Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[hypersonicJD]

Mr.R was definetily nervous. But I think it was actually the language. Mexican spanish it's pretty weird in some words and hard to understand not because of the meaning itself. But mostly pronunciation and spelling. Like: A HUEVO PUTO. Nobody that speaks only english could say that properly And the mexican croud was pretty hype though. A little bit biased commentary, crowd pressure and more things maked Mr.R nervous and lost. The Mexican player is quite good indeed, But he won't be able to beat Zero. Maybe he said it thanks to the hype of beating Mr.R. Like a spanish person could say: Perro que ladra no muerde (dog that barks doesn't bite).

Anyway, Meta Knight could be a counter to Sheik, because even though Mr.R got a really good combo going on the third set, Meta Knight was as fast on getting the same damage output or less but in a more consistent way. Also he was escaping Sheik's Frame Traps and most of her stuff. It was a pretty interesting match-up.

 

[Emblem Lord]

So like...MK though, honestly it looked like once MK gets in, Sheik can't get him away, and she can't exactly challenge his butter knife with those limbs, finally Sheik gets comboed for free because of her fall speed...prepare to see lots of MK in the future I think

No because MK is a skillful character. If anything expect to see more old school REAL Brawl MK mains come back to the character and wreck people.

 

[Spinosaurus]

Anyway, Meta Knight could be a counter to Sheik

This is what I really didn't want to see.

People actually thinking MK can counter Sheik because of that one set.

 

[hypersonicJD]

Sheik can still do pretty nasty stuff to Meta Knight and kill him easily with Bouncing Fish, Vanish or Up Air, but Meta Knight doesn't have to deal with Needles pressure and has an upper hand in the air.

 

[Spinosaurus]

Meta Knight doesn't have to deal with Needles pressure and has an upper hand in the air.

I don't know what to tell you man.

Except that what you said isn't true at all. This MU isn't fun for MK.

 

[⑨ball]

Nobody will ever be an agreeable counter to Sheik until/unless needles get patched in a meaningful way. Until then everyone just does varying levels of not-so-bad to invalidated.

 

[FullMoon]

I like how people everywhere are pretending to know everything about MK and his MU with Sheik after watching that set

 

[hypersonicJD]

I have used many characters and MK doesn't have too much problem with Sheik. It's not that bad and he can win pretty easily againts Sheik.

 

[Antonykun]

this MK hype reminds me of the time Ito took a game off Zero and everyone went on to say MK is the new god (myself included)

 

[Firefoxx]

Lost a bit in the hype that is the Young God Leo, Max Ketchum and M2K were both sent to losers by round 2 at that tournament. Obviously they aren't the best players in the world, but Max is one of 5 or 6 Falcons in america that actually gets results outside of locals and M2K is M2K.

Edit: Also, maybe that win last night has nothing to do with whether or not MK beats Sheik. There is a pretty strong possibility that Leo is just that good.

 

[Ffamran]

So, Peach's tools against Luma... I remember seeing EKing's name in EVO's brackets, but I don't remember seeing Excel_Zero's. If you want Peach results, there's Puerto Rico's Peach. The uploaders made it weird... Each match is a separate video, here's the playlist with Excel_Zero and DOOM!. MightGalo's there too, but he's mostly there for Losers Finals. Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdhDDjQ77UE&list=PLrd-QDf4DsHyyFYd0QBp9rlL5rWmAkalG&index=1.

 

[Gamegenie222]

Speaking of EVO does anyone have the top 32 of smash 4 up on YT yet I can't find footage that arn't random pool vids or top 8 for the life of me?

 

[warionumbah2]

I like how people everywhere are pretending to know everything about MK and his MU with Sheik after watching that set

i like this guy, respect to frog mains.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

Ignore this post. I have nothing to say

 

[Antonykun]

Ignore this post. I have nothing to say

I think you mean to say a lack of MU knowledge from his opponent which is understandable seeing as not a lot of people are really good with meta knight

 

[⑨ball]

@ Ffamran Peach's kit in general has a lot of really strong tools. The only thing I really see holding her back is her effort to reward ratio.


Question for anyone who feels they have a relatively good understanding of the game: how valuable are anti-airs in this game?

For example would Marth's utilt be considered overall more useful than his ftilt?

