Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[wedl!!]

Logitisically speaking, Peach in Brawl is a better character than in 4. The environment she was in made her a bad character.

Honestly, I think 'Zard may be a bit more of a threat than people give him credit for; if you've seen vaBengalz' Charizard, then you know that Zard is not in any way a bad fighter. Honestly, he seems more fitting in the middle of the viability list; he has some great MU's, but also has some pretty bad MU's at full potential.

He's certainly not underwhelming; it's just that the 'Zard meta isn't having big pushes in non-customs tourneys. Really, if vaBengalz is any indicator, Zard is actually somewhat good. And now that he has a killthrow and a combo throw, he's only gotten more options.

Honestly anything anyone could say about Charizard can be summarized as "Play DK".

 

[TheBlackLuffy]

Where do you all think Link and Doc stand in viability? Do they just have to many Bad MU's to stand a chance?

 

[TheBlackLuffy]

Logitisically speaking, Peach in Brawl is a better character than in 4. The environment she was in made her a bad character.



Honestly anything anyone could say about Charizard can be summarized as "Play DK".

As much as I like Zard. I think he simply doesn't have what it takes to be Viable that other heavies don't simply do better.

 

[DunnoBro]

Where do you all think Link and Doc stand in viability? Do they just have to many Bad MU's to stand a chance?

Doc and mac aren't bad so much due to bad MUs as simply because you can't reliably go through a tournament and not lose the game to dumb stuff with their recovery.

On a game per game basis they're probably about as good as Ike or ROB, but you just can't be as comfortable knowing "Hey, I could've died right there." every few seconds.

 

[C0rvus]

Honestly, I think 'Zard may be a bit more of a threat than people give him credit for; if you've seen vaBengalz' Charizard, then you know that Zard is not in any way a bad fighter. Honestly, he seems more fitting in the middle of the viability list; he has some great MU's, but also has some pretty bad MU's at full potential.

He's certainly not underwhelming; it's just that the 'Zard meta isn't having big pushes in non-customs tourneys. Really, if vaBengalz is any indicator, Zard is actually somewhat good. And now that he has a killthrow and a combo throw, he's only gotten more options.

My buddy plays Charizard religiously. I have seen what he can do. He has consistent killing power and good recovery, and is one of the best characters at sitting on a lead; he is willing to trade and put out armor for days, and in rage, he becomes absurdly strong. His issues run pretty deep, pretty piss poor neutral and the inability to keep up with and get in on the upper half of the cast is pretty bad. Aside from killing, there really isn't much to talk about here.

At least Ganondorf has some very strong moves like his up air and forward tilt that are consistently threatening and force you to play carefully. None of Zard's moves really fit that role, and as a heavy, that is bad. But, his grab is pretty great, so that helps. Not sure where I'd place him, but it doesn't really matter since he is far from a relevant threat. Like, he doesn't even have any tournament presence. VaBengalz used him in customs, I guess, and I'm not sure if Bloodcross even exists still.

I would be interested in seeing what Zard players think of his MU spread.

 

[bc1910]

B-Throw kills at 120-130% at the edge of the stage..

Dsmash killed at around the same damage but no where near as close..

Up B needs a read..

Fsmash also does.

But saying he isn't high tier because he needs reads to kill and flat out stupid.

I guess Sheik is bottom tier. /s

Couldn't agree more with DunnoBro , Sheik is barely reading a thing to get kills. She relies on very simple 50/50s that are easy to set up.

She BFs you offstage and reads airdodge/no airdodge or she Dthrow Uair/Up Bs you, again reading airdodge or no airdodge. And there is no penalty for her guessing wrong in either scenario.

 

[Yikarur]

Peach had problems with Snake as well.

She was low high tier at best. But she had way too many problems in that game overall.

@Gheb of course I know what result based means. I wish they were proper Yoshi representives in the US. I know at least that some Yoshi got 33rd at BHT5.

