Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[meleebrawler]

All of the landing options described above for Bowser punish pre-emptive attempts at catching him. All you have to do to hit Bowser is wait for him to do ANYTHING on reaction. He has nothing reliable or good to land with at all compared to Ganondorf who has much less commitmental landing issues period (Bair, Nair). It's not countered by sitting in shield, it's countered by waiting and reacting, which is essentially the same difference except Bowser is a bigger target and easier to do this to than Ganondorf. Sure you can't shield Bowser Bomb but you can just wait. The landing lag is so high it doesn't matter. Same with Dair and its FORTY frames of landing lag. Bair? Also 40. Nothing Bowser has can even come close to being reliable. His command grab is the closest thing but it's also pretty gimmicky. Literally every problem described about how Ganon gets out of disadvantage applies to Bowser with small cardinal differences except Bowser has laggier attacks and is also bigger. The closest thing Bowser has is fire breath but that's also kinda slow and the cooldown sucks. His lack of landing options is probably his biggest barrier in terms of consistent success in this game but that's a really big barrier.

I'm just never going to see Bowser > Ganon. To me it is inconceivable. Bowser certainly has the better neutral and OoS options, I will concede that. There are definite advantages, but god he bites it so hard when he's hit, much much worse.

Maybe they're both just equally bad, dunno.

Argument's kinda pointless really. If one's better than the other then it's such a negligible difference as to hardly impact which character you'd wanna use.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Argument's kinda pointless really. If one's better than the other then it's such a negligible difference as to hardly impact which character you'd wanna use.

Honestly you're probably right. They're both really....yeah. I guess it ultimately is deemed to be a matter of preference I suppose cause Bowser and Ganon are both probably really close to the low end and probably the two least exceptional heavies in this game. There was a time where Ganon was recommendable (it's when Dash > Shield in the neutral was really good, basically pre-patch) but it's kind of long gone now.

Also yeah Ganon's moveset is really good, if it was on any other character with any good attributes movement wise it would be pretty absurd outside of the F8 jab.

 

[Antonykun]

https://twitter.com/SS_S_T_H/status/654524200988749824

Komorikiri's Sonic Matchup Chart:

Disadvantageous 4.8:5.2 or worse


Even 5.1:4.9 ~ 4.9:5.1


Slightly Advantageous 5.2:4.8 ~ 5.4:4.6


Advantageous 5.5:4.5 or better

I swear, every Villager who isn't Ranai is trash or Ranai has warped the minds of every Japanese Smasher into thinking Villager is strong enough to stand with the top tiers.

EDIT: I read that as Sheik vs Villager but I doubt Sonic vs Villager is anywhere near even.

 

[Boney]

For what is worth, Bowser's best landing option is Bowser Bombing right to the ledge for an auto snap.

 

[Dre89]

My eyes are burning from what I'm reading

If someone just stands there and waits to punish Bowser's landing on reaction, Bowser can firebreath (he can b-reverse it if he needs to) and that will stop any reactive punish attempt. The counterplay to firebreath landings is to commit early and hit him before he can direct the fire onto you (which is harder when you move off the ground early).

Also Bowser worse than Zard lol? Their metas are like exactly the same except Bowser kills 50% earlier. Both space with jab, punish stuff OOS and are dependant on dash attack and dash/pivot grab mix-ups to get stuff in neutral. Charizard has an extra jump to help his landings, but Bowser is better in pretty much every other category that matters. They baically do the same things except gets higher reward and kills way earlier.


Bowser and Dorf are worlds apart. Dorf is straight up bottom tier. Bowser is not on the 'low end' he's a solid mid tier. I swear people just act like it's still Brawl. Bowser has legit options in neutral and OOS and kills reliably before 100% on most of the cast. His landing options aren't great but they're much better than before. I don't get how people can say DK is not low tier anymore purely because of the grab when Bowser has always been able to kill reliably only like 10-20% higher, and it's not reliant on a 20% window like DK's.

