Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[C0rvus]

The bottom line is that Samus and Palutena, while having numerous problems and dysfunctional moves, have a kit that flows. Both have decent BnBs, and can execute a basic gameplan. Zelda has a bunch of random moves that make no sense, nearly useless specials in Din's and Phantom Slash, all while being slow AND floaty AND light. She has literally nothing going for her. Potential isn't what you think it is. Not that the distinction between worst and second worst really even matters; they are all bad relative to the cast. Zelda just happens to be awful in a vacuum as well.

 

[Jaguar360]

Potential means we're missing something. I mean... What are we missing on Zelda? If I said Peach or Pit or maybe even Samus had untapped potential back in 1.1.0, people wouldn't think I'm crazy. These characters do things, have functioning gameplans, and haven't exactly been under the highest scrutiny. Zelda doesn't really work to begin with... Since she doesn't flow she doesn't have connections to be made, and no connections means no optimization, which means no growth which means no potential.

Come on now. Of course Zelda has potential. Despite a lot of us on the Zelda boards being pessimistic, some of us are working to develop her meta each day. We still need to work on teleport ledge cancelling with Farore's Wind, optimizing our followups (we're finding things like Jab -> F-air at low-mid percents on some characters, FF n-air followups, mixing up U-throw and D-throw, etc.), and there's definitely potential with Naryu's Love and Phantom Slash.

As for her gameplan, she's a spacing character through and through. She wants to be using Jab, D-tilt, F-smash and Phantom to space in neutral for the most part, then try to get in with a grab, N-air or U-tilt. She's a reactionary character, yes, but that doesn't mean that she lacks a gameplan.

 

[Asdioh]

Who cares about zelda and palutena? (Palutena is blatantly better, btw. But Zelda supposedly has neat things going for her in this patch, so we'll see if she improves)

Fun fact: Ryu's frame 3 Uptilt->Shoryuken guaranteed kill combo is stronger than Diddy Kong's frame 3 Upair (possibly out of a frame 6 grab) ever was :O! I wonder how long it'll be before people stop getting hype over Ryu, and instead become angry with how incredibly strong shoryuken is.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Who cares about zelda and palutena? (Palutena is blatantly better, btw. But Zelda supposedly has neat things going for her in this patch, so we'll see if she improves)

Fun fact: Ryu's frame 3 Uptilt->Shoryuken guaranteed kill combo is stronger than Diddy Kong's frame 3 Upair (possibly out of a frame 6 grab) ever was :O! I wonder how long it'll be before people stop getting hype over Ryu, and instead become angry with how incredibly strong shoryuken is.

Probably never because of how Ryu flows and how we don't have Ryu players in giant excess =V. At least, I hope people stay hype for Ryu because he really is not easy to play at all compared to pre-patch Diddz.

 

[C0rvus]

Getting a grab into an up air is much easier than landing Ryu's tiny up tilt, especially when you have a banana which in many situations is a free grab. Ryu is also quite a bit harder than Diddy, so there will never be the playerbase that the monkey once had.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Her tilts are extremely sluggish, and her specials are way too gimmicky to be used effectively. He smash attacks are also pretty mediocre. Also, all of her normals have extreme lag and her tilts and smashes are slow.

You're actually talking about Zelda here, even though you may not realize it.

 

[Wiimas123]

You're actually talking about Zelda here, even though you may not realize it.

Not really... Faore's wind isn't gimmicky and while Din's fire and Phantom's slash aren't great they aren't gimmicky. Maybe you should research about a character before arguing about them.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I appreciate the irony.

 

[PUK]

I would appreciate good discussion here and not a reddit debate.
Pls if you don't know or don't care, don't talk

 

[LancerStaff]

Come on now. Of course Zelda has potential. Despite a lot of us on the Zelda boards being pessimistic, some of us are working to develop her meta each day. We still need to work on teleport ledge cancelling with Farore's Wind, optimizing our followups (we're finding things like Jab -> F-air at low-mid percents on some characters, FF n-air followups, mixing up U-throw and D-throw, etc.), and there's definitely potential with Naryu's Love and Phantom Slash.