 

[Amadeus9]

MK's kill set ups will never 50-50. It's guaranteed or it doesn't work. The combo is reliant on very specific momentum on MK's rising uair for the next uair to hit. If you read an airdodge... so what? What do you get? A dair or falling uair? Can't combo off those.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Doc and mac aren't bad so much due to bad MUs as simply because you can't reliably go through a tournament and not lose the game to dumb stuff with their recovery.

On a game per game basis they're probably about as good as Ike or ROB, but you just can't be as comfortable knowing "Hey, I could've died right there." every few seconds.

I'd say this more happens with Doc's disadvantaged state personally which bleeds into his recovery (disadvantage is the root cause IMO) it's mostly that he can keep up just fine, but he's significantly worse than Mario when he's hit and as far as getting out of jams go, which really, REALLY hampers him (and is probably the biggest reason he's not looked at/used more). He's severely held back by how punished he is on hit, mostly cause
- Nair is not a combo breaker in most scenarios (until high %). SH AC Nair is good but has nothing to do with its ability to get him out.
- Air speed lower than Mario's (although his actual air speed is pretty decent all things considered it...doesn't help much here).
- No hitbox to put below/around him in the air without significant commitment (Doc's best options in disadvantage are airdodge, Dair, or Down-B, Up+B is frame 3 but that's hard read tier because of its significant recovery. It does have a great hitbox in its initial/sweetspot frames though)

A lot of this extends into his recovery where losing his DJ through his disadvantaged state (because usually his best option is to jump away from a trap because he has no strong reversal that isn't commitmental) which can lead to some really dumb stuff if you're not really calculated. Doc's Double Jump IS his recovery, his Down-B is a very potent stall/recovery mixup when it's used properly, but there's a reason a lot of Docs generally tend to Nado first and THEN DJ when knocked offstage (Nado is mostly a horizontal stall to mixup/prevent linear recovery patterns).

The only ways to feasibly amend this are improvements to his neutral or significant improvements to his disadvantage (which would either mean a Nair rework, Dair being WAY less of a commitment overall, or his Up+B having the same travel distance as Mario's)

 

[TheBlackLuffy]

Wii fits header spike ruins lives. I swear it's one of the best spikes/moves in the game because of the control you have over it and the absurdity of the hitbox.

Doesn't she have like 4 spikes? Plus her Jab on certain characters warrants a free side Smash or Up Smash.

Her Down B increases how much damage she does not sure how much %. . I just picked her up to figure her out a bit prepatch.

Wii Fit if you ask's me just takes the right person to give her some more time and effort.

Only time will tell.

 

[TurboLink]

Doc and mac aren't bad so much due to bad MUs as simply because you can't reliably go through a tournament and not lose the game to dumb stuff with their recovery.

On a game per game basis they're probably about as good as Ike or ROB, but you just can't be as comfortable knowing "Hey, I could've died right there." every few seconds.

When did he mention Mac? -.-

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Wii Fit if you ask's me just takes the right person to give her some more time and effort.

Only time will tell.

No. I could say that about any character, which is why this notion is invalid.

 

[DunnoBro]

MK's kill set ups will never 50-50.

https://youtu.be/Wz9jPy3vxp8?t=8m28s

Dash attack > Predict air dodge > Shuttle loop

If he jumped, he could've just did a quicker shuttle loop to catch it. It's a 50/50.

When did he mention Mac? -.-

Just wanted a more radical example to pair doc with to better express what I'm trying to say.

 

[TheBlackLuffy]

QUOTE="NachoOfCheese, post: 20259782, member: 283718"]No. I could say that about any character, which is why this notion is invalid.[/QUOTE]

I'm not saying she's winning nationals or shooting up on the tier list. I get what you're saying though.

 

[Amadeus9]

https://youtu.be/Wz9jPy3vxp8?t=8m28s

Dash attack > Predict air dodge > Shuttle loop

If he jumped, he could've just did a quicker shuttle loop to catch it. It's a 50/50.