 

[Seagull Joe]

Mr.R was definetily nervous. But I think it was actually the language. Mexican spanish it's pretty weird in some words and hard to understand not because of the meaning itself. But mostly pronunciation and spelling. Like: A HUEVO PUTO. Nobody that speaks only english could say that properly And the mexican croud was pretty hype though. A little bit biased commentary, crowd pressure and more things maked Mr.R nervous and lost. The Mexican player is quite good indeed, But he won't be able to beat Zero. Maybe he said it thanks to the hype of beating Mr.R. Like a spanish person could say: Perro que ladra no muerde (dog that barks doesn't bite).

Anyway, Meta Knight could be a counter to Sheik, because even though Mr.R got a really good combo going on the third set, Meta Knight was as fast on getting the same damage output or less but in a more consistent way. Also he was escaping Sheik's Frame Traps and most of her stuff. It was a pretty interesting match-up.

Mr. R is fluent in spanish.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

I think you mean to say a lack of MU knowledge from his opponent which is understandable seeing as not a lot of people are really good with meta knight

That's what I meant. Didn't think it was sound reasoning. Guess I was right....or wrong lol.
Also, how much are you rewarded when throwing an opponent offstage generally? Because I see it as almost nil

 

[warionumbah2]

He lives with Tyrant, he's got all the MU exp he needs. Nothing Leo did surprised him other than his punish game being stronger/more consistent than Tyrants and Uair --> FF Bair which can be escaped via teching or mashing a get up attack.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

This is what I really didn't want to see.

People actually thinking MK can counter Sheik because of that one set.

Remember when everyone said Olimar was a Diddy counter? Same thing. People just never learn.

 

[Ffamran]

@ Ffamran Peach's kit in general has a lot of really strong tools. The only thing I really see holding her back is her effort to reward ratio.


Question for anyone who feels they have a relatively good understanding of the game: how valuable are anti-airs in this game?

For example would Marth's utilt be considered overall more useful than his ftilt?

There's that, but people say Greninja is a difficult character to use and I don't see that. Hell, Rosalina and Sheik are among the more difficult characters to use effectively at high levels, but you don't see people complaining. It just might be people work differently. For me, Fox is borderline braindead since I just work well with him and my play style syncs with him, but Villager, Rosalina, and Olimar? Yeah, I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. Other people would argue that Fox is a more difficult character to use than Mario, Luigi, Diddy, and Captain Falcon, the more player-friendly and easier to get results with characters, but that's them; that's not me. For me, Fox is borderline braindead; for them, he's not or maybe he is. At a basic level, I think Peach is fairly easy to use. She's not micromanaging so much like Rosalina or Olimar and she's not awkward like Zelda. Mega Man's pretty okay once you understand how he works.

Anti-airs are/would be useful, but then there's Sheik's Fair range... Falco has quick and safe anti-air pokes like angled Ftilt, Utilt, and Up Smash which is fast, but he needs to hit or else the end lag is going to bite him back. Issue? Range. Against disjoints, it's not going to be fun, against characters with a lot of range for some reason, like Sheik, it's not going to be fun. Peach also has wicked anti-airs like Ftilt, but she also has wicked anti-anti-airs like Fair which I just noticed is small-looking because of Peach's noodle arms. There's also the thing where not a lot of Utilts have characters crouching and then rising - I know Ike has one. Not familiar with Street Fighter, but doesn't Ryu actually have a move like Kyo's crouching uppercut? Not sure about being able to run, crouch, and then use an anti-air which would have made Fox's Utilt even more godplayer. The closest we have to that is well, Sheik and Greninja who run close to the ground and I guess Pikachu, Kirby, and Mr. Game & Watch.

The ones that do rise up in the air end up leaving you in bad positions like (Dr.) Mario's SJP, Marth and Lucina's Dolphin Slash, Roy's Blazer, and even Ryu's input Shoryuken. Whiffing means they're going to be in the air while the opponent is just there waiting to punish. And nobody really has a RED Kick like Kyo. The closest we have to that is ZSS's Flip Jump and Sheik's Bouncing Fish which don't have active hitboxes until they meet someone or you manually input for the hitbox to come out.

As you can see, I really want Kyo in this game.

 

[bc1910]

How is Greninja not difficult? He requires so much precision to play and he doesn't have safe buttons. He hasn't been easy since shurikens were patched.

 

[FullMoon]

Greninja is a difficult to use character because he's a more "honest" character in that he has nothing really abusive about him. His combos aren't as easy as other characters like the Mario Bros. He also has a lot of weird moves that makes him harder to get the hang of (pretty much all of his specials bar Water Shuriken fall into that category and even shuriken has some quirks to it) as well as some other useful things that are harder to get the hang off like the Up-Air Spike and footstool combos (say what you will about them, but aMSa has shown that they're not as impractical as they look and more Greninja players are starting to implement them into real matches) that add a lot more potential to the character.

