Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Wintermelon43]

King Dedede, Kirby, Shulk, Ryu, Roy, Lucas, and Jigglypuff should be higher, whiile Mii Gunner, Marth, and greninja should be lower

This is my idea personally for grouping. I'll do seven. THEY ARE NOT IN ANY ORDER.

1 (Best in the game):

2:Extremely good:

3:Very Good:

4:Viable:

5 (Middle):

6:Not that good:

7 (Terrible):

 

[Pazx]

King Dedede, Kirby, Shulk, Ryu, Roy, Lucas, and Jigglypuff should be higher, whiile Mii Gunner, Marth, and greninja should be lower

lol alright buddy you're gonna have to back that up

Using my three tier system, Kirby, Shulk, Ryu, Roy, Lucas and Jigglypuff are not "definitely tier 2" so I can't put them higher. They're either tier 2 or 3 and could go either way. These characters all have weaknesses and limitations to go with their strengths and could definitely see themselves within the bottom 20, but I'm not ruling the possibility of mid tier out for them. If D3 isn't "definitely tier 3" then nobody really is, so I have to leave him there. Keep in mind tier 3 is inhabited by more than 3 characters and he could very well be above any of the "borderline 2/3" characters. I take it you haven't really seen Marth, Mii Gunner or Greninja played very much either due to a lack of representation, Mii Gunner seems solidly tier 2 to me (having a good matchup against LUIGI and a solid gameplan in most matchups is fantastic) whilst Marth has a lot of potential especially with the buffs he's received. There are plenty of people in this forum who know more about the character than you or I who are willing to tell you how solid the he is. Greninja is a character that has the tools and matchup spread that screams "high tier/top of mid" held back by a lack of representation and stigma related to the nerf he received.

FWIW, characters in my "tiers" weren't ranked best to worst (if seeing 2 Greninja's wasn't enough to prove this).

 

[A_Kae]

So what exactly happened to:

THOUGHTLESS BALANCE SUGGESTIONS or PERSONAL TIER LISTS (without openly justifying themselves and responding properly to questions and critique) is punishable by DEATH

Anyways, why is Marth so low? Why do you think he's that bad? And why is Robin so high?

There's a lot that I find odd about that list.

Edit: talking about @ Wintermelon43 's list, if that wasn't clear.

 

[Smog Frog]

WHY IS THAT HIGH?!?!?! also switch and .

 

[Routa]

This is my idea personally for grouping. I'll do seven. THEY ARE NOT IN ANY ORDER.

1 (Best in the game):

2:Extremely good:

3:Very Good:

4:Viable:

5 (Middle):

6:Not that good:

7 (Terrible):

Could you explain why you think G&W, Marth, Mii Swordfighter are terrible?

 

[Emblem Lord]

People think Roy is better then Ike and Marth.

Then they fight a top tier with Roy and its like...ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhh

 

[A_Kae]

I'd really like to see some justification for that list.

There are some really weird choices in it.

 

[Wintermelon43]

Could you explain why you think G&W, Marth, Mii Swordfighter are terrible?

Oh, I forgot to mention, This grouping is outdated, and a hybrid of customs and no-customs. I am updating my tier lists now, though, into two, so when thwy finish the grouping will change. G&W was because attacks really THAT good, Marth because most of his attacks are bad or useless

 

[FullMoon]

The main bias is very strong within that list I mean wow lol.

 

[Wintermelon43]

WHY IS THAT HIGH?!?!?! also switch and .

Great air attacks, great comboing, great tilts, great throws, great smashes, good recovery, can use anyone's neutral special.

The main bias is very strong within that list I mean wow lol.

Lolno.

 

[A_Kae]

Lolno.

You have Kirby as the 6th best character.

And you think you've got no bias? Right.

 

[Wintermelon43]

You have Kirby as the 6th best character.

And you think you've got no bias? Right.

Groups aren't in order. On my list, he's 10

So what exactly happened to:



Anyways, why is Marth so low? Why do you think he's that bad? And why is Robin so high?

There's a lot that I find odd about that list.

Edit: talking about @ Wintermelon43 's list, if that wasn't clear.