Just wanted a more radical example to pair doc with to better express what I'm trying to say.

lmao dude. Are you for real? Why did Nairo even airdodge there, all he had to do was jump. Mr. R called him out on his airdodging habits. That's like saying Falcon's Dthrow to Knee is a 50/50 setup. Stupid.

Edit: Man, when did 50/50 setups start to mean airdodge reads? A 50/50 means you have an option to cover an airdodge, and an option to cover anything else. See: Sheik uair, sheik upb.

Jesus, I guess airdodge reads are broken. The dev team should just make airdodges persistent until you reach the ground so that this can't be exploited. /S

 

[TTTTTsd]

Yeah, Doc and Mac is a very loose comparison only tied together by poor disadvantage states (I'd say Mac's is much worse, but Mac as a character is MUCH more polarized than Dr. Mario has ever been in this game's lifespan) and so Mac has more "potential" because of how he is.

The basic gist is that it's not that Doc has no recovery, it's that his disadvantage overall is bad enough to leak into his recovery and it's very damning. The character's mobility has been brought into question but as you figure out how he works it becomes a lot smaller of an issue compared to how much it sucks to get hit.

This is additionally why I think he functions very well as a secondary/second-rate usage character. When you're not going solo Doc you don't have to worry about these things every game and you can play to his strengths quite well individually. He's actually very potent in this way, I think.

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

Peach had problems with Snake as well.

She was low high tier at best. But she had way too many problems in that game overall.

@Gheb of course I know what result based means. I wish they were proper Yoshi representives in the US. I know at least that some Yoshi got 33rd at BHT5.

That's @Regralht you're referring to. A rising star from our state. This man is gonna take Yoshi to new places. Be on the lookout for him.

lmao dude. Are you for real? Why did Nairo even airdodge there, all he had to do was jump. Mr. R called him out on his airdodging habits. That's like saying Falcon's Dthrow to Knee is a 50/50 setup. Stupid.

It's not even worth it to argue with someone who doesn't actually know what a "50/50" is.

 

[DunnoBro]

lmao dude. Are you for real? Why did Nairo even airdodge there, all he had to do was jump. Mr. R called him out on his airdodging habits. That's like saying Falcon's Dthrow to Knee is a 50/50 setup. Stupid.

Edit: Man, when did 50/50 setups start to mean airdodge reads? A 50/50 means you have an option to cover an airdodge, and an option to cover anything else. See: Sheik uair, sheik upb.

Jesus, I guess airdodge reads are broken. The dev team should just make airdodges persistent until you reach the ground so that this can't be exploited. /S

I'm afraid I don't see much difference between an air dodge read and an option to cover an air dodge. Sheik vanish IS AN AIR DODGE read. It doesn't cover air dodge and jump away. It only covers air dodges (and bad reaction times)

I also never stated this kill set-up was in any way broken or problematic. Just that it exists and people acting like MK only kills via very specific % true combos off dash attack is silly.

As for why Nairo air dodged, it's because Mr. R conditioned him. Nairo didn't have an air dodge habit, Mr. R was always trying to get his jump aways with it/uair and guessed nairo would air dodge that time. He guessed right. If he did shuttle loop straight up and nairo jumped, he'd still have died. (Note the very next stock is an immediate shuttle loop after DA because he was now conditioned to not air dodge)

This is what a 50/50 is. A situation in which the opponent cannot ensure the successful block/avoiding of all the opponents options. In this case, it's a decision between jumping and getting straight shuttle looped, or air dodging and getting a delayed one.

At this point I feel like you're playing to semantics to try and circumvent my main points and it's true for ZTD | TECHnology as well. Either you address my points straight or not at all.

 

[TheBlackLuffy]

Thoughts on:

and ? Prepatch?

 

[irokex13]

lmao dude. Are you for real? Why did Nairo even airdodge there, all he had to do was jump. Mr. R called him out on his airdodging habits. That's like saying Falcon's Dthrow to Knee is a 50/50 setup. Stupid.