He's a very high risk/high reward character. It can be difficult to get in due to him being a rather unsafe character but once he does he really brings in the pain. The damage on his combo moves are pretty high (N-Air by itself does 11% and that's the combo starter, mix in Up-Smash and you get 30% in two hits, F-Smash and it's 25%, footstool combos can get up to 60% and so on) and his mobility make getting him away from you once he hits advantage pretty hard.

Mastering Greninja is pretty tricky because you need to have really good fundamentals and spacing in order to well with him, as well as being able to play the baiting game to the best of your abilities. If you mess up even a little bit you can eat a pretty big punish.

I don't think he's that difficult to use, though, but he does take more effort to use than most top tiers because he doesn't have anything to fall back to like Luma, Needles, Spin Dash, etc, you just have to know his entire moveset and know what to use and when and also get in the right position to make use of it. There's also his lack of OoS options that make dealing with pressure hard. He has the tools to compete, but making full use of those tools requires a good amount of effort.

About anti-airs, I'll make a bold claim and say that Greninja's Up-Tilt is the best anti-air in the game. The tongue has good, disjointed range, Greninja makes his hurtbox even smaller when using it and it true comboes into Up-Air at kill %s. It's only active from frame 9 to 12 though so it's not the easiest to use, but the reward is great. It only does 4% though, which is pretty bad.

 

[Ffamran]

How is Greninja not difficult? He requires so much precision to play and he doesn't have safe buttons. He hasn't been easy since shurikens were patched.

Like I said, for some people character X is difficult, but for others, he's not. I don't find Greninja, Mega Man, or Peach that difficult to use, but then my brain turns into mush trying to figure out Villager, Rosalina, Olimar, Duck Hunt, Yoshi, and Samus. Hell, I can't even properly play Diddy or Luigi the "braindead" characters of Smash 4, but Meta Knight and Fox are fair game. I do better with Dr. Mario than Mario who for all intents and purposes, Mario's probably supposed to be the beginner-friendly character.

 

[Locke 06]

About anti-airs, I'll make a bold claim and say that Greninja's Up-Tilt is the best anti-air in the game. The tongue has good, disjointed range, Greninja makes his hurtbox even smaller when using it and it true comboes into Up-Air at kill %s. It's only active from frame 9 to 12 though so it's not the easiest to use, but the reward is great. It only does 4% though, which is pretty bad.

: "Did someone say anti-air?"
: "Yeah, I think someone was talking about anti-airs."
: "That sure is funny."

Don't kid yourself. Greninja's utilt has a bad hitbox for an anti-air. It's a juggle tool, like Shulk's utilt.

 

[hypersonicJD]

Fox is also braindead for me. Up Tilt: The character. I have hated Fox in every smash game. But even then I have tested him and he's not that braindead. You do have to know how to use Fox's attacks and when to kill. I don't really like Jab Combo though. It's just broken and stupid to me. I could use Fox as a counter for another Fox or a character that gives me trouble with Sonic. Mario isn't so braindead too. You do have to know how to use his attacks properly and he isn't the best at recovering from the stage.

 

[FullMoon]

: "Did someone say anti-air?"
: "Yeah, I think someone was talking about anti-airs."
: "That sure is funny."

Don't kid yourself. Greninja's utilt has a bad hitbox for an anti-air. It's a juggle tool, like Shulk's utilt.

I've had good results using Up-Tilt especially when perfect pivot is involved.

With that said I might be completely misunderstanding what an anti-air is because I'm still not very well versed with the terms.

And I keep forgetting Ryu is in this game.

 

[⑨ball]

I don't think difficulty of use translates well in the context of effort v reward. We can't really measure something as subjective as difficulty, but we can at the very least get a gauge on effort as we think about conversions.

For example lets take MK (for current hype's sake) v Mii Brawler. I'm sure Dapuffster and Ito could argue all day about who's the more difficult character to master, but if we look at two similar conversions -- MK's dthrow>uair string> upB kill combo versus Mii Brawler's dthrow>[fair]>upB kill combo, it's fairly obvious who has to put in more work to convert their dthrow into a kill on top of who has the larger window of opportunity to do so. Of course it could also be argued that Mii Brawler puts in his work before hand through luring and pushing opponents into position but at that point it could turn into a pissing contest again.