The only reason why people don't rate him is because he doesn't have a high level player pushing his meta. For some reason people still base viability mostly on results even when it's historically proven to be inaccurate so many times (eg. A ZSS winning Brawl Apex, a supposedly 'non-viable' character). The character didn't change, the character had been viable the whole time, it's just no one thought it wa spossible until then because all they looked at was results.

It's honestly such stupid logic I can't believe people do it. Then people say 'well results are the only solid thing to go on' well then wtf is the point of a thread like this if any meta discussion is simply going to boil down to results....

Alright, I'm just heading back and moving Greninja on up, and I'll bring Ganondorf lower and bring Greninja in a better position. Though from what I've seen so far, looks like the debate between Ganondorf vs Bowser/Zard is in Ganondorf's favor.

But unlike what you all really think, Jigglypuff isn't bad when you actually get to learn her. She has the wall of pain tactic in her F-Air at certain percentages on characters, and boy, it's the most devastating yet amazing thing you'll ever see or do. If you get your opponent far enough, it's pretty much a gimp on stage.

It sounds like you don't verse people who play out matchups properly. Jigglypuff sucks because of the same reason Ganondorf does- she can't do anything to shields. This was mentioned previously in the thread. Characters who can't threaten shields have terrible neutral games because it's shut down by a single, low commitment defensive option.

But before I forget, I got a thing about Ganondorf's standing grab. Don't expect to grab an opponent rushing at you, but merely let the opponent rush in at you, use a power shield, then grab them. Ganondorf's grab is meant to be an on-shield punish on characters who still rush in after aerial attacks on block. If an opponent like Sheik, for example, uses an RAR B-Air, she's actually within enough range (because of her foot) to get grabbed on power shield.

Ganondorf's dash grab is meant for rushing in on the opponent, and his pivot grab is meant to be a retreating grab, since Ganondorf won't be able to go through the opponent with sufficient time to pivot grab them. It's better to run away from the opponent and if they're in range, pivot grab them.

Again, there is never any reason for someone to simply rush at a Ganondorf in neutral and throw out an attack. That would be super unsafe when you don't need to be. No offence but this is what I mean by you not understanding playing out match-ups. It sounds like your experience consists of playing people who don't adapt their style to a match-up, and then you're using that experience for your theorycraft.

Ganondorf is forced to approach in pretty much every single match-up, and his options in neutral all lose to shield. There is never any reason to commit to an attack like that in neutral. He's the one who has to approach. There is no character in the game slower than him that doesn't have a projectile (D3 has gordos). So even if Ganondorf decides not to approach, you can just move around him without committing to anything to bait a commitment out of him. He'll have to commit pre-emptively, so many of his commitments will be punishable. That's how you play against Ganon and that's why he's bad.

Even withstanding that, nothing you said about his grab is specific to him, it applies to everyone. Except his is worse than most because of the bad range, meaning it can punish less and is overall a good option in far less situations. Pivot and dash grabs are way more important than regular grabs, and his dash grab sucks.

 

[Kung Fu Treachery]

Ganon's grab is horrendous. There are matches where I just forget that the grab button exists, because why open myself up to that level of psychic pain. It's like his elbows get glued to his rib cage. Why is the range so bad?

Also, I have no luck threatening shields with Ganon. Like, shield breaks are really rare. I get very close, very often, but never seem to seal the deal.

Also, as others have mentioned, he has real trouble approaching. If you just start the match and make Ganon come to you, his enormous weaknesses become apparent. You could also rush him down. FTilt, DTilt, and Upsmash are decent for keeping opponents out, but all too slow once someone's on top of Ganon. Landing Wizard's Foot at low percents actually gets you punished. Jab can sneak in a shot occasionally.

A slow Captain Falcon with no grab game is a really, really bad Captain Falcon. WizFoot and Flame Choke also have less range than Falcon's versions, for some incomprehensible reason. Isn't it enough that they got slowed down?