Bruh, Falcon is 50/50: The character. D throw knee is a 50/50 setup.

 

[DunnoBro]

I'd love to hear a definition of 50/50 that somehow isn't the exact same move being used to punish two different options.

 

[Raijinken]

I'd love to hear a definition of 50/50 that somehow isn't the exact same move being used to punish two different options.

A move that will kill you if you take one option out of two, but not if you take the other.

 

[C0rvus]

Thoughts on:

and ? Prepatch?

One word: Meh

Real talk, Shulk may have very real shieldbreak setups with MALLC but his issues are still the same. Yoshi's down air is apparently scary now but he's still mediocre. Zelda got some safety but is still the worst character in the game.

 

[DunnoBro]

A move that will kill you if you take one option out of two, but not if you take the other.

So a 50/50 isn't a 50/50 unless it results in a stock? Or the same result either way? I don't think there's many examples of that in sm4sh at all (or any game really). Generally the defensive option (in this case, air dodging) is punished harder than the offensive/neutral options. (Dragon punches/jump aways)

50/50s are generally just simply explained as "If you guess right between the opponents 2~ options you can extend your lead"

One word: Meh

Real talk, Shulk may have very real shieldbreak setups with MALLC but his issues are still the same. Yoshi's down air is apparently scary now but he's still mediocre. Zelda got some safety but is still the worst character in the game.

Yoshi's biggest issue is inconsistency killing. But his neutral issues are pretty much alleviated outside of certain MUs. (Sheik, Diddy, etc)

IMO, if they nerfed Dair to do less damage but made it a better gimping tool (90 degree angle on the strong hit to enable stage spies with it when covering the 2-frame ledge grab) he'd be an overall better character. Would be nice if either of his grabs were more reliably worth going for but the fact he's doing actual shield pressure now might alleviate that issue)

 

[Spinosaurus]

The way I see it, 50/50's are situations where the defender has to guess, not the other way around.

By that, essentially it means you have to guess right in order to just avoid the situation all together, and not have any room for punishing. That's why I can't say Meta Knight has 50/50's because if he missed he'll get paid for it, and he doesn't have an alternative if they don't air dodge to begin with. Sheik doesn't really have to guess at all because the burden is on the opponent, since she can just get away with it if they guessed right.

It's like Wolverine in vanilla Marvel vs Capcom 3. He's basically 50/50 mixups the character and why he was arguably the best in the game, because guessing right against him simply means you got out of a really bad situation, and you can't do anything. He doesn't have to predict anything.

 

[Sir Tundra]

I'd love to hear a definition of 50/50 that somehow isn't the exact same move being used to punish two different options.

A 50/50 is basically when you attack with the opponent with two different offensive options putting your opponent in a guessing game.

These attacks have to be blocked/avoided two different ways thus giving you a 50% to kill your opponent/continue a combo.

In traditional fighting games this would usually consist of overheads and lows or dragon punches/jump aways etc.

In smash it involves either having your opponent get hit by an attack right away or hit your opponent with a different attack if he/she airdodges

A good example of this would be sheik's down throw to up air/up b but of course I'm pretty sure you knew that.

 

[C0rvus]

I was under the impression that a 50/50 was simply a situation where the offender can mix you up with options that require the defender to guess.