As for her gameplan, she's a spacing character through and through. She wants to be using Jab, D-tilt, F-smash and Phantom to space in neutral for the most part, then try to get in with a grab, N-air or U-tilt. She's a reactionary character, yes, but that doesn't mean that she lacks a gameplan.

Depends how how low you're going to set the bar for potential. Technically, everybody has potential. But will Jab > X combos or Farore's canceling give her anything significant? From what I've seen, they're very specific. If we're talking about having enough potential to be even a half a tier higher... I don't think Zelda can move that far, especially when the characters she's next to are developing at similar rates or better.

Zelda's gameplan is flawed at best. What's her matchup spread like? Her only good matchup as far as I'm aware is Rosalina, and not even because her gameplan works against hers but instead because Din's is great against an opponent who can't dodge or shield. Is there any matchup where she works and can achieve success?

 

[Jaguar360]

To nitpick Gheb, Zelda doesn't have laggy tilts aside from F-tilt, which at least is quick and has good range. Naryu's Love isn't gimmicky and while Farore's and Phantom have a few gimmicks they are still good moves at least. F-smash is an AMAZING move, especially with the added safety on block in the new patch. Zelda's smashes aren't slow either, especially D-smash (frame 10 iirc?).

Not going to argue on Zelda, Samus and Palutena's tier positions. The argument is completely subjective and it really doesn't matter because they are both obviously low-bottom tier. Both of them have niches in what they do however and have pretty effective gameplans. For being among the worst in the cast, the are quite good. They're like comparable to Melee Links in terms of viability probably.

At the above, I'm not an authority on Zelda's matchups by any means, but her hardest top tier matchups are Sonic, ZSS and Fox probably and she also likely loses to (pre-patch Luigi too, but not sure if the patch was drastic enough to change that). So pretty much all of the top tiers beat her aside from Rosa, who is likely even. Pretty terrible. I think that she could have favorable matchups against in terms of high/upper-mid tier matchups though and her matchups against a lot of the low tiers are solid. (Keep in mind that I said "could". I'm probably wrong on at least a few of those.)

Do you know what Palutena's matchup spread looks like by any chance? I'm curious.

 

[RedCap-BlueSpikes]

Now I don't know about Samus, but Palutena did get decent results back when Aerolink played her and there's a small handful of Palutena players that still do good stuff with her - at least compared to Zelda, who, to be quite honest, hasn't done much worth mentioning.

He... still does. Last time he mentioned her, he said he was taking a break but that he would "return using Palutena".



I admit I'm a bit biased and probably naive, but I try my best to be as objective and open-minded as possible. Anyways, I don't see how Zelda's better than Palutena. Palutena doesn't really suffer from mobility issues because she's her run/walk speed are top 15 and she has Warp to get around quicker and escape bad situations. She can actually approach things as her F-air and B-air are large and pretty safe (especially now). She has lots of ways to rack damage, too; we get stuff off of all of our best tools. Yeah, her frame data is unfortunate and yeah, she struggles to kill. I understand these are critical flaws to have but she can dance around them to some extent. For example, with 90%+ Rage Palutena's U-tilt starts killing most characters around 125% and she can combo into it from Jab1 at that %.

As for results, are there any Zelda players who do stuff at locals/regionals? I haven't heard anything from her in quite some time. Meanwhile: www.twitch.tv/gamingknights1/v/18432867 (Prince Ramen (Palutena) VS Wizzrobe (Sheik). For those who don't want to watch the whole thing, Ramen won the tournament using Palutena only, as always. This happened before the patch but I'm not sure it would have affected this set too drastically)

 

[PUK]

About zelda and other low tier results, as it's not meaningless.
It needs a lot of talent and tenacity to succeed as a low tier hero. There is currently more than 50 character and a lot of them are considered low.
And then there is history. That's why zelda and other historical low tier have low representation compared to new bottom, and why the likes of DDD and marth have low representation.
Let's be honest: it doesn't matter who's the worst, who's the best, at the end of the day palutena can't really win a tournament, zelda can't really win a tournament, while sheik and luigi can.