Marth I mentioned in an earlier post. Robin is because he has good knockback, good damage, and a pretty good recovery. Mainly, he's simply better than some other characters

 

[A_Kae]

Groups aren't in order. On my list, he's 10

OK. You've got Kirby as the 10th best character.

That's not really better.

Marth I mentioned in an earlier post. Robin is because he has good knockback, good damage, and a pretty good recovery. Mainly, he's simply better than some other characters

I don't really think you get what's going on with these characters. Robin can't do much of anything against someone with good mobility. His/her projectiles are just too slow to effectively wall someone out, and up-close, they aren't very good. Too slow of attack speed, and range isn't good on the stuff that's fast. Levin aerials are the main thing preventing them from being outright terrible. Mobility is absolutely terrible, recovery is easily gimpable (no hitbox above them). Robin is not good at all.

You say that most of Marth's attacks are bad or useless. That tells me you don't know Marth at all. Name some of those attacks. He's got some that are below average, yes, but very few that are actually bad/useless.

 

[FullMoon]

I've reached a point where I don't really care about where people place Greninja in their lists, I am, however, curious about whatever reasoning is there to place him that low.

 

[Wintermelon43]

I've reached a point where I don't really care about where people place Greninja in their lists, I am, however, curious about whatever reasoning is there to place him that low.

Most of his attacks are useless. Really, if he has a chance to be good in a smash Bros (Or fun, at least to me), he needs a complety changed moveset. Good speed and recovery are the only things keeping him from bottom

 

[FullMoon]

All of Greninja's moves (except standing grab) are great what the hell are you rambling about.

 

[Wintermelon43]

All of Greninja's moves (except standing grab) are great what the hell are you rambling about.

No they aren't. They're either slow, or aren't good offensivly, or SOMETHING else

 

[RayNoire]

People think Roy is better then Ike and Marth.

Then they fight a top tier with Roy and its like...ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhh

Honestly Roy seems terrible to me. And I don't mean overrated, I mean straight-out Charles Barkley trrrrble.

What is safe on him? What convinced people to knee-jerk him into top tier?

 

[warionumbah2]

Fullmoon don't reply. Trust me on this.

 

[Pazx]

I think we've been successfully baited and we should move on to preserve the integrity of this thread.

Does Jigglypuff have a niche role in the current meta? Is her edgeguarding and small stature enough give her some reasonable matchups against those in the upper echelons of the tier list? Falcon comes to mind due to struggling with both of these things, but is there any weight to this theory? She's very, very good at keeping some characters offstage, but if she doesn't convert every single edgeguard situation to a stock she's already at a huge disadvantage. I'd like to say she's an underrated character but I can't see her really winning any relevant matchups at all (unless she escapes Luigi+friends' combos for free).

 

[Wintermelon43]

All of Greninja's moves (except standing grab) are great what the hell are you rambling about.

Just out of curiasoity, where would you put Greninja ina tier list? Top tier? High tier? high-mid? mid? I'm not gonna comment aganist your opinion, I just wonder

I think we've been successfully baited and we should move on to preserve the integrity of this thread.

Does Jigglypuff have a niche role in the current meta? Is her edgeguarding and small stature enough give her some reasonable matchups against those in the upper echelons of the tier list? Falcon comes to mind due to struggling with both of these things, but is there any weight to this theory? She's very, very good at keeping some characters offstage, but if she doesn't convert every single edgeguard situation to a stock she's already at a huge disadvantage. I'd like to say she's an underrated character but I can't see her really winning any relevant matchups at all (unless she escapes Luigi+friends' combos for free).

Defitenly not terrible. She has some good air attacks, good comboing, and some good special moves

 

[FullMoon]

Fullmoon don't reply. Trust me on this.

I was writing a rant until I read this and realized it was not worth it. So yeah, thanks.

Just out of curiasoity, where would you put Greninja ina tier list? Top tier? High tier? high-mid? mid? I'm not gonna comment aganist your opinion, I just wonder

High-mid, around the top of it.

 

[ぱみゅ]

@ Wintermelon43 Please avoid double posting. Further Double posts will result in infractions.

 

[Makorel]

I think we've been successfully baited and we should move on to preserve the integrity of this thread.