These design choices are like looking into the Necronomicon.

KFT's Ganon Guide (Do Not Steal): Nair, Fair, Upair, Prayer. GLHF.

EDIT: Customs Ganon is our only hope. The recovery buff he gets is actually very helpful, since his weight actually makes him difficult to kill if he can get back to the stage. I just want a patch that makes 2122 Ganon default (Dark Fists, Flame Choke, Warlock Blade, Dropkick).

We're still better off than the Triforce of Wisdom. Take that, nerds.

 

[Dre89]

Bowser also straight up does more damage on hit whilst being faster and killing earlier

Dtilt 25% frame 10
Nair 24% frame 8
Bair 19% frame 9


Bowser's throws also literally do more than double the damage of Ganondorf's lol

Bowser is quicker, has a better OOS, better grab, better boxing, better recovery, better damage on hit, weighs more (they're both combo food anyway) and kills earlier

But no he's worse than Ganondorf because Zero said it and because he doesn't have any rep....

 

[adom4]

Bowser also straight up does more damage on hit

Dtilt 25% frame 10
Nair 24% frame 8
Bair 19% frame 9


Bowser's throws also literally do more than double the damage of Ganondorf's lol

Bowser is quicker, has a better OOS, better grab, better boxing, better recovery, better damage on hit, weighs more (they're both combo food anyway) and kills earlier

But no he's worse than Ganondorf because Zero said it and because he doesn't have any rep....

Bowser's D-tilt almost never hits twice.
Ganon's Nair does 23% if both hits link & Bowser's Nair isn't even good.
Ganon's Bair 1 frame slower and has half the landing lag.
Ganon's F-throw does more damage than Bowser's F-throw & Ganon's D-throw actually combos into stuff.
Also Ganon does more damage on almost every move.

 

[Rizen]

Ganon's Dthrow does 7% but you can combo Wizkick into it at low %s and his Fthrow does 13% so it's not like Bowser has a huge damage advantage vs Ganon. Also Ganon's Nair is frame 7 vs Bowser's 8 Dre89 .
The big advantages Bowser has that haven't been touched on much are better air movement and recovery. Ganon has safer landing options but his air speed (and all mobility) is terrible.

I'm not sure who's worse tbh.
Edit, if I had to say one over the other I'd say Ganon is worse. Chasing down opponents with his huge hitbox, cruddy mobility and bad frame data is hell.

 

[Nu~]

Probably one of his top 3 worse match-ups IMO. R.O.B definitely has a better boxing and zoning game. AC Nair > D-tilt is negates all of pacman's good OOS options. Uair goes through the hydrant, Gyros/Lasers render all fruit completely harmless and still retains their hitboxes.

He's fully capable of just waiting to see what Pac-man does and just outdoing him in it.

We've discussed this before. ROB can't out camp us.

Stemming off from what Froggy said about ROB not being able to out-camp us:

-Gyro will never instant launch hydrant (10% max), and it won't hit you for standing on the hydrant when launched from ROB's down B unless he's basically at point blank. I forgot to test thrown from hand. Regardless, it should set you up for a quick fair, Bair, Nair or ftilt launch.

-No level of Robo beam will launch the hydrant, and ROB has to angle level 2 to hit you while you're on top of the hydrant. It sets you up for a quick Nair/Bair/Uair launch though. Robo beam has F25 startup, so you should be able to block this on reaction.

-Since neither gyro nor robo beam instant launch, your hydrant shouldn't ever be instant smacked from under you by a projectile. You should be able to block either one.

-No level of Robo beam stops orange, so it shouldn't stop Key either. If it comes down to a projectile slugfest, you should come out on top between Key/apple/strawberry + hydrant vs his gyro and beam, considering the beam's massive startup. Key on reaction to ROB preparing for the beam is in your favor. This requires you to watch ROB closely. Keep in mind that Robo beam is dead for about 4 seconds after he fires it each time.

