Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Thinkaman]

Doesn't pound have a hitbox that lasts for really long time tho?

Only relative to roster size.

 

[Kung Fu Treachery]

Ganon Nair was already the move I threw out when in doubt, so having it link for more damage is obviously great. He really does have top-notch aerials. Dthrow to Nair would be better if he didn't have a T-Rex grab, but we can't have everything. Oh well, Command Grabs forever. Except Up B. Boo, Up B.

 

[warionumbah2]

Who does Luigi even beat after this nerf?

 

[RedCap-BlueSpikes]

(EDIT: these things are HUGE so I'mma spoiler them)

Spoiler

There was a problem fetching the tweet

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Anyone have any idea as to what's going on here?

 

[Ffamran]

I love how they keep buffing Ike-related stuff. They must really like Ike. I also love how they changed a lot of customs, but completely ignored Falco's. Gee, we sure love our inferior version of Fox's default Blaster thanks to patch 1.1.0 leaving Burst Blaster with no redeeming qualities just like how Fire Bird never had any redeeming qualities to begin with... Wait... the mysterious 2% to 1.5% change on Fox: could that have been for his Blaster? Either default or Impact as they're the Blasters that do 2% on him. Other 2% moves would be stuff like his jab or maybe one of Fair's hits.

Also, Duck Hunt stage on 3DS and Pirate Ship on Wii U is pretty cool.

 

[Ghostbone]

Probably not practical, but the first hit of ganon's nair > fair can true combo at kill %s lol

 

[TTTTTsd]

Probably not practical, but the first hit of ganon's nair > fair can true combo at kill %s lol

Well that's....an interesting kill setup. It's probably more practical than you'd imagine but only because it's Ganon and not some other char.

 

[Ghostbone]

Well that's....an interesting kill setup. It's probably more practical than you'd imagine but only because it's Ganon and not some other char.

I mean, as far as I can tell ganon's first hit nair has like 4 hitboxes, and only one of them works, and you have to land with it.

 

[KakuCP9]

(EDIT: these things are HUGE so I'mma spoiler them)

Spoiler

There was a problem fetching the tweet

There was a problem fetching the tweet

Anyone have any idea of what's going on here?

Hiyyoooooo~

Yeah. I saw Steam do that to someone once in his latest matches (but he was merciful and spared the other guy's shield). Basically Aura sphere charge pretty much disregards shield so if you get caught like that, you're kinda screwed.

 

[TTTTTsd]

I mean, as far as I can tell ganon's first hit nair has like 4 hitboxes, and only one of them works, and you have to land with it.

I mean it's only even passable because it's Ganon who kind of lacks anything like this (until now apparently). Not that he needed one given that a trade = a kill for Ganon but, yea.

 

[Ffamran]

Doesn't pound have a hitbox that lasts for really long time tho?

It's frame 13-28; 16 active frames. Not really that high since Falco's Nair lasts around 12 to 14 frames and probably similar to Fox's Fair, but those are all multi-hit moves. Even lingering hits like various Nairs and stuff like Mario and Triple D's Dash attacks count, but they don't have a clean hit the entire time.

 

[Shaya]

Everyone was "certain" ZSS nerfs would come, I was worried but I would've bet more money on nothing changing.
It's hard to expect the balance team to respond with changes from one major tournament that's within vision range of the Japanese dev team. It's actually hard to expect the balance team to take tournament anecdotes into consideration much at this stage.

They've been taking away some of the abusive properties of certain characters since the get go; from the first patch with Little Mac and Dedede, Sonic and Rosa time and time again, Diddy Kong, Captain Falcon and now Luigi. Despite some of them not being tournament/top level relevant; they had replicable strategies to them that would've been domineering at most levels of play, the level of play the balance team should rightly show most care for.

This was a pretty passive patch, along with a sway of custom buffs in mostly underused areas. The only big changes were Luigi and Samus (from what we know thus far), a noticeable nair change on Ganondorf and pretty minor touches to Bowser and Rosalina. Perhaps not enough time had passed, they've downsized their balance focus, or we're coming towards the end of the patch cycle. Although we're certainly aware of more content coming in the future, so the feasibility of further big changes (and perhaps the tradition of 'even' patches being the main ones) hasn't evaporated; but the possibility is there and we may now start to think of this game as settling down.

 

[Gamesfreak13563]

Besides nerfing Luigi, what did this patch do for the competitive scene? It's obvious that Pirate Ship and Mario Maker stages are already banned, so we just dropped Luigi a tier or two and called it a day?

Kind of disappointing, really. The stronger characters have one less threat to deal with.

