Official Viability Ratings v2 | Competitive Impressions

[Nu~]

Lmao, That isn't how this works. You said that they work at high level play, and I challenged you and said they don't. It's your job to show me the proof, not the other way around.

If you can't show me because they flat out don't work like I originally thought, and as harsh as this is going to sound, at this point I truly believe you don't know what you're talking about. Until I see actual tournament play of you proving this, or other players proving this. I just don't have any reason to believe you.

I know the reason why you left those specific three setups in your reply to me is because those are the only ones you haven't seen. I'll admit that those are still fresh and I haven't shown videos to the Pac-Man boards of me performing them just yet, but 5 out of 8 isn't "struggling to kill".

It is true that the burden of proof is on me, so I'll make sure to record matches of me setting up those three kills very soon.

As of now, keep assuming that I'm spitting nonsense. It will make the surprise better in the end.

:| . You can literally just go look up the numbers on Kurogane. Pac-man's Smash attacks are weak compared to nearly the entire cast. I'm also pretty sure the pacboards make a KO percent chart, with Fsmash/Usmash/Dsmash all kill at 109|133|141 from the center of FD on Mario, WITHOUT optimal DI and without rage.

I tested against dark pit since he is closer to the standard of middleweight, while Mario is the heaviest one. And you know damn well that inky killing Mario at 133 is a lie.

103/110/134
Without DI or rage on mario at Fd center

First you assume that I don't know what I'm saying, then you flat out lie/come in misinformed. Lol

 

[M15t3R E]

People are trying way too hard on these tier lists. Lets be honest the meta at the moment is pretty much:

The Smash 4 Queen


The Smash 4 Aristocracy


The Royal Court


The guys guarding the gate


The Peasants


The invading general from the East


Any arguing over hypothetical spots like whether or not Pikachu is top 5 or if Peach/Pit/Lucario/Ike are high tier is pretty much petty bickering among nobles/court jesters at this point. My list might be subject to debate but anyone who's been following the meta and this thread has a pretty good idea on what the general consensus is in terms of where the roster currently ranks in the meta.

Debating your tier list is petty bickering? You sound pretty sure of yourself. Virtually no one else would agree that Pikachu, Rosa, ZSS, Yoshi and Ryu are that low. I could say more but that's all I need to say to point out that your list is far from perfect. Prepare for more people to pick apart your list.

 

[Deathcarter]

bowser jr is not a gatekeeper wtf

I wasn't exactly interested in being precise with my list. That was mostly a concession done with respect to Tweek's success with the character.

 

[Apeirohaon]

Debating your tier list is petty bickering? You sound pretty sure of yourself. Virtually no one else would agree that Pikachu, Rosa, ZSS, Yoshi and Ryu are that low. I could say more but that's all I need to say to point out that your list is far from perfect. Prepare for more people to pick apart your list.

I doubt he meant it to actually be ordered. that's what I assumed, at least

Also he definitely didn't mean for Ryu to actually be bottom tier, I'm pretty sure

 

[David Viran]

Debating your tier list is petty bickering? You sound pretty sure of yourself. Virtually no one else would agree that Pikachu, Rosa, ZSS, Yoshi and Ryu are that low. I could say more but that's all I need to say to point out that your list is far from perfect. Prepare for more people to pick apart your list.

I'm pretty sure the characters inside the tiers are just in alphabetical order.

 

[Deathcarter]

Debating your tier list is petty bickering? You sound pretty sure of yourself. Virtually no one else would agree that Pikachu, Rosa, ZSS, Yoshi and Ryu are that low. I could say more but that's all I need to say to point out that your list is far from perfect. Prepare for more people to pick apart your list.

There's no ranking within the tiers, the characters are pretty much in alphabetical order. And it wasn't meant to be serious anyway, especially with Ryu.

EDIT: 'd

 

[Zionaze]

so like SlayerZ and his peach
Big D and his Dedede

thoughts?

 

[M15t3R E]

There's no ranking within the tiers, the characters are pretty much in alphabetical order. And it wasn't meant to be serious anyway, especially with Ryu.

EDIT: 'd

If that is the case, that changes everything. I wish that was made clear about the list.

 

[Trifroze]

DK should be the sole character with a gatekeeper title now. If you don't have the neutral to keep him out or the advantage to prevent him from landing before he manages to kill you with 2 grabs then you're not good enough.

 

[Sir Tundra]

You know their has been alot of tier list as of late.

Like alot of tier list.

Now I'm very mixed about posting personals tier list in this thread.