Does Jigglypuff have a niche role in the current meta? Is her edgeguarding and small stature enough give her some reasonable matchups against those in the upper echelons of the tier list? Falcon comes to mind due to struggling with both of these things, but is there any weight to this theory? She's very, very good at keeping some characters offstage, but if she doesn't convert every single edgeguard situation to a stock she's already at a huge disadvantage. I'd like to say she's an underrated character but I can't see her really winning any relevant matchups at all (unless she escapes Luigi+friends' combos for free).

When I think of a character like Puff who's b&b is a good air game and good aerial control I think of Wario who is heavier (and smellier), and Meta Knight who has more range and that up air combo. Does Puff have anything over these two characters?

 

[Wintermelon43]

@ Wintermelon43 Please avoid double posting. Further Double posts will result in infractions.

What if I need to quite muitiple characters?

 

[FullMoon]

Jigglypuff is a very polarizing character. Against strong characters like Falcon she either kills them quickly by edgeguarding or Rest punishes, or she gets killed very quickly by them.

Characters with good anti-air tools like Greninja and maybe Palutena can give her a lot of trouble too (poor thing hangs in Up-Smash range most of the time).

I think her main niche would be against characters with bad recoveries, which among the top tiers is limited to Captain Falcon, Ness, Mario and maybe Fox and Diddy. All five can kill her very quickly too, especially the first three what with Mario's very good Up-Smash so even then the match can flip around very easily. I don't know how Luigi's combos are affected by her weight and floatiness, but he's probably going to be her best notable MU if she can get out of cyclone reliably.

 

[meleebrawler]

Honestly Roy seems terrible to me. And I don't mean overrated, I mean straight-out Charles Barkley trrrrble.

What is safe on him? What convinced people to knee-jerk him into top tier?

Sourspot nairs on shield and dtilt are safe moves on shield.

He's got the best mobility of all swordsmen as well having most of his moves being really fast on startup.
Coupled with his throws makes his landing traps pretty fearsome. A small slip-up can have you dying below 100 easily.
Blazer is also like Ganon's Dark Fists. Flare Blade is a neat edgeguard and nasty bait.

Main things holding him back are a lack of KO potency in the air, being easily comboed as a fastfaller and a relatively easily gimped recovery (but angling blazer can do wonders in double jump reserving).

He plays a lot like Falcon in many respects which appeals to many people.

 

[Macchiato]

Jigglypuff is a very polarizing character. Against strong characters like Falcon she either kills them quickly by edgeguarding or Rest punishes, or she gets killed very quickly by them.

Characters with good anti-air tools like Greninja and maybe Palutena can give her a lot of trouble too (poor thing hangs in Up-Smash range most of the time).

I think her main niche would be against characters with bad recoveries, which among the top tiers is limited to Captain Falcon, Ness, Mario and maybe Fox and Diddy. All five can kill her very quickly too, especially the first three what with Mario's very good Up-Smash so even then the match can flip around very easily. I don't know how Luigi's combos are affected by her weight and floatiness, but he's probably going to be her best notable MU if she can get out of cyclone reliably.

Even still, all the top tiers outrange her and kill her extremely early. Ness' disjoints ruin her. Falcon's disjoints ruin her. Mario's Usmash ruins her. Fox is even. Diddy definitely beats her. Idk I can't think of a MU she wins. I think she's one of the worst characters in the game.

 

[Deathcarter]

What if I need to quite muitiple characters?

You can quote multiple posters in one post. In the case that you already made a post, quote the new poster then simply copy/paste it into your old post.

 

[FullMoon]

Even still, all the top tiers outrange her and kill her extremely early. Ness' disjoints ruin her. Falcon's disjoints ruin her. Mario's Usmash ruins her. Fox is even. Diddy definitely beats her. Idk I can't think of a MU she wins. I think she's one of the worst characters in the game.

That's what I meant when I said they could kill her very easily.

Jigglypuff's main problems are mainly her range and weight. Rage really doesn't work in her favor either since she's unlikely to survive very long, even though she's supposed to dominate the air it's not too hard to contest her there if you have disjoints in your favor like most sword characters and Ness.

The fact that she gets no throw follow-ups really don't help her, although her pummel and throw damage are pretty good.

 

[Macchiato]

That's what I meant when I said they could kill her very easily.