I wonder why we don't do what Smogon does and host tournaments based on tier list viability? I understand we don't have a defined tier list yet, but for something like Melee, you could separate the tier lists and hold tournaments for those characters so we can have the worse off characters still getting a level of professional play.

 

[RedCap-BlueSpikes]

Hiyyoooooo~

Yeah. I saw Steam do that to someone once in his latest matches (but he was merciful and spared the other guy's shield). Basically Aura sphere charge pretty much disregards shield so if you get caught like that, you're kinda screwed.

Was it always like that? There are videos of it happening with other rapid multi-hitting moves, too:


IDK if this is new or not because I never really paid attention but I've never seen this before.

 

[thehard]

Is it so bad that we got a patch that changed one character from fairly shallow and overtuned to (as far as we can tell) something much healthier? That's a winning patch in my book.

 

[Jamurai]

Besides nerfing Luigi, what did this patch do for the competitive scene? It's obvious that Pirate Ship and Mario Maker stages are already banned, so we just dropped Luigi a tier or two and called it a day?

Kind of disappointing, really. The stronger characters have one less threat to deal with.

Fox and Pikachu mains are now laughing their heads off. Luigi was a problematic matchup for both characters and now he's been butchered they don't have much standing in their way. Fox only really wants a secondary to deal with Rosalina now, other than that he has a pretty amazing matchup spread.

 

[Ghostbone]

It's not as if games need patches to survive, we're just spoiled by them.

If the game was never changed from here, I think the competitive scene would get along just fine, Sheik and ZSS are clearly on a level on their own but not unbeatable, or anywhere close to as dominant as top tiers in other smash games.

Fox and Pikachu mains are now laughing their heads off. Luigi was a problematic matchup for both characters and now he's been butchered they don't have much standing in their way. Fox only really wants a secondary to deal with Rosalina now, other than that he has a pretty amazing matchup spread.

Larry makes Rosalina vs Fox look even so I don't think that's even a roadblock tbh.

 

[Green L]

I guess luigi belongs in low or mid tier now. The place where dr Mario is. Both luigi and doc are completely outshined by Mario. Luigi didn't deserve this nerf. People should have learned to adapt and spotdodge. Yet dk's ding dong is WAY more powerful than any of luigi's followups and hasn't been nerfed

 

[Gamesfreak13563]

Sheik and ZSS are clearly on a level on their own but not unbeatable, or anywhere close to as dominant as top tiers in other smash games.

But there really shouldn't be such a gap that any characters can be considered "on a level on their own". They should be closer than that. Either buff the other characters to lower the gap or, more realistically, nerf ZSSheik.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

But there really shouldn't be such a gap that any characters can be considered "on a level on their own".

Says who?

 

[Gamesfreak13563]

Says who?

It's not fun having a meta that's dominated by a few omnipresent threats. It's stale and lowers the variety seen in tournaments. With such an expansive roster, each character should really be given the opportunity to take gold. It would also encourage a higher level of play as the more professional players would have to learn how to counter more threats in more ways.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

a meta that's dominated by a few omnipresent threats.

Welcome to every competitve video game ever.

 

[Ulevo]

Says who?

...says the general consensus.

 

[Quickhero]

It's not fun having a meta that's dominated by a few omnipresent threats. It's stale and lowers the variety seen in tournaments. With such an expansive roster, each character should really be given the opportunity to take gold. It would also encourage a higher level of play as the more professional players would have to learn how to counter more threats in more ways.

Almost every character in this game has a decently reasonable chance of taking gold, though. There really is no character in this game that is so strong it single handedly makes a portion of the cast unviable.

There will always be characters that are more relevant and stronger overall than the rest of the cast, tis just the nature of competitive games.

 

[thehard]

Apparently there's a custom specials-only FG tourney mode now? With Miis and Battlefield too?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

...says the general consensus.

Never heard of a guy who goes by that name. Is he any good at smash?

 

[momochuu]

really glad they nerfed the shield damage on get up attacks because it was way too risky to tech chase some characters. i remember a link broke my shield with his get up attack when both hits connected lol.

 

[Ghostbone]

It's not fun having a meta that's dominated by a few omnipresent threats. It's stale and lowers the variety seen in tournaments. With such an expansive roster, each character should really be given the opportunity to take gold. It would also encourage a higher level of play as the more professional players would have to learn how to counter more threats in more ways.

Yea but, you nerf Sheik/ZSS then another character takes their place.