-Hydrant water pushes gyro, so it'll get pushed far unless ROB picks it up.

-If ROB has a gyro in hand, he has no way to instant launch hydrant minus z drop shenanigans. If ROB steals your fruit, same thing unless he takes your key. He should only realistically have a chance of grabbing your strawberry or apple safely though. If he is holding either, hydrant -> shield is a very safe tactic. Don't make it obvious, but keep it in mind.

 

[Vipermoon]

One large reason why Bowser can't land is all the stuff you all mentioned plus being a floaty. It's a big deal.

 

[Radical Larry]

Dre89 "Characters who can't threaten shields have terrible neutral games because it's shut down by a single, low commitment defensive option."

My response: Ganondorf CAN do things against an opponent's shield. It's called using B-Air, U-Smash, F-Smash and Flame Chokes. He has a good neutral game if someone just RAR B-Air's a shield, apparently. B-Air does 16% damage, is Ganondorf's fastest aerial, has great SHAC and can pressure shields. He has a ton of ways more to threaten shields, even using U-Smash, which can allow him to retreat if the opponent doesn't powershield.

Then there's Jigglypuff, who can actually use Pound, which is very amazing against shields. Think of this, she can use B-Air or F-Tilt to start up some pressure on the shields---jab works as well---and then follow up with a Pound attack. It has great bonus shield damage and has a very long active hitbox, making it precious to perfect shield it.

So basically, they both DO have ways to threaten shields, apparently.

 

[Dre89]

One large reason why Bowser can't land is all the stuff you all mentioned plus being a floaty. It's a big deal.

plus being a floaty

being a floaty

floaty

 

[teddystalin]

I swear, every Villager who isn't Ranai is trash or Ranai has warped the minds of every Japanese Smasher into thinking Villager is strong enough to stand with the top tiers.

EDIT: I read that as Sheik vs Villager but I doubt Sonic vs Villager is anywhere near even.

It'd be great if we could get some discussion as to what Villager's deal is. He's/she's a character who remained largely unchanged through the game's lifespan (excepting a dthrow buff and an up-b nerf), yet there's this huge divide between the Japanese perception of the character and the way everyone else sees him (#16 on both CCI surveys so far, yet reliably top10 or even top 5 on Japanese lists.) He's a known threat with customs, obviously, but what explains this lack of consensus? A couple of theories:

1) Ranai is the Japanese ESAM: great results lead to the local scene overestimating the strengths of his character, but inconsistent placements reveal that they rely more on player skill than character choice.

2) Ranai as a local quirk: something about the Japanese meta allows Ranai to be disproportionately successful there. When taken abroad, his weak matchups become clearer.

3) Villager as having normal rep for a top tier, just spread out: A common opinion is that a top player can artificially inflate a character and that removing that players results would cause the character to drop off the map. This comes up with Nairo and ZSS, Dabuz and Rosalina, ESAM with Pika, etc. At least in the case of the former two, the argument doesn't hold water - ZSS still has Choco and Nick Riddle putting in work at a regional/national level, while Rosa has falln, Xaltis, and Rayquaza. Both also have a plethora of local threats backing them. They may not be world-class players, but these regional threats are more than capable of top 32 or top 16 finishes at majors. Villager is in a similar boat: SS and MJG (aside from disappointing performances at TBH5) are both capable regional threats and a quick look at the PR database shows plenty of Villagers putting in work. Perhaps Ranai is simply Villager's Dabuz, not his ESAM. The problem with this interpretation is that we won't know until Ranai actually gets out and plays Western threats (still, big ol eyeroll to anyone who says he stands a chance against ZeRo.)

So what are the thoughts on Villager as a metagame force? Is he a "solved" threat like Ness or Captain Falcon? Does he have the tools to compete with the best of them?