 

[Asdioh]

This thread :/

Dunnobro is right. I forgot what we were talking about, but I agree with whatever he was saying. And as I'm writing this, Spino's post just now is also right! And apparently Sir Tundra is also right! Stop posting before I can finish, guys, jeez

One phrase people in this thread seem to misuse is "needs a read to get a kill." What they're failing to take into account, what actually matters, is the risk/reward ratio of a "read." EXAMPLES!
Mario: "He's bad because he needs a read to get a kill." He certainly needs reads (though I hear rumor there's some new tech going around that means guaranteed kills from a Dair or something) but his kill options are reasonably safe. You might get punished for them, but not massive punishes, like you might get for whiffing a ZSS grab. An Upsmash that has invincibility, low startup, and low endlag isn't perfectly safe, but relatively speaking? Low risk, high reward. A Fsmash that causes him to pull back, has high damage, low endlag, and pretty good shield push, is fairly safe. I forget what else he has, but he's not bad!
Sheik: "Her Dthrow->Upair isn't guaranteed, so her KO power isn't that great." The thing about Dthrow->Upair is that it has ZERO RISK. You read an airdodge, and they jump? You don't get punished for misreading. You read a jump, and they airdodge? You don't get punished. The risk for reading wrong is nothing, the reward is DEATH to your opponent. No big deal.

Meta Knight's risk for reading wrong is a lot higher, because Shuttle Loop puts him into freefall. Thing is, the reward is absurd. And in a lot of cases, it's not even a guessing game, it's a true combo. I'll admit that I don't know if the DA->Upair->Shuttle Loop low % kill combo can be DI'ed, but I'm talking about the hypothetical where you can't escape. Are people actually arguing that it's OK for a character to land a hit (a frame 7 Dash Attack that covers a lot of space very quickly) on an opponent that's onstage at around 20-40% (you know, a spot where you should be reasonably safe until traditional death percents, which are usually above 100%) and then lose an entire stock from it? Getting hit offstage and gimped is one thing, you're in a position where it makes sense to be at a huge disadvantage. But onstage at low percents? Nah. I don't care that MK mains want to keep these kills because they "are fairly rare" or if Rosalina/Ike players think it's ok for Rage moves to kill people that charge smashes at 0% for the same reason, it just shouldn't exist.

I think Dunnobro and I appreciate this more than some of you because we play Duck Hunt and Kirby, characters who actually have to work for kills, and literally never have "if I guess right I kill my opponent at 60% onstage yay" nonsense that the top tiers have. Unless you count Kirby's Hammer? Which is awful so nah.

 

[Nobie]

People are talking about how collarbone breaker can't be rolled out of anymore, but I think the same might apply to Bowser's down tilt and down B. I think that's a pretty significant buff if that's the case.

 

[DunnoBro]

The way I see it, 50/50's are situations where the defender has to guess, not the other way around.

By that, essentially it means you have to guess right in order to just avoid the situation all together, and not have any room for punishing. That's why I can't say Meta Knight has 50/50's because if he missed he'll get paid for it, and he doesn't have an alternative if they don't air dodge to begin with. Sheik doesn't really have to guess at all because the burden is on the opponent, since she can just get away with it if they guessed right.

In general sheik is unique in how safe her 50/50s are, but by this logic it sounds like you're denying most characters even have them. Most characters have guessing situations that can resulting in them being punished for guessing wrong. (Most universally by dragon punches)

I'd rather just call those kinds of situations bad 50/50s or "sub-optimal" before denying they are 50/50s.

 

[Amadeus9]

I think smash 4 should just bring back hit stun cancelling. Would that ease your aching heart?

 

[Vyrnx]

One word: Meh

Real talk, Shulk may have very real shieldbreak setups with MALLC but his issues are still the same. Yoshi's down air is apparently scary now but he's still mediocre. Zelda got some safety but is still the worst character in the game.

Yoshi's dair should stop being used as the reason why he is good--it's not that useful, except punishing ledge get ups and a few other things. For Yoshi it's all about nair and jab, and then fair, uair, utilt, eggs, heavy armor, and speed. Also it's nice to have a command grab as an option. He's a clear high tier imo.

 

[Steelballray]

Know thatspreading these type of thoughts will effect smash players' mentality way more than you think. Influence, and especially bad influence, spread way too fast. You are spreading the idea around that MK is overpowered and if you keep at it it will be another situation where people keep complaining about something rather than learn what it really is first. Abadango's situation is the first time an MK reaches so far and get that much spotlight, and he didn't even use him against players at the top 8 (iirc) where players of his calibre are. Him beating san or whoever else means nothing really because we all know he is just so much better. can we calm down now and wait for more results and showing before we start screaming bloody nerfs? Please? This thread is looking extra mega stupid right now.