With both of them out of the way, we'd just have Rosa/Fox/Sonic on "a level on their own" (people can debate which characters will actually take their spot, I'm not sure if it's those 3 but you get the point)
And then you keep going nerfing the best characters, you just end up with new dominating characters until the game is boring because everyone is a low tier.

Sheik and ZSS are very hype to watch and thus fairly healthy for the game imo. Sheik also just has the benefit of a tonne of people continuously developing her, I doubt that in truth she's actually that much better than the rest of the top tiers (still the best, but she has various essentially even matchups i'm sure).

The game might be a bit better if sheik was a bit worse, but it's more likely that if they attempt to balance her they'll just botch her (well as much as you can with a character with amazing frame data), and I dislike the overall reverse powercreep that smash 4 has undergone since release.

 

[Gamesfreak13563]

Yea but, you nerf Sheik/ZSS then another character takes their place.

With both of them out of the way, we'd just have Rosa/Fox/Sonic on "a level on their own" (people can debate which characters will actually take their spot, I'm not sure if it's those 3 but you get the point)
And then you keep going nerfing the best characters, you just end up with new dominating characters until the game is boring because everyone is a low tier.

Sheik and ZSS are very hype to watch and thus fairly healthy for the game imo. Sheik also just has the benefit of a tonne of people continuously developing her, I doubt that in truth she's actually that much better than the rest of the top tiers (still the best, but she has various essentially even matchups i'm sure).

That's fair. In that case, just buff the lower tier characters so they can compete more fairly. I was apprehensive to suggest it because of the work it entails.

 

[Cassio]

If Id been asked for one thing to patch it wouldve been getting rid of dthrow to nado. It was the final major thing that didnt "make sense" in the context of sm4sh. Sheik may be strong but at least she makes sense.

Everyone was "certain" ZSS nerfs would come, I was worried but I would've bet more money on nothing changing.
It's hard to expect the balance team to respond with changes from one major tournament that's within vision range of the Japanese dev team. It's actually hard to expect the balance team to take tournament anecdotes into consideration much at this stage.

I think patches hit a cycle of about 3 months past community consensus. First patch Diddy got passed over while the immediate issues were dealt with. Second patch Diddy got hit with a nerf as everyone grew increasingly tired around Apex, then massacred him when the complaints hit critical mass a month later.

Now we have "one-patch-late" updates to luigi and customs.

I dont think ZSS deserves nerfs but I think shed be considered "safe" after probably the next character patch unless it gets worse. I think its the same for sheik, she was already being constantly nerfed along with sonic, but I have a feeling next patch will give a better idea of where thats headed.

 

[Ulevo]

Yea but, you nerf Sheik/ZSS then another character takes their place.

With both of them out of the way, we'd just have Rosa/Fox/Sonic on "a level on their own" (people can debate which characters will actually take their spot, I'm not sure if it's those 3 but you get the point)
And then you keep going nerfing the best characters, you just end up with new dominating characters until the game is boring because everyone is a low tier.

Sheik and ZSS are very hype to watch and thus fairly healthy for the game imo. Sheik also just has the benefit of a tonne of people continuously developing her, I doubt that in truth she's actually that much better than the rest of the top tiers (still the best, but she has various essentially even matchups i'm sure).

The game might be a bit better if sheik was a bit worse, but it's more likely that if they attempt to balance her they'll just botch her (well as much as you can with a character with amazing frame data), and I dislike the overall reverse powercreep that smash 4 has undergone since release.

This logic is incredibly fallacious. This reverse power creep you are not so fond of is the reason why we have a reasonably balanced game.

Diddy Kong was on a level of his own prior to his major patch, and now he is a reasonable yet competitive character. Sheik did not become over the top because Diddy Kong left his throne. She was already over the top.

 

[Radical Larry]

really glad they nerfed the shield damage on get up attacks because it was way too risky to tech chase some characters. i remember a link broke my shield with his get up attack when both hits connected lol.

Well it doesn't matter since Link still has shield pressuring and breaking capabilities still. But to clarify, Link didn't have 2 hits, but 3 hits on his get up attack I believe. My opponent's shield, when I used the get-up attack, went down once, then within quick succession, decreased size twice.

But is Link's get up 3 hits? Anyone want to correct or confirm?

 

[Ghostbone]

I doubt they had time to react to the most recent japanese major with ZSS nerfs, I'd still expect them next patch cycle lol.

This logic is incredibly fallacious. This reverse power creep you are not so fond of is the reason why we have a reasonably balanced game.

Diddy Kong was on a level of his own prior to his major patch, and now he is a reasonable yet competitive character. Sheik did not become over the top because Diddy Kong left his throne. She was already over the top.