This is the core of how I see Peach as a character. Whether or not she's easy or not to use is irrelevant, but when it comes time to move from neutral to advantage, disadvantage to neutral, or advantage into KO I feel like she can(which is more than plenty of characters can say) but it comes down to her just having to do so much more just to come out even.


I think we can all agree anti-airs are neat, obviously having them on your character is a plus, but I was more interested in how valuable they are in the metagame. Like if customs allowed miis to choose their normals as well would it be more prudent to pick an utilt like Fox's or an utilt like Greninja's?


edit: Also I don't know anything about KoF. For you, the day Bison graced your village, was the most important day of your life...but for me it was just Tuesday.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Greninja is a difficult to use character because he's a more "honest" character in that he has nothing really abusive about him. His combos aren't as easy as other characters like the Mario Bros. He also has a lot of weird moves that makes him harder to get the hang of (pretty much all of his specials bar Water Shuriken fall into that category and even shuriken has some quirks to it) as well as some other useful things that are harder to get the hang off like the Up-Air Spike and footstool combos (say what you will about them, but aMSa has shown that they're not as impractical as they look and more Greninja players are starting to implement them into real matches) that add a lot more potential to the character.

He's a very high risk/high reward character. It can be difficult to get in due to him being a rather unsafe character but once he does he really brings in the pain. The damage on his combo moves are pretty high (N-Air by itself does 11% and that's the combo starter, mix in Up-Smash and you get 30% in two hits, F-Smash and it's 25%, footstool combos can get up to 60% and so on) and his mobility make getting him away from you once he hits advantage pretty hard.

Mastering Greninja is pretty tricky because you need to have really good fundamentals and spacing in order to well with him, as well as being able to play the baiting game to the best of your abilities. If you mess up even a little bit you can eat a pretty big punish.

I don't think he's that difficult to use, though, but he does take more effort to use than most top tiers because he doesn't have anything to fall back to like Luma, Needles, Spin Dash, etc, you just have to know his entire moveset and know what to use and when and also get in the right position to make use of it. There's also his lack of OoS options that make dealing with pressure hard. He has the tools to compete, but making full use of those tools requires a good amount of effort.

About anti-airs, I'll make a bold claim and say that Greninja's Up-Tilt is the best anti-air in the game. The tongue has good, disjointed range, Greninja makes his hurtbox even smaller when using it and it true comboes into Up-Air at kill %s. It's only active from frame 9 to 12 though so it's not the easiest to use, but the reward is great. It only does 4% though, which is pretty bad.

Honestly I think they need to redo Greninja's frame data fair and nair are way too slow which holds him back a lot. His options are poor/mediocre which makes him a difficult character to play. Despite his combo game he's still not showing anything.

Also I think a tier list should be a combination of matchups and analyzing tools of each character. Results can mislead and they don't always tell the story. But yeah for myself I don't need to see results before I believe a character is good.

My top 5 characters

Sheik ZSS pikachu fox mario

My bottom 5
Shulk Robin Palutena Samus Zelda


I think anyone in the bottom 5 can be considered the worst character in the gsme. Although Samus has the most going for her than the others. Other bad characters that could be there but think they have a bit more going for them. This is non customs btw.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Fox is also braindead for me. Up Tilt: The character. I have hated Fox in every smash game. But even then I have tested him and he's not that braindead. You do have to know how to use Fox's attacks and when to kill. I don't really like Jab Combo though. It's just broken and stupid to me. I could use Fox as a counter for another Fox or a character that gives me trouble with Sonic. Mario isn't so braindead too. You do have to know how to use his attacks properly and he isn't the best at recovering from the stage.

The year is 20XX. Fox is a counter for Fox.

 

[Mario766]

Shulk in bottom 5.

I never thought I'd see the day.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

Shulk in bottom 5.

I never thought I'd see the day.

Yes shulk is a bad character . Once you understand the character it's rather obvious. His frame data is terrible and he's very unsafe on a lot of things. Monado arts is nothing more than a gimmick. He can't really keep up with any character truthfully.

 

[Mario766]

Yes shulk is a bad character .

Explain.

 

[wedl!!]

honestly there's nothing about shulk that would make him worse than like, or simply because his kit is hindered less by other characters existing.