 

[FlynnCL]

Meta Knight being chastised for having kill set ups at specific percent feels wrong, especially since the initial full hop up-air is absolutely everything to getting those combos down (and in many cases it doesn't guarantee a stock). It's your fault if you play Kirby, Duck Hunt, Palutena or any other fighter that cannot kill; that's just far poorer design on their parts and the last thing I want is for top/high tiers to be brought down to their levels.

The huge amount of complaining is something I've been dreading for months, especially since his ability to close off stocks like this has been with us since 1.0.4 (almost a year). If they took away his Shuttle Loop set-ups Meta Knight would struggle significantly.

 

[Routa]

I think smash 4 should just bring back hit stun cancelling. Would that ease your aching heart?

Hit stun cancelling? Yeah... What is that?

Yeah... Sorry if I wasn't born before the 1800's.

 

[C0rvus]

Yoshi's dair should stop being used as the reason why he is good--it's not that useful, except punishing ledge get ups and a few other things. For Yoshi it's all about nair and jab, and then fair, uair, utilt, eggs, heavy armor, and speed. Also it's nice to have a command grab as an option. He's a clear high tier imo.

Oh I know, it certainly doesn't save him. I was just giving my impressions based on the new patch. Yoshi's always been all about his amazing nair and jab, and eggs. Dair is just a new tool, though its usefulness is yet to be fully known.

Also nobody was complaining about MK's kill combo. They were making a parallel to Luigi, since Meta Knight can be played effectively using like 3 or 4 moves. He's pretty linear, which is likely his biggest weakness.

 

[Yikarur]

Dair is one of Yoshis best moves. It should not be underestimaed.

and 50:50 means that air dodge is fast enough to dodge out of hitstun before the hit connects and jump/special is too slow. So you either attack into the airdodge or hit depending on the choice.

 

[LancerStaff]

The argument started with "Is MK braindead or not?" I'm going to say no...

I think we can agree that Brawl Falco was braindead. It's a similar thing: Get grabbed between X & Y% and you're dead if Falco is competent. But Falco had it much easier because the window was much bigger and rage didn't exist. He could both afford to attack and be attacked in his window, and lasers on top of this weren't helping matters.

MK, not so much. The window is tight, and it only takes one or two hits from either side to kill it. Maybe if MK's neutral was good it'd be braindead, but it isn't. Yeah, he gets ridiculous reward otherwise, but again his neutral sucks. He doesn't have bananas or green fireballs that can be thrown out whenever.

 

[DunnoBro]

I think smash 4 should just bring back hit stun cancelling. Would that ease your aching heart?

I don't know why you're assuming I dislike 50/50s or MK's kill set-ups (when I actually consider him one of the better balanced characters in this game) but it's clear at this point you're most invested in armchair shots at me rather than actual discussion.

 

[ARGHETH]

Know thatspreading these type of thoughts will effect smash players' mentality way more than you think. Influence, and especially bad influence, spread way too fast. You are spreading the idea around that MK is overpowered and if you keep at it it will be another situation where people keep complaining about something rather than learn what it really is first. Abadango's situation is the first time an MK reaches so far and get that much spotlight, and he didn't even use him against players at the top 8 (iirc) where players of his calibre are. Him beating san or whoever else means nothing really because we all know he is just so much better. can we calm down now and wait for more results and showing before we start screaming bloody nerfs? Please? This thread is looking extra mega stupid right now.

First off, no one here is saying that MK's overpowered. People have told you that specifically, and yet you keep on saying that.
Does his games against Anti not count or something? He used him in 4/5 of the games.
That's ironic. You're telling them to calm down?