On one head we can all learn what characters people think are viable and what people think aren't.

But on the other hand it leaves to alot of pointless debates and arguing.

Such as people debating on Character "X" is too low or Character "Y" is too high.

Especially when you have a game like Sm4sh that has 55 CHARACTERS and more coming as DLC..

Not to mention Balancing patches coming out every 2-3 months

You know theirs gonna be alot of people that are gonna disagree with your placements.


Also side note that has nothing to do with the topic..

YO @ Trifroze !!!

When's Fox's True Ending?!

 

[thegrovylekid]

The Smash 4 Aristocracy

Rosalina and ZSS are above everyone else in this aristocracy. Not sure why you don't have them there.

 

[Thinkaman]

I think anyone arguing that Diddy is above Rosa has a believable argument.

MVD's Diddy came much, much closer to winning Paragon (aka beating Nairo) than Dabuz's Rosalina did. The fact that Dabuz did beat MVD head-to-head doesn't change this, nor outweighs it.

"But Diddy is better against ZSS than Rosalina is!"

Um, yeah, that's kinda the point?

 

[ぱみゅ]

Rosalina and ZSS are above everyone else in this aristocracy. Not sure why you don't have them there.

I thought it was already stated that that list is alphabetical within categories.

So, poorly made tier lists aside, what character are we going to talk next?

 

[Djent]

I think anyone arguing that Diddy is above Rosa has a believable argument.

I know what you mean by this, but I was still tempted to pull out some Logic 101 valid-but-obviously-not-sound parody argument.

MVD's Diddy came much, much closer to winning Paragon (aka beating Nairo) than Dabuz's Rosalina did. The fact that Dabuz did beat MVD head-to-head doesn't change this, nor outweighs it.

"But Diddy is better against ZSS than Rosalina is!"

Um, yeah, that's kinda the point?

"Dude, Dabuz didn't even go Rosalina against Nairo!"

See above.

A common theme is that a high-level Diddy takes Nairo to last game (see: CEO, SSC, Paragon) despite the fact that said player finishes lower and struggles in other MUs. This corroborates what @ Shaya and others say about the MU being somewhat difficult for her. I think we're looking at a character who has the best Sheik MU (outside of the ditto) + one of the best ZSS MUs. Unfortunately for him, he probably loses to Fox, Rosa, Luigi, and maybe some others in the top 10/15. But since everyone barring Sheik loses to some combination of that group it's honestly not that big of a deal.

Rosa OTOH gets mauled by Sheik and ZSS. She'd probably be the best character in the game if those two didn't exist, but as it stands she isn't getting through the two most likely characters to appear in finals.

 

[Yikarur]

Why do people think Diddy loses to Luigi?

Rosa OTOH gets mauled by Sheik and ZSS. She'd probably be the best character in the game if those two didn't exist, but as it stands she isn't getting through the two most likely characters to appear in finals.

I don't think Rosalina is anything close to the best character in this game. Rosalina has a lot of weaknesses to be exploited. She should be happy if she lasts in the Top8 over the course of the game's life span. (Patches aside)

 

[Trifroze]

I'm honestly liking how the top characters are turning out matchup-wise, with everyone beating and losing to slightly different characters pretty evenly except with Sheik on a (slight?) pedestal above the others. Hopefully they won't go too crazy with the nerfs in the next patch whenever it may happen, and that goes for Sheik too.

Regarding Rosalina: Mario, Ness and Diddy seem to have pretty tough matchups versus her if Paragon is anything to go by. Mario can't get around Luma or hit it away reliably, it stops Diddy's bananas dead and Ness gets obliterated offstage moreso than Ness obliterates Rosalina. I'd imagine Luigi also sort of dies versus her. Does Rosalina lose to anyone except Sheik and ZSS though? Fox maybe?

Kinda unclear on the reasons why Rosalina shouldn't be considered a top 3-4 character.

 

[Yoshi Kirishima]

• Ike has no results except for Ryo stomping weeklies
• Peach actually gets results at tournaments that matter a lot more
• Ike is more notable than her

otherwise our top 10s are exactly the same except for fox>mario wtf

There's more going on than just the well known players who go to tournaments streamed by well known twitch channels. Ryuga, a michigan Ike beat Ally recently.