 

[Rizen]

teddystalin great username btw

Dre89 B-Air does 16% damage, is Ganondorf's fastest aerial,

Uair's Ganon's fastest at frame 6 then Nair at 7 then Bair at 10.
http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4/Ganondorf
'just saying

 

[Dre89]

2) Ranai as a local quirk: something about the Japanese meta allows Ranai to be disproportionately successful there. When taken abroad, his weak matchups become clearer.

Didn't Ranai like two stock Nairo in crews

 

[Y2Kay]

Can we somewhat agree that most tiers or whatever people make aren't completely good, obviously. Wouldn't you have to technically study a character or play them to be able to fully give them a position and stuff?
For instance people for WHATEVER REASON,thinking jiggs is more viable then Kirby.
Some characters aren't represented enough for everyone to see how good they possible can be(Tink,Peach,I feel like Samus is actually better then what it seems, though I could be wrong.)

So....basically no tier list or whatever people make is gonna please everyone and unless you understand and maybe even play all characters in the game to get a good understanding of them, its going to be hard giving reasons why some could be better or worse then others.

Yeah I'm working on trying to learn enough about every character in the game. Not enough to main them, but enough to where I don't sound like an idiot when talking about characters and tier lists an stuff. I'm currently stuck on peach tho O_0

 

[wedl!!]

Since we're sort of on the subject of Sammy, can someone tell me how the hell Pikachu could even possibly be considered better than ZSS?

 

[Antonykun]

It'd be great if we could get some discussion as to what Villager's deal is. He's/she's a character who remained largely unchanged through the game's lifespan (excepting a dthrow buff and an up-b nerf), yet there's this huge divide between the Japanese perception of the character and the way everyone else sees him (#16 on both CCI surveys so far, yet reliably top10 or even top 5 on Japanese lists.) He's a known threat with customs, obviously, but what explains this lack of consensus? A couple of theories:

1) Ranai is the Japanese ESAM: great results lead to the local scene overestimating the strengths of his character, but inconsistent placements reveal that they rely more on player skill than character choice.

2) Ranai as a local quirk: something about the Japanese meta allows Ranai to be disproportionately successful there. When taken abroad, his weak matchups become clearer.

3) Villager as having normal rep for a top tier, just spread out: A common opinion is that a top player can artificially inflate a character and that removing that players results would cause the character to drop off the map. This comes up with Nairo and ZSS, Dabuz and Rosalina, ESAM with Pika, etc. At least in the case of the former two, the argument doesn't hold water - ZSS still has Choco and Nick Riddle putting in work at a regional/national level, while Rosa has falln, Xaltis, and Rayquaza. Both also have a plethora of local threats backing them. They may not be world-class players, but these regional threats are more than capable of top 32 or top 16 finishes at majors. Villager is in a similar boat: SS and MJG (aside from disappointing performances at TBH5) are both capable regional threats and a quick look at the PR database shows plenty of Villagers putting in work. Perhaps Ranai is simply Villager's Dabuz, not his ESAM. The problem with this interpretation is that we won't know until Ranai actually gets out and plays Western threats (still, big ol eyeroll to anyone who says he stands a chance against ZeRo.)

So what are the thoughts on Villager as a metagame force? Is he a "solved" threat like Ness or Captain Falcon? Does he have the tools to compete with the best of them?

It's probably one and two.
It's very clear Ranai is in an entire Leauge of his own and at the same time Japan has way less BS stages to work (bs to Villager anyways Screw Castle Siege)

 

[Ffamran]

Dre89 , Bowser is technically a floaty along with Charizard and Samus. The only issue? Apparently, Smash's definitions are so poorly used and misused that any character that doesn't fall as fast or faster than Falco, Roy, Little Mac, and Mega Man are floaty and that any character with average fall speed like Mario, Mewtwo, and Marth are floaty. Okay, what the hell?

Bowser being ranked 39 would at most make him have below-average fall speed as would Link, rank 20, having above-average fall speed. When people claim that Marth and Mewtwo are floaty despite them being ranked 23 and 28 respectively, I want to punch a wall. And people who say Ike isn't a fast faller - he is - or that Falco is a heavyweight with low fall speed - I am not freaking kidding -, I want to punch them in the face.