Jigglypuff's problems are mainly her range and weight. Rage really doesn't work in her favor either since she's unlikely to survive very long, even though she's supposed to dominate the air it's not too hard to contest her there if you have disjoints in your favor like most sword characters and Ness.

The fact that she gets no throw follow-ups really don't help her, although her pummel and throw damage are pretty good.

She can't approach
She has trouble with kills
She dies extremely early
She has like no range
Her grounded game is bad

That's a lot of problems

 

[ぱみゅ]

What if I need to quite muitiple characters?

If you already made a post, use the "edit" button at the bottom of it to add more to it.
If you haven't, and what I like to do in those cases, copy/paste everything in a notepad, and just paste it before posting.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

For those of you that care, here's the actual tier list that actually reflects the current state of the metagame.


Metagame-defining dudes:
"Broken" characters that don't actually win stuff:
"Broken" characters held back by a [hard-] counter:
Sleeper characters that have shown signs of being able to compete:

 

[Macchiato]

Metagame-defining dudes:

Don't call those girls, dudes. That's rude

 

[Pazx]

For those of you that care, here's the actual tier list that actually reflects the current state of the metagame.


Metagame-defining dudes:
"Broken" characters that don't actually win stuff:
"Broken" characters held back by a [hard-] counter:
Sleeper characters that have shown signs of being able to compete:

Is ZSS really what holds Sonic back? If so, why?

 

[Luco]

It's sad saying goodbye to the old thread.

I'll hopefully be attending a tournament over here in the UK soon, if that happens and I do well enough and remember everything that I used to know (I'm funny), maybe I'll consider putting forward my name for this - but it might just be better to wait until I've rejoined a scene I can play with more commonly than 'a few times'.

My own thought:

It becomes increasingly obvious to myself and probably to others that the tools of a character cannot be looked at in a vacuum, especially in power scenes.The chances of going against a character that has the tools to nullify or counter your otherwise 'strong' tools increase with every tournament that expands in size each time (as most have been).

This is obviously why Ness has a weaker showing than peeps in recent times have given him credit for, but I think more interesting is Luigi.

@ Shaya you mentioned Luigi had not been showing the prowess needed to place highly at major events whilst his dominance at regionals were astounding, and the logical answer I see is that Luigi's counters are less common but anti-meta, so it makes sense in the smaller tournaments he's less likely to run into his hard counters as opposed to larger-scale tournaments.

What does it all mean? It means, as several people have been saying for ages, that characters with polarising tools in context (ie characters who's polarising tools allow them to be countered feasibly by at least one other character) will see less success than the characters with the overall more even set of tools at larger tournaments.

You all probably already guessed this.

But turn the tier list the other way for a second and apply it to the lower tiers. Polarising characters have the opposite effect so long as their polarisation allows them to feasibly counter other characters.

Mac's obvious weaknesses were off-set by a strength that was under-estimated, and whilst he sees no viability as a solo main due to particular crippling MUs, he retains a position above his peers because he also gains the flip side of being polarising - beating the characters who don't like his strength, or at least doing better against characters that beat him anyway.

You could take this thought further and discuss how feasibly being able to give a few characters significantly higher than you more trouble at the cost of a few more crippling MUs might actually be 'better' in terms of viability than being able to lose but not too badly to a whole lot more characters.

This is the true meaning of being a 'niche' character.

The next question might be to ask - is it actually possible to have a somewhat 'balanced' game where one such character sits at the top of the tier list, or those '60-40 at worst MUs' we were talking about earlier as the ideal of a fighting game roster such as this?

Probably not, because someone sitting at no 1. like that would mean either their strengths are so polarising their weaknesses don't matter enough to their 'would-be counters', or else their counters don't exist and in terms of the game they might as well just have skewed strengths without any 'true, abusable' weaknesses.

Of course this is made harder when the strengths and weaknesses aren't truly compensated for one another. Ness ended up top tier this game because rage mechanics + his already strong Bthrow + buffing his weakest element (recovery) + his already somewhat abnormally strong set of tools in Brawl (with CGs Ness would have been mid or upper mid probably, mostly held back by the fact that there were just better characters) just resulted in someone who's weakness did not balance out their polarising strength enough.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

If you already made a post, use the "edit" button at the bottom of it to add more to it.
If you haven't, and what I like to do in those cases, copy/paste everything in a notepad, and just paste it before posting.