 

[Xeze]

Mario can't get around Luma or hit it away reliably

If using Paragon as a base, Ally did some mistakes in the matchup. He tried to roll past Luma, which is never a good idea

 

[Smog Frog]

has hard mus with random lower tiered characters. probably goes even since baby shadow balls can be followed to slowly chip away at luma and rack up damage vs , they die at approximately the same time though kills much easier w/ uthrow, and his high damage output makes it very easy to get her into killing %. also something about sh fair being able to hit her. of course she still has her own traits to make this even, but he has unique tools vs her to make it not a bad mu.

 

[Ghostbone]

Why do people think Diddy loses to Luigi?

Fireballs > bananas, luigi gimps diddy pretty well, u-smash beats all of Diddy's aerials including side-b, other general luigi stuff.


As for Rosalina, Dabuz was forced to switch off Rosa against a Wii fit in top 32 of evo, blah blah customs blah blah matchup inexperience but still, seems fairly close. (especially since that was before all the wii fit buffs)

 

[PK Gaming]

I'm honestly liking how the top characters are turning out matchup-wise, with everyone beating and losing to slightly different characters pretty evenly except with Sheik on a (slight?) pedestal above the others. Hopefully they won't go too crazy with the nerfs in the next patch whenever it may happen, and that goes for Sheik too.

Regarding Rosalina: Mario, Ness and Diddy seem to have pretty tough matchups versus her if Paragon is anything to go by. Mario can't get around Luma or hit it away reliably, it stops Diddy's bananas dead and Ness gets obliterated offstage moreso than Ness obliterates Rosalina. I'd imagine Luigi also sort of dies versus her. Does Rosalina lose to anyone except Sheik and ZSS though? Fox maybe?

Kinda unclear on the reasons why Rosalina shouldn't be considered a top 3-4 character.

I emphatically disagree with you on that one. I definitely want to see some serious nerfs to the dominant characters, the gap between them and regular cast is rather significant. I don't like it when metagames revolve a handful of characters.

 

[Smog Frog]

the dominant characters in this game are the most tame set of dominant characters i have ever seen in any fighting game i put effort into watching and analyzing. they may be stupid in some ways but thats why they're dominant. every fighting game will have a dominant set of characters since its simple logic that if you have more than 1 thing, one of them is going to be noticeably better than the rest. i'm very satisfied with the top tiers in this game and really i'd be content if there weren't any more balance patches. if there were any patches i'd prefer that they be entirely dedicated to characters who are literally broken and need to be fixed, ergo .

 

[Yikarur]

Fireballs > bananas, luigi gimps diddy pretty well, u-smash beats all of Diddy's aerials including side-b, other general luigi stuff.

Sounds like poor theory to be honest.
Upsmash beats any non-disjointed move head-on. The art is to play arround upsmash. You shouldn't get hit by upsmash at top level play except for hard reads.
Why does Luigi gimp Diddy better than other characters? I don't even think Diddy is really gimpable. His recovery is insane.
I don't even think Luigi can really catch Diddy. This might be a 100:0 MU on Duck Hunt after getting a stock lead.
Most probably the Diddys just need to adjust their playstyle against Luigi.
People already said in Brawl that the Luigi MU is so bad for Diddy, I just can't believe that this really is the case.

 

[Rhus]

Does Rosalina lose to anyone except Sheik and ZSS though? Fox maybe?

Rosalina is probably Fox's worst MU overall. Maybe second to Luigi.

 

[thegrovylekid]

I thought it was already stated that that list is alphabetical within categories.

So, poorly made tier lists aside, what character are we going to talk next?

good to know.

Anyways, I actually recently lost to with . My fault, or actual MU trouble?

Oh, and while on the subject, I've had a pretty even time against with . What's everyone else's opinion on it?

 

[Rikkhan]

Does Rosalina lose to anyone except Sheik and ZSS though? Fox maybe?

I also want to know this, rosa seems to win most match-ups against top characters. I remember sometime ago people said Metaknight beat rosa but in paragon Dabuz obliterated tyrant.

 

[Tri Knight]

I understand, I main Ike [and Peach] but even then, I find the matchup difficult to deal with. You can't commit to anything Laggy unless it's a garunteed hit or you get grabbed. BAir is godly in this matchup, so is Jab, because they are fast enough to keep up with most of Shiek's moves and space well enough to give you some breathing room. FAir and Nair are the next best, and they're pretty unsafe, and if your opponent shields, that's a free grab.

Oh, and needles are annoying for Ike since they're faster than most of his attacks so he can't swat through them as easily as something like a fireball or a banana.

Not to mention needles can both out-space him and camp him out. Force Ike to approach since he lacks projectiles. Very bad match up.