This happens with weight, air speed, and even frame data. If I had a penny for every time someone said Falco's moves are laggy, I'd have a dollar or even two. If I had a penny for every time someone said Roy's moves are faster than Marth - it's almost neglible between them -, I'd have like 50 cents. Learn to read and understand basic data.

Also, the ZSS talk reminded me of when players after Umebara? said they would pick up ZSS... This also happened when some tournament happened and people tried to pick up Meta Knight. I don't think there is a "real" reason why some characters are or aren't being used no matter how good, bad, "easy", or "difficult" they are.

 

[teddystalin]

It's probably one and two.
It's very clear Ranai is in an entire Leauge of his own and at the same time Japan has way less BS stages to work (bs to Villager anyways Screw Castle Siege)

If the Paragon ruleset becomes standard, how would that impact the character's viability?

 

[Y2Kay]

My eyes are burning from what I'm reading Also Bowser worse than Zard lol? Their metas are like exactly the same except Bowser kills 50% earlier. Both space with jab, punish stuff OOS and are dependant on dash attack and dash/pivot grab mix-ups to get stuff in neutral. Charizard has an extra jump to help his landings, but Bowser is better in pretty much every other category that matters. They baically do the same things except gets higher reward and kills way earlier.

Zard is better than Bowser. He's actually has good movement on the ground and has a better landing option with Rock Smash, not to mention auto cancelling aerials. Super armor on Fly, Rock Smash, and F-smash along w/ Heavy Armor on flare blitz is a good deal. Zard is slightly weaker, true, but he's got a reliable kill throw and faster smash attacks, while bowser can sometimes kill at the ledge with b-throw and f-throw. Speaking of throws, D-throw actually combos into fair and nair, while bowser has u throw that combos into fair at low percents sometimes. Zard's flamethrower is slight better, and so is his recovery.

 

[Zelder]

The only heavyweights that matters are Falcon & DK. And Ike, but I always think of him as a swordsman before I think of him as a heavy.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

My eyes are burning from what I'm reading

If someone just stands there and waits to punish Bowser's landing on reaction, Bowser can firebreath (he can b-reverse it if he needs to) and that will stop any reactive punish attempt. The counterplay to firebreath landings is to commit early and hit him before he can direct the fire onto you (which is harder when you move off the ground early).

Also Bowser worse than Zard lol? Their metas are like exactly the same except Bowser kills 50% earlier. Both space with jab, punish stuff OOS and are dependant on dash attack and dash/pivot grab mix-ups to get stuff in neutral. Charizard has an extra jump to help his landings, but Bowser is better in pretty much every other category that matters. They baically do the same things except gets higher reward and kills way earlier.


Bowser and Dorf are worlds apart. Dorf is straight up bottom tier. Bowser is not on the 'low end' he's a solid mid tier. I swear people just act like it's still Brawl. Bowser has legit options in neutral and OOS and kills reliably before 100% on most of the cast. His landing options aren't great but they're much better than before. I don't get how people can say DK is not low tier anymore purely because of the grab when Bowser has always been able to kill reliably only like 10-20% higher, and it's not reliant on a 20% window like DK's.

The only reason why people don't rate him is because he doesn't have a high level player pushing his meta. For some reason people still base viability mostly on results even when it's historically proven to be inaccurate so many times (eg. A ZSS winning Brawl Apex, a supposedly 'non-viable' character). The character didn't change, the character had been viable the whole time, it's just no one thought it wa spossible until then because all they looked at was results.

It's honestly such stupid logic I can't believe people do it. Then people say 'well results are the only solid thing to go on' well then wtf is the point of a thread like this if any meta discussion is simply going to boil down to results....





It sounds like you don't verse people who play out matchups properly. Jigglypuff sucks because of the same reason Ganondorf does- she can't do anything to shields. This was mentioned previously in the thread. Characters who can't threaten shields have terrible neutral games because it's shut down by a single, low commitment defensive option.