 

[warionumbah2]

As an Ike main, I'm going to practice my Link just so I have someone for ****ing Meta Knight.

Mk doesn't care about sword users.

 

[wedl!!]

No Wario he has a range problem, remember??

Ryu will basically never become prepatch Diddy-tiers of overplayed because he actually requires some thought to play as.

 

[Routa]

"Character X is the worst character in game"
"No he is not"
"Ok character Y is the worst character in game"
"Wrong again"
"Well character Z is the worst then?"
"Guess again"
"Oh ffs!"

It is kinda hilarious that we cannot even agree who is the worst character atm. No matter who you place as the worst character in game... Well a biased fanboy comes to defend it blindly. Running out of popcorn 'cause of you guys.

Anyways I can see Wario possibly dropping a tier. There are atm so many characters that can simply out do him (if we don't count his recovery). Also some of his MUs have turned from favorable into unfavorable thanks to changes in 2 latest patches. So what what you guys think about Wario atm? And please don't bring up the Waft when talking about Wario's MUs. It is like saying that every MU is on G&W's favor do to 9 hammer.

 

[Jaguar360]

He... still does. Last time he mentioned her, he said he was taking a break but that he would "return using Palutena".



Anyways, yeah. I'm biased and probably a bit naive, but I'm not seeing how Zelda's better than Palutena. Palutena doesn't really suffer from mobility issues because she's her run/walk speed are top 15 and she has Warp to get around quicker and escape bad situations. She can actually approach things as her F-air and B-air are large and pretty safe (especially now). She has lots of ways to rack damage, too; we get stuff off of all of our best tools. Yeah, her frame data is unfortunate and yeah, she struggles to kill. I understand these are critical flaws to have but she can dance around them to some extent. For example, with 90%+ Rage Palutena's U-tilt starts killing most characters around 125% and she can combo into it from Jab1 at that %.

As for results, are there any Zelda players who do stuff at locals/regionals? I haven't heard anything from her in quite some time. Meanwhile: www.twitch.tv/gamingknights1/v/18432867 (Prince Ramen (Palutena) VS Wizzrobe (Sheik). For those who don't want to watch this whole thing, Ramen also won this tournament. This happened before the patch but I'm not sure it would have affected this set too drastically)

Ven does well at Vegas locals with Zelda. He got 2nd at his most recent one and I believe that he won one a couple months ago. I need to check that. Other than that, Zelda doesn't get much rep at locals.

Speaking of low tiers btw, did anyone else really like SkeeterJay's Samus play at Big House? I've never seen Samus play that good. Really made the most of Samus' kit.

EDIT: It was 3rd, not 1st at that tournament months back. Got knocked out by two Sonics. From the old CCI thread:

Recently, @Ven managed to get 3rd place at an offline tournament w/ customs in Vegas with solo Zelda (without using customs himself), losing against two Sonic mains in Winners and Losers Finals.

This is the stream with Ven's recent tournament.
http://www.twitch.tv/m/935171
3:09:56 Vs. Bear (Megaman)
4:07:38 Vs. Xero (Villager/Rosalina)
5:03:37 Vs. Vash (Little Mac)
5:34:40 Vs. Kinzer (Sonic)
5:51:10 Vs. Gabe (Sonic)

 

[wedl!!]

Rosalina is still the dumbest character in this game and basically always will be.

 

[TurboLink]

As an Ike main, I'm going to practice my Link just so I have someone for ****ing Meta Knight.

You're wasting your time. Just stick with Ike.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

You're wasting your time. Just stick with Ike.

Ya Ike doesn't get completely shut down by MK. Just that San had never played against an MK let alone one of that level. I don't think Ryo or Ryuga have either. In the Ike skype chat I think only SM and Rango have played against MKs period. And then the newest patch changes things as our aerials and jab are safer on his shield and all.

Probably a losing MU, but it ain't Brawl level. Or as bad as it looked in that stream. Just a serious lack of MU experience/knowledge.

 

[warionumbah2]

Both players had poor mu exp/knowledge.

All the good ikes are in the US.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Both players had poor mu exp/knowledge.