 

[Aenglaan]

I emphatically disagree with you on that one. I definitely want to see some serious nerfs to the dominant characters, the gap between them and regular cast is rather significant. I don't like it when metagames revolve a handful of characters.

I agree that the meta shouldn't revolve around a small amount of characters (hence, why I don't enjoy watching or playing Melee all that much), but I think there shouldn't be any major nerfs to top tier characters. I would prefer to see other lower characters like Mewtwo, Zelda, Ganon, Samus, Robin, etc get massive buffs. If everyone is more balanced, then the meta is more exciting because you get to constantly see different characters with different play styles. It prevents things from being predictable.

 

[thegrovylekid]

Not to mention needles can both out-space him and camp him out. Force Ike to approach since he lacks projectiles. Very bad match up.

It's a mess. Keep a secondary on hand.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Rosalina has a weird Matchup spread, if a character has the tools to break her strategy she's very vulnerable.
Like, she can destroy characters like Luigi, but then lose to opponents like Zelda (both are exaggerations maybe, but they're theories anyways).

 

[Megamang]

@ thegrovylekid Customs on or off? What happened to you mostly? I could see it being a little difficult because Rosa is probably easier for pally to kill than most characters, but idk.

Reflectors are always nice against villager, and being a mario clone is probably nice for the MU... the main issue, as always, is that I'd rather be Mario than Dr. Mario.

 

[thegrovylekid]

@ thegrovylekid Customs on or off? What happened to you mostly? I could see it being a little difficult because Rosa is probably easier for pally to kill than most characters, but idk.

Reflectors are always nice against villager, and being a mario clone is probably nice for the MU... the main issue, as always, is that I'd rather be Mario than Dr. Mario.

Customs off, I got read and died at 63% on one of my stocks, I was also in this odd phase where I tried mostly to approach with Dash Attack as opposed to playing around with Luma. Still, Palutena has some strong smashes.

That is the recurring problem with the poor doctor. The difference maker for me in Doc and Mario is the fact that my playstyle heavily uses Pills to force approaches and Tornado as a Kill move, so I use doc instead. I've had moderate sucess using a patient playstyle with Doc's pills until my opponent commits to something punishable, which Mario can't do with his Fireballs due to them bouncing at a lower angle.


That being said, do Doc's pills give him any matchups different enough from Mario's to make a difference?

 

[Gawain]

I agree that the meta shouldn't revolve around a small amount of characters (hence, why I don't enjoy watching or playing Melee all that much), but I think there shouldn't be any major nerfs to top tier characters. I would prefer to see other lower characters like Mewtwo, Zelda, Ganon, Samus, Robin, etc get massive buffs. If everyone is more balanced, then the meta is more exciting because you get to constantly see different characters with different play styles. It prevents things from being predictable.

Melee has like 8 or 9 characters out of what, 26? Smash 4 is around the same number out of a cast twice as big. There is more variety in Melee, especially in percentage terms.

Edit: I should say that this post is made in an effort to stop the spread of misinformation, like what I was quoting. Not to start flames.

 

[thegrovylekid]

Melee has like 8 or 9 characters out of what, 26? Smash 4 is around the same number out of a cast twice as big. There is more variety in Melee, especially in percentage terms.

I agree that the meta shouldn't revolve around a small amount of characters (hence, why I don't enjoy watching or playing Melee all that much), but I think there shouldn't be any major nerfs to top tier characters. I would prefer to see other lower characters like Mewtwo, Zelda, Ganon, Samus, Robin, etc get massive buffs. If everyone is more balanced, then the meta is more exciting because you get to constantly see different characters with different play styles. It prevents things from being predictable.

the thing with Melee is the gap in viability between #1-8 and #9-26 is huge, and it keeps getting bigger. While I agree, seeing Shiek every two matches is irritating, the fact that there is low tiers at all actually makes the game, in a way. If every character was the same in terms of viability, while the metagame would be diverse, there wouldn't be any "low tier heroes". Also, if every character was even in terms of viability, every MU would have to be even, which is almost impossible. Shiek Vs. Ganondorf will always be in Shiek's favour for as long as those two characters remain fundamentally the way they are now. If every character was even in viability, every character would have an even matchup with eachother, making every character essentially palette swaps of eachother. It might be fun to watch, but it's not going to happen.

 

[NachoOfCheese]

Rosalina and ZSS are above everyone else in this aristocracy. Not sure why you don't have them there.