Again, there is never any reason for someone to simply rush at a Ganondorf in neutral and throw out an attack. That would be super unsafe when you don't need to be. No offence but this is what I mean by you not understanding playing out match-ups. It sounds like your experience consists of playing people who don't adapt their style to a match-up, and then you're using that experience for your theorycraft.

Ganondorf is forced to approach in pretty much every single match-up, and his options in neutral all lose to shield. There is never any reason to commit to an attack like that in neutral. He's the one who has to approach. There is no character in the game slower than him that doesn't have a projectile (D3 has gordos). So even if Ganondorf decides not to approach, you can just move around him without committing to anything to bait a commitment out of him. He'll have to commit pre-emptively, so many of his commitments will be punishable. That's how you play against Ganon and that's why he's bad.

Even withstanding that, nothing you said about his grab is specific to him, it applies to everyone. Except his is worse than most because of the bad range, meaning it can punish less and is overall a good option in far less situations. Pivot and dash grabs are way more important than regular grabs, and his dash grab sucks.

I don't think there's a single true statement in this post.

 

[KirbySquad101]

The only heavyweights that matters are Falcon & DK. And Ike, but I always think of him as a swordsman before I think of him as a heavy.

What about R.O.B. or Wario? (R.O.B.'s weight 106, Wario's weight 107)

 

[Ffamran]

The only heavyweights that matters are Falcon & DK. And Ike, but I always think of him as a swordsman before I think of him as a heavy.

Weight alone shouldn't override Ike's status as a notable heavyweight swordsman as range shouldn't override Meta Knight's status as a swordsman/puff when he clearly is using a sword for his height unlike in Brawl where he was using a longsword like Link.

 

[TTTTTsd]

I mean when asking the question of why people think DK is so much better than Bowser as of now because he has % specific kill options one has to remember he has generally better frame data than Bowser, WAY WAY better overall mobility (less grounded speed when running, not walking, but more aerial speed, much much more) and better aerials + a better overall kit even before he got kill setups. DK as of now is vastly better I would say because now he can kill about as easily off of grabs that have empirically better frame data in addition to all of the above (better FAF, less endlag for whiffing a grab). I would even go as far as to say pre-kill throw setup DK > Bowser in most instances, it's just the kill setup off Cargo U-throw made this strikingly obvious and increased the divide because DK is just a safer character in general for like, minimal trade offs vs. playing Bowser. I mean other things DK has over him include a non 8 frame jumpsquat, more well rounded fall speed, better fastfall speed, the list goes on.

As an addendum it's unfortunate that outside of dashgrab some of Bowser's best options are gated behind an ABYSMAL walk speed (Jab, Ftilt, grounded spacing), because I don't consider Bowser's dash attack to be really that good (it gets an ok/10). I'm not going to argue in relation to Ganondorf at this point but Bowser is just really unfortunate in this game even outside of his fairly evident issues.

Also Zard can kill much earlier off of a grab if he has a platform stage because U-Throw cheese is very real.

 

[adom4]

I swear people just act like it's still Brawl. .

And that's exactly how you act when you talk about Ganondorf.

 

[Trifroze]

Well, Bowser is a floaty by every definition. The fact that he makes a loud noise when he hits a ground doesn't change the fact that there's as little fall speed difference between Bowser and Luigi/Samus as there is between ZSS and Falcon.

DK for example outsurvives Bowser vertically because of this (Dedede obviously as well).

E:

I don't think there is a "real" reason why some characters are or aren't being used no matter how good, bad, "easy", or "difficult" they are.

Serious question, if you don't think there's a "real" reason what do you think there is?

 

[Jamurai]

If Ryu classes as a heavyweight (14th highest weight, *right under Falcon) then he is the most relevant of all of them.