All the good ikes are in the US.

Yoh from Germany has a very legit Ike. Top 5 Ike imo.

 

[Amadeus9]

Yoh from Germany has a very legit Ike. Top 5 Ike imo.

I think abadango said somewhere he had never played an Ike before.

 

[Mario766]

I think abadango said somewhere he had never played an Ike before.

Welcome to Japan.

 

[Ulevo]

 

[TTTTTsd]

I would love to see a gif where it has the cam where Foxy is running except instead it's just MK DAing through the door.

On a side note, yeah I think a lot of what happened in that Ike vs. MK MU was a lot of first experiences. Meta Knight generally gores those.

 

[|RK|]

What's the best combination of characters (mid-tier and below) you can see taking a tournament? In other words what is the most interesting and potent main/secondary matchup coverage?

 

[HeavyLobster]

Ya Ike doesn't get completely shut down by MK. Just that San had never played against an MK let alone one of that level. I don't think Ryo or Ryuga have either. In the Ike skype chat I think only SM and Rango have played against MKs period. And then the newest patch changes things as our aerials and jab are safer on his shield and all.

Probably a losing MU, but it ain't Brawl level. Or as bad as it looked in that stream. Just a serious lack of MU experience/knowledge.

Yeah. Ike just can't lose neutral here. Remember that MK dies early to Ike too.

 

[Sir Tundra]

Rosalina is still the dumbest character in this game and basically always will be.

I think you mean Luma is still the dumbest character in the game and basically always will be.

Luma is the one who does all the work. Rosalina just stands there and watches. Without luma rosalina wouldn't even be top tier.

"Character X is the worst character in game"
"No he is not"
"Ok character Y is the worst character in game"
"Wrong again"
"Well character Z is the worst then?"
"Guess again"
"Oh ffs!"

It just goes to show how balanced SSB4 really is doesn't it.

in the past games it's easy to tell who's the worst character in the past games

64: (before it was )

Melee:

Brawl:

Smash 4? : Nobody truly knows

Some say it's zelda, some say it's samus, some say it's palutena. Nobody truly knows.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

No, the worst character in smash 4 is actually Zelda.

Like, is there any solid argument against it?

 

[Rizen]

Zelda's moves flow together better since she was patched. She can combo:
Nair into various things like Farow's and Dsmash.
Utilt into its self
Dtilt to various followups
jab to dash attack and Farow's wind 2 at certain %s.
Dthrow and Uthrow into aerials

and she gets easy reads off the above at %s they don't combo.

To be clear I think Zelda is bad, bottom 10. She does function and flow better since she was patched is all I'm saying.

 

[Mettie7]

Def Zelda imo; she's both the best and the worst character in the game ;0

 

[MysteriousSilver]

Some say it's zelda, some say it's samus, some say it's palutena. Nobody truly knows.

Deciding who's the worst is pretty pointless, since none of them are particularly viable, but I really can't see Palu being the worst. She's not good, and a quick look at any of my posts should tell you that I'm a Doomsayer for the Palutena boards and don't have a lot of good things to say about her, but she does have some stuff really going for her. She has combos out of a jab that has some good range (even if it's slow as all hell), she has really good moves to poke in neutral (even if she doesn't get a whole lot out of them), she has a pretty solid recovery (even if she dies relatively early due to her weight), and she has bair/dash attack for shenanigans (nothing bad to say, those moves are great).

She's not good, and I'm not even going to call her passable, but if this is the worst character in the game, we've got a hella balanced game.

 

[Wiimas123]

No, the worst character in smash 4 is actually Zelda.

Like, is there any solid argument against it?

Lol. It's funny how you just don't know anything about anyone. Maybe if you did some research then you could see that's she's not the worst. (Samus or Palutena is.)

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Lol. It's funny how you just don't know anything about anyone. Maybe if you did some research then you could see that's she's not the worst. (Palutena is)

Please show me this amazing library where I can "research" these "facts" you are talking about.

 

[Sir Tundra]

No, the worst character in smash 4 is actually Zelda.

Like, is there any solid argument against it?

idek if there even is one tbh.