Alphabetical order lmao
EDIT: 'd

 

[Gawain]

the thing with Melee is the gap in viability between #1-8 and #9-26 is huge, and it keeps getting bigger. While I agree, seeing Shiek every two matches is irritating, the fact that there is low tiers at all actually makes the game, in a way. If every character was the same in terms of viability, while the metagame would be diverse, there wouldn't be any "low tier heroes". Also, if every character was even in terms of viability, every MU would have to be even, which is almost impossible. Shiek Vs. Ganondorf will always be in Shiek's favour for as long as those two characters remain fundamentally the way they are now. If every character was even in viability, every character would have an even matchup with eachother, making every character essentially palette swaps of eachother. It might be fun to watch, but it's not going to happen.

I think you are vastly overrating the low tier cast in Smash 4, and underrating the cast of Melee. The gap between the Smash 4 top tiers is probably less than in Melee, sure, but not by very much.

 

[Ghostbone]

Upsmash beats any non-disjointed move head-on. The art is to play arround upsmash. You shouldn't get hit by upsmash at top level play except for hard reads.

Diddy's rely super hard on landing fair or landing bair, up-smash beats both cleanly. Sure diddy can adjust but his landing options are fairly limited vs Luigi

Why does Luigi gimp Diddy better than other characters? I don't even think Diddy is really gimpable. His recovery is insane.
I don't even think Luigi can really catch Diddy. This might be a 100:0 MU on Duck Hunt after getting a stock lead.

Down-b is pretty reliable at beating up-b afaik, but diddy's side-b is so good so if he recovers high he's generally fine. Duck hunt is one stage that's bannable and therefore doesn't affect the matchup, plus I've never actually seen a diddy time out luigi here, plus diddy requires the lead, etc.

People already said in Brawl that the Luigi MU is so bad for Diddy, I just can't believe that this really is the case.

I mean that was mostly because luigi slides so far from a trip so he gets no follow-ups. Probably not enough to swing the matchup in brawl, but Diddy's far worse in this game and luigi is bit better so the matchup being luigi's favour definitely seems realistic in this game. (luigi was considered advantaged against 1.0.4 Diddy even)

 

[PK Gaming]

I agree that the meta shouldn't revolve around a small amount of characters (hence, why I don't enjoy watching or playing Melee all that much), but I think there shouldn't be any major nerfs to top tier characters. I would prefer to see other lower characters like Mewtwo, Zelda, Ganon, Samus, Robin, etc get massive buffs. If everyone is more balanced, then the meta is more exciting because you get to constantly see different characters with different play styles. It prevents things from being predictable.

I see "the low tiers should be buffed massively rather than the top tiers getting nerfed" waaaayyyyyy too often and I feel like it's a disingenuous statement. That sort of balancing mentality would work in an anime fighter (see BlazBlue or Persona) but in a game like Smash, leaving the top tiers as is a bad move. Low tier characters should absolutely be buffed, absolutely but the top tier characters absolutely need adjustments as well.

 

[Thinkaman]

Melee has like 8 or 9 characters out of what, 26? Smash 4 is around the same number out of a cast twice as big. There is more variety in Melee, especially in percentage terms.

Ergo, we should remove all characters but two. This would ensure maximum balance, "in percentage terms."


But seriously, this weekend we had 7 characters in Melee top 12 and 13 in Smash 4--which didn't include well-regarded threats like Pikachu, Luigi, or Wario, much less threats just outside that fringe like Lucario, Marth, Pit, DK, ect.

Melee had 11 in top 32. Smash 4 had 20.

Sorry mate, but your math is worse than Larry's.

 

[Trifroze]

I emphatically disagree with you on that one. I definitely want to see some serious nerfs to the dominant characters, the gap between them and regular cast is rather significant. I don't like it when metagames revolve a handful of characters.

The rest should be taken care of by buffing everyone below the top after Sheik's needles are done (maybe something about vanish too so she gets at least one slightly exploitable weakness).

Nerfs are a better idea when some characters have tools that are so powerful or polarizing that other characters would need to get over the top buffs to compete with them, resulting in massive random imbalances among each other. What I'm saying is that I think that's about to stop being the case, although arguably we already reached that with 1.0.6. However, I'll personally still go ahead and whine about Sheik.

Of course some characters will always lose matchups versus some others because of their fundamental styles clashing (i.e. Ganondorf will never beat Sheik), but I think the top tiers are slowly at a point where the low tiers could become competent enough by just getting decent hitbox fixes, damage increases and frame data buffs without any considerable imbalances happening. or just give every mid/low tier Ness' back throw with knockback adjusted based on latest Japanese tier list position