's nair and uair are such good anti-airs omg... if only they had good hitboxes. am i allowed to talk about that with better functioning hitboxes would actually be a decent threat again or

 

[bc1910]

Nair is fine, reducing its startup wouldn't accomplish anything (though having a fast combo breaker would be nice) because Greninja's short hop is so high. You'd still have to activate the attack late in the hop if you wanted to hit anyone unless you made it like frame 2 or something. Although I wouldn't be opposed to reducing Nair's damage a bit but giving it true sex kick properties (strong hitbox active on like frame 3-5, then several frames of the weak hitbox). You're right about Fair, it is too slow for the knockback it deals. Still a very good spacing aerial but I'd be lying if I said I'm happy with the startup.

I'm sure I sound like a broken record but all Greninja needs to make sense as a character is the old shurikens.

On the subject of Utilt it's great when someone is directly above you but the range is way too bad for it to be anything more than a niche, yet high rewarding anti air. Greninja's old Usmash, on the other hand, could well have been the best anti-air in the game.

 

[Smog Frog]

kit isnt bad. its just the kit is in a terrible, buggy body. on kit alone he's probably high-mid(fully charged shadow ball is actually the 2nd best projectile in the game)

 

[wedl!!]

kit isnt bad. its just the kit is in a terrible, buggy body. on kit alone he's probably high-mid(fully charged shadow ball is actually the 2nd best projectile in the game)

it's not his kit. i implied it was other characters existing.

having a great recovery, good damage racking and one of the best kill throws in the game alongside shadow ball makes m2 pretty strong on paper. then there's the idea that he has to be tall/floaty/light, which isn't that bad, but is a death sentence when you're almost the same weight as but 5x taller

 

[Yonder]

kit isnt bad. its just the kit is in a terrible, buggy body. on kit alone he's probably high-mid(fully charged shadow ball is actually the 2nd best projectile in the game)

M2's kit is actually dang good, minus a few underwhelming moves like u air and forward smash. Dash attack, d tilt, u throw, u smash, forward air, shadow ball,maybe confusion are some of the upper echelon of moves assigned to those buttons, at least. Bair has been handy too for edgeguards and going through the stage edges upon returning. Nair has been handy too for damage racking. I'd rather have mewtwo's moves that a lot of characters in this game in at least most of the upper mid tier and below, competitive wise.

Just that his body/weight ratio sucks and that's why he should be lower mid. If he had normal weight like say Mario, I'd put him in the bottom of the high. He gets rocked by rage almost as bad as Game and Watch. And at least Jigglypuff is small and mobile to avoid hits.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

M2's kit is actually dang good, minus a few underwhelming moves like u air and forward smash. Dash attack, d tilt, u throw, u smash, forward air, shadow ball,maybe confusion are some of the upper echelon of moves assigned to those buttons, at least. Bair has been handy too for edgeguards and going through the stage edges upon returning. Nair has been handy too for damage racking. I'd rather have mewtwo's moves that a lot of characters in this game in at least most of the upper mid tier and below, competitive wise.

Just that his body/weight ratio sucks and that's why he should be lower mid. If he had normal weight like say Mario, I'd put him in the bottom of the high. He gets rocked by rage almost as bad as Game and Watch. And at least Jigglypuff is small and mobile to avoid hits.

A weight boost would go ablong way for mewtwo. I actually think his uair is a decent move it could be better. I think Mewtwo moves are too slow fastest ground move being frame 6 does him no favors. *sigh* Really wish mewtwo was good this time around.

Nair is fine, reducing its startup wouldn't accomplish anything (though having a fast combo breaker would be nice) because Greninja's short hop is so high. You'd still have to activate the attack late in the hop if you wanted to hit anyone unless you made it like frame 2 or something. Although I wouldn't be opposed to reducing Nair's damage a bit but giving it true sex kick properties (strong hitbox active on like frame 3-5, then several frames of the weak hitbox). You're right about Fair, it is too slow for the knockback it deals. Still a very good spacing aerial but I'd be lying if I said I'm happy with the startup.

I'm sure I sound like a broken record but all Greninja needs to make sense as a character is the old shurikens.

On the subject of Utilt it's great when someone is directly above you but the range is way too bad for it to be anything more than a niche, yet high rewarding anti air. Greninja's old Usmash, on the other hand, could well have been the best anti-air in the game.

Except give him an OoS option that hits all around him. I wouldn't actually touch the damage on nair just make it 4 frames or something like that. I think a faster nair would improve his combo game.

 

[zeldasmash]

Besides weight, better hitbox placement will help Mewtwo. I swear that there are moves that Mewtwo has that never hit when it clearly should.