lacking in an area where another character excels.

For example eruption can absolutely destroy people but tends to be super susceptible to characters that can cover their recovery with projectiles like Villager.

Pikachu can go relatively deep, has great options in bair dragging/stagespike mixups and thunder is both a vertical wall and a spike, but lacks a lot of power dealing with ledge vulnerability as well as (afaik) no reliable ways to cover ledge options.

Wario is probably the only character that can say you are already dead if you grab the ledge with waft and bike setup for a whopping 30 active frames of death. However the whole 2 minutes wait time is a thing and it hurts looking at the accessibility of ledge traps like Pacman's trampoline.

 

[Wintropy]

But if you ask me Pit(s) have one of the best edgeguarding game. You have: Fair wall to death, Dair spike, Nair intrerruption, Dat Shock Arm, Arrow and dem Reflextors. The best part is that they are always able to recover back (well "always"). Want to go deep? Pick Pit(s).

With Pit you're pretty much guaranteed to make it back if you're good.

Thing is that some characters just don't respect that.

It's very very very very good, but I don't think it's the best.

"One of" is fair.

 

[Megamang]

Well, it happens that pika is better at gimping his harder MU's, especially luigi, so its very good in that its key in some MUs.

 

[Blobface]

If Ganon hits you offstage you're not likely to make it back if you don't die outright, and his aerials all have big hitboxes with plenty of disjoint and transcendence, but he has to commit to covering a certain area, so he's not always going to land that hit. So how you rank Ganon's edgeguarding mostly depends on what criteria you consider important.

Isn't Marth supposed to be really good at edgeguarding as well?

 

[meleebrawler]

My big reservation with Ganondorf is that he's a typical fatty: he can dish out damage for days, but if you want to stall him out, what options does he have? The ability to close the gap is a big deal in a game dominated by quicksters in the vein of the ninja and bounty hunter.

That said, I think 'Dorf is better than people make him out to be when he performs to the optimal degree. The same can be said of everybody else without the meaning being changed, I concede that, but I think 'Dorf is an outlier in that respect. His reward is so good that it, in theory, mitigates his otherwise important weaknesses.

I'd compare it to the Axe weapon in Disgaea. For those unfamiliar with the weapon system, Axe is a type of weapon that's based on the ATK stat: the higher your ATK, the more you can smash your enemies into bloody bits. The catch? It's the slowest weapon you can get and the majority of its skills only hit a single enemy. Your SPD stat goes down every time you level up, so the more damage you can do, the harder it gets to hit. It's a weapon with great risk and insane reward, which can put people off, since you need to commit to it from the beginning to get good use out of.

'Dorf's raw power is unparalleled and a good 'Dorf can make your job hell if you can't trade with him. The thing is, the higher he goes, the more prevalent the quicksters become - then it becomes even more difficult to make good on his reward, so it kinda contradicts the point of him having that reward in the first place. In Disgaea you can just grind your stats so you become undefeatable and it doesn't matter if you don't hit the first ten times, you still won't die; but if your opponent is faster than you and has comparable stats, they can do more damage to you incrementally, thereby killing you before you kill them. Reward isn't much good if there's no way to connect with it. That's my big concern with Ganondorf, and why I think he will struggle in the meta.

Late, but all this just reminds me of the what I believe the design philosophy behind Mewtwo was; at his most basic he plays somewhat like a heavyweight like Ganondorf who gets his best damage from reads and punishes, but in exchange for raw survivability he avoids most of the pitfalls that tend to plague them competitively: he moves fast enough to keep up with most opponents, has a powerful and versatile projectile letting him threaten from a distance when he needs to and his recovery is nearly ungimpable unless the player makes a mistake. A lot of people think he has a terrible disadvantage state, and while it's certainly not great with aerials generally unsuited to landing, he can easily escape slower characters with his nice airspeed and myriad of movement options, and possibly even the faster ones with the right reads. This is where his "glass cannon" reputation lies.

Now on a more recent topic, Mewtwo's edgeguarding is fairly impressive in it's own right. Nair can be hell if you don't have a hitbox on your recovery, fair and dair are self-explanitory, and bair has giant hitbox useful for challenging moves as well as stage spiking. Not to mention he can go really deep to do it.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Robin is my candidate for underrated character of 1.1.0.

His grab range is trash, but kill confirms off a grab is pretty much a trump card in this meta.
His rapid jab (Elwind) kills, all his Levin attacks kill, and he can zone you out on most stages with Thunder and Arcfire.
He even has a command grab that heals. People are scared to try the character because he's slow, but Robin becomes very rewarding once a player masters his fundamentals.

I would have thought that Robin's zoning, good as it may be, is almost inherently inferior to every other zoner in the game since he has limited ammo to work with.