I mean zelda being the worst character is very much believable.

However there's a chunk of people who would disagree otherwise.

Most of which are probably zelda main's themselves, don't believe in tiers, or actually believe zelda has potential.

Do I think zelda is the worst character in smash 4?

Well I can definitely agree that she's bottom 10 maybe even bottom 5 in smash 4, I said maybe guys.

I mean zelda has almost no results in nationals and even in regional tournaments.

However I don't really know much about to really claim that she's the worst character in the game.

I only really know about the greatest threats, my main, and some of the mid tiers.

Deciding who's the worst is pretty pointless, since none of them are particularly viable

I was just about to lead up to that in this post but you just beat me too it.

At the end of the day does it even matter when it comes to deciding who's the worst character between character's like zelda, palutena, and samus in a game like smash 4.?

no it doesn't

So what if one character has something more then the other 2 or if 1 character has less then the other 2. There all not viable in the long run.

And neither of them will ever be winning a national or regional any time soon.

Although Palutena might win some regionals if were including customs.

But that's besides the point.

 

[Wiimas123]

Deciding who's the worst is pretty pointless, since none of them are particularly viable, but I really can't see Palu being the worst.
She's not good, and I'm not even going to call her passable, but if this is the worst character in the game, we've got a hella balanced game.

First of all, Smash 4 is pretty balanced. Second of all anyone could be good with anyone. All of the characters who are considered "the worst" were in a tournament. So it kinda depends on the players skill along with the character. So personally I believe that she is the worst.

 

[FimPhym]

Zelda has waifu status so it's impossible to get a worst character concensus on her.

Dedede players seem pretty chill about him being buns, we can just call him the worst. In our matchup thread jdawg started a post with "this is one of dedede's easier match ups" described lots of virtues and upsides that made it sound easy, and ended by calling it 6-4 against dedede.

I mean, he gets easy safety on landing bair with new shield mechanics if they somehow don't power shield. Cool? On the other hand the biggest least mobile guy in the game with a sick grab really enjoyed having a good shield. Dedede is pretty miserable. I haven't played a ton of the new patch but it doesn't feel good for him.

Edit: if it helps, his worst match ups are almost certainly fox and zss. Have fun with that.

 

[Vyrnx]

Zelda's moves flow together better since she was patched. She can combo:
Nair into various things like Farow's and Dsmash.
Utilt into its self
Dtilt to various followups
jab to dash attack and Farow's wind 2 at certain %s.
Dthrow and Uthrow into aerials

and she gets easy reads off the above at %s they don't combo.

To be clear I think Zelda is bad, bottom 10. She does function and flow better since she was patched is all I'm saying.

Samus's moves flow together super well and her combos are super damaging. Doesn't mean she isn't low tier.
Zelda's combos are half as good as Samus's, still decent combos, but doesn't mean she isn't the worst character. There are many other reasons she is the worst.

Also, just curious, but if ZeRo didn't exist, do you all think Sheik would be such a consensus number one? I'm not fishing for an answer, "yes" is perfectly ok, I'm just wondering what you all think.

 

[Wintropy]

Also, just curious, but if ZeRo didn't exist, do you all think Sheik would be such a consensus number one? I'm not fishing for an answer, "yes" is perfectly ok, I'm just wondering what you all think.

Yes.

Sheik isn't the best because the best player mains her, she's the best because she's so fundamentally safe. The fact that ZeRo plays her just happens to expedite development of her meta, because the best player isn't going to play her without picking up on a few nice details. Then you've got everybody else who plays Sheik and whom have played Sheik since before ZeRo ever did, which itself inspires people to try Sheik to piggyback on their success. She has plenty of people representing her and figuring out what she can do, which is the case because she's the best.

In other words, I don't think ZeRo precedes Sheik's "bestness" (yet it does help make things develop faster for her); I think Sheik's "bestness" precedes ZeRo, which is why he plays her in the first place.

She may not be the immediate number one by popular consensus, but I don't think it'd be years before people figured it out. The competitive scene does its thing very quickly and efficiently now that we know what's important and what makes a character good.