"Diddy was on a level of his own"
"Sheik was already over the top"
Pick one lol, I remember even in 1.0.4 some people were arguing sheik was better than diddy.

And diddy was only top tier after Rosalina and Sheik had already been nerfed a bunch. (also changes to DI mechanics)
I'm not going to argue that 1.0.4 diddy wasn't over the top, in that state he likely had no bad matchups and was heading to close to brawl MK levels of dominance. The second round of nerfs were ******** though.

I still don't doubt that a game built around the power levels of 1.0 characters (well Rosalina needed to be nerfed but that's about it imo) would have been good. If everyone was buffed to that level then I think smash 4 would be a lot more fun, people can disagree but it's not like we can compare the hypothetical to what we have no so there's no way to objectively analyse it.

 

[|RK|]

Besides nerfing Luigi, what did this patch do for the competitive scene? It's obvious that Pirate Ship and Mario Maker stages are already banned, so we just dropped Luigi a tier or two and called it a day?

Kind of disappointing, really. The stronger characters have one less threat to deal with.

I wonder why we don't do what Smogon does and host tournaments based on tier list viability? I understand we don't have a defined tier list yet, but for something like Melee, you could separate the tier lists and hold tournaments for those characters so we can have the worse off characters still getting a level of professional play.

As a Kirby main... **** D-Throw to Tornado.

 

[Evello]

I guess luigi belongs in low or mid tier now. The place where dr Mario is. Both luigi and doc are completely outshined by Mario. Luigi didn't deserve this nerf. People should have learned to adapt and spotdodge. Yet dk's ding dong is WAY more powerful than any of luigi's followups and hasn't been nerfed

No way is Luigi low tier, that's an overreaction. He struggles to kill more now, but he still racks up damage like a beast and has some KO options left, like upsmash.

And while at the absolute peak of competitive play Luigi was not broken, he honestly did need the a rebalancing (if not an outright nerf). Below professional major play, Luigi was extremely powerful. I believe I saw one compilation of tournament results throughout August at the local through national level that put Luigi's number of tournament wins above Sheik.

 

[TriTails]

Luigi's nerf were huge but I still think Fox dreams on having an even MU with Luigi, honestly.

U-throw + SH 2 F-airs + regrab still works. U-throw + U-air + N-air should work too.

The only difference is Luigi doesn't just get lol 80% kill at the ledge with a D-throw + B-air with rage, so this fight is fairer for Fox, but probably still in Luigi's favor.

Mario's MU also feels just a tiny bit worse. Both now struggles to kill but Luigi still has the upper hand.

IDK on Ness, Pika, and Diddy tho.

What matters the most however, RIP Luigi vs Sheik.

 

[Ffamran]

Fox and Pikachu mains are now laughing their heads off. Luigi was a problematic matchup for both characters and now he's been butchered they don't have much standing in their way. Fox only really wants a secondary to deal with Rosalina now, other than that he has a pretty amazing matchup spread.

Falco's MU with Luigi became like +5 from somewhere between 30:70 and 40:60 to something between 35:65 or 40:60 which isn't much... I don't know the exact details of what has changed to Luigi's D-throw, but assuming he gets good rewards and not massive rewards, it's still going to be problematic when Falco's jab is still stupid and Luigi's Nair and grab being fast enough where he can interrupt a basic action from him. Still, that's one popular character Falco has issues with dialed down.

Someone said Luigi can setup Up Smash out of D-throw now. I wonder of he can do something like D-throw to jump-cancelled Up Smash for a kill?

 

[Cassio]

Seems to be a lot of reduction to shield "breaking" attacks. I understand the design philosophy but kind of sad bc breaking shields is fun and I use both DK and Marth

 

[Gamesfreak13563]

Diddy Kong was on a level of his own prior to his major patch, and now he is a reasonable yet competitive character. Sheik did not become over the top because Diddy Kong left his throne. She was already over the top.

Sheik and ZSS and maybe Pikachu need some small nerfs. Following that, the rest of the cast should be brought to that level. I think the level of strength that characters like Villager, Captain Falcon and other in that area should be where the cast should be - they have considerable strengths, but also a weakness that can be exploited. It would add a level of strategy to the game that I just don't see with Sheik's ultra-safe approach and other things like that.

 

[thehard]

I hate to be "that guy" but are we sure the shield-breaker nerfs haven't coincided with some sort of universal shield nerf? (I half-expected another i-frame off of rolls and spotdodges too >_>)

As if on cue

Apparently there's a big engine change with shield stun~