You can also just hit the "Reply" button on a bunch of posts and each one will get appended to the end of your post-in-progress in the text window.

 

[FullMoon]

There's something I wanted to touch upon now.

Would Greninja be considered top tier now even if he hadn't been nerfed?

I ask this because the only two big nerfs he got, Up-Smash and Water Shuriken, weren't that big and both moves are still really good. Up-Smash is decently fast disjoint with a lot of power behind it and Water Shuriken is still one of the fastest projectiles in the game with very good range. Greninja wasn't changed that much and yet most people claim that he went from Top to Mid.

His killing power is still really good, his punish game is also great and he's able to rack up damage really quickly as well. He's tied for best mobility in the game, has one of the best dash grabs, good range on his moves, top 5 recovery, a ridiculous amount of kill setups.

Most people also seem to dismiss Greninja based on frame data alone, but then again, we have Captain Falcon has a definite high tier character and his frame data is comparable to Greninja's. In fact, all of Falcon's grounded normals are slower than Greninja's with the exception of dash attack and F-Tilt (by a whopping 1 frame) and even the aerials are not that far apart (7/14/10/6/16 for Falcon and 12/16/5/7/17 for Greninja, order being N-Air/F-Air/B-Air/Up-Air/D-Air) so I think judging him only on frame data is being really close minded.

Sure, Falcon hits harder than Greninja and is also heavier, but Greninja has a much better recovery and slightly better aerial mobility, while also having the benefit of having a projectile to force approaches. I know the two characters aren't very comparable, but I felt it was worth mentioning this.

Greninja's main flaw lies only in his standing grab being so painfully slow that it gives him no good OoS option other than Jab, which is a really big problem but the thing is, that problem was there pre-1.0.4 too.

Just the way people's opinion of Greninja dropped after the patch even though he didn't get changed all that much makes me wonder if he really was as good as people made him out to be in the original release and would still be at top tier even if he wasn't changed at all.

 

[adom4]

There's something I wanted to touch upon now.

Would Greninja be considered top tier now even if he hadn't been nerfed?

I ask this because the only two big nerfs he got, Up-Smash and Water Shuriken, weren't that big and both moves are still really good. Up-Smash is decently fast disjoint with a lot of power behind it and Water Shuriken is still one of the fastest projectiles in the game with very good range. Greninja wasn't changed that much and yet most people claim that he went from Top to Mid.

His killing power is still really good, his punish game is also great and he's able to rack up damage really quickly as well. He's tied for best mobility in the game, has one of the best dash grabs, good range on his moves, top 5 recovery, a ridiculous amount of kill setups.

Most people also seem to dismiss Greninja based on frame data alone, but then again, we have Captain Falcon has a definite high tier character and his frame data is comparable to Greninja's. In fact, all of Falcon's grounded normals are slower than Greninja's with the exception of dash attack and F-Tilt (by a whopping 1 frame) and even the aerials are not that far apart (7/14/10/6/16 for Falcon and 12/16/5/7/17 for Greninja, order being N-Air/F-Air/B-Air/Up-Air/D-Air) so I think judging him only on frame data is being really close minded.

Sure, Falcon hits harder than Greninja and is also heavier, but Greninja has a much better recovery and slightly better aerial mobility, while also having the benefit of having a projectile to force approaches. I know the two characters aren't very comparable, but I felt it was worth mentioning this.

Greninja's main flaw lies only in his standing grab being so painfully slow that it gives him no good OoS option other than Jab, which is a really big problem but the thing is, that problem was there pre-1.0.4 too.

Just the way people's opinion of Greninja dropped after the patch even though he didn't get changed all that much makes me wonder if he really was as good as people made him out to be in the original release and would still be at top tier even if he wasn't changed at all.

Didn't hydro pump got nerfed too?
I remember it did way more pushback in the 3DS days.

 

[FullMoon]

Didn't hydro pump got nerfed too?
I remember it did way more pushback in the 3DS days.

Well yes.

But the only thing it did was make so that people wouldn't die off the top of the screen for trying to recover like it could before. It doesn't push people as much but compared to Up-Smash and Water Shuriken it's a much more minor nerf.