 

[Djent]

When people say "heavy," they mean "heavy with a bunch of other drawbacks that cluster with high weight." They've defined a class of attributes, many of which are negative (huge, bad frame data, low mobility, exploitable recovery, etc.), that is just intrinsically disadvantaged.

Which makes the discussion kind of difficult and maybe not worth it.

 

[Boney]

I mean when asking the question of why people think DK is so much better than Bowser as of now because he has % specific kill options one has to remember he has generally better frame data than Bowser, WAY WAY better overall mobility (less grounded speed when running, not walking, but more aerial speed, much much more) and better aerials + a better overall kit even before he got kill setups. DK as of now is vastly better I would say because now he can kill about as easily off of grabs that have empirically better frame data in addition to all of the above (better FAF, less endlag for whiffing a grab). I would even go as far as to say pre-kill throw setup DK > Bowser in most instances, it's just the kill setup off Cargo U-throw made this strikingly obvious and increased the divide because DK is just a safer character in general for like, minimal trade offs vs. playing Bowser. I mean other things DK has over him include a non 8 frame jumpsquat, more well rounded fall speed, better fastfall speed, the list goes on.

As an addendum it's unfortunate that outside of dashgrab some of Bowser's best options are gated behind an ABYSMAL walk speed (Jab, Ftilt, grounded spacing), because I don't consider Bowser's dash attack to be really that good (it gets an ok/10). I'm not going to argue in relation to Ganondorf at this point but Bowser is just really unfortunate in this game even outside of his fairly evident issues.

Also Zard can kill much earlier off of a grab if he has a platform stage because U-Throw cheese is very real.

In regards to Charizard and mobility, he also has like the best skid in the game, so run up jabs and tilts works amazingly well.

 

[Y2Kay]

The only heavyweights that matters are Falcon & DK. And Ike, but I always think of him as a swordsman before I think of him as a heavy.

I believe you mean the only heavyweights that have results, because their are a ton of good heavy weights:
ROB
Megaman
Ryu
Lucario
Yoshi (who knew?)
Wario

 

[Jucchan]

http://esports-runner.com/ssb4/キャラクターランキング/

eSports Runner's 1.1.2 Tier List (Based on both Japanese and American tournament results, or at least they allege)
Custom Mii Fighters have both size and move customization.
No ordering within tiers.

A+ (10) (custom)
A (9.5)
A- (9.0)
B+ (8.5)
B (8.0)(custom)
B- (7.5)
C+ (7.0)(custom)
C (6.5)
C- (6.0)
D (5.5)

 

[Antonykun]

Whenever someone says heavy or heavyweight to mean a group of characters that are fatties AND THEN add charaters like Falcon into the mix I just want to cry

 

[Y2Kay]

http://esports-runner.com/ssb4/キャラクターランキング/

eSports Runner's 1.1.2 Tier List (Based on both Japanese and American tournament results, or at least they allege)
Custom Mii Fighters have both size and move customization.
No ordering within tiers.

A+ (10) (custom)
A (9.5)
A- (9.0)
B+ (8.5)
B (8.0)(custom)
B- (7.5)
C+ (7.0)(custom)
C (6.5)
C- (6.0)
D (5.5)

Wholy cow. Just Wow. Mewtwo better than Kirby, Falco, and Lucas? I love Mew2 but c'mon. Sonic second best? That's a little too much. And why are Dark Pit and Pit worlds apart? Jesus.......

 

[Zannabluke]

how can japan not be happy about lucas with the new shield mechanics...

 

[Y2Kay]

Whenever someone says heavy or heavyweight to mean a group of characters that are fatties AND THEN add charaters like Falcon into the mix I just want to cry

Here's a hankerchief

 

[Trifroze]

I can buy heavy/fatty being a term reserved for all the negative attributes like slowness and large size, but if the term "heavyweight" is used to describe anything other than characters who have a high weight value then people should just straight up pick better terms that don't already have a clear definition.

 

[Ulevo]

In 20XX, I imagine Villager being a top 5 character.