Why is he so low on tier lists?

[BlueShadow.EXE]

I was looking on the tier list for Smash 4 and I noticed Ganondorf is consistently on the bottom, on the lists for Melee and Brawl as well. I was curious because I know several fantastic Ganondorfs, including OmegaTyrant on YouTube and (not to toot my own horn but) myself. Many friends of mine can win a majority of online battles with him. But we're all 14 and 13 so we've never been in professional tournaments. Is the play so much different there that all of us would get crushed? I'm just curious. Thanks!

 

[Tarry]

Ganon is not easy at high levels of play. It's that simple.

 

[BlueShadow.EXE]

Ganon is not easy at high levels of play. It's that simple.

Oh, I feel like an idiot. I assumed it would have been more complicated than that...oops.

 

[verbatim]

I was looking on the tier list for Smash 4 and I noticed Ganondorf is consistently on the bottom, on the lists for Melee and Brawl as well. I was curious because I know several fantastic Ganondorfs, including OmegaTyrant on YouTube and (not to toot my own horn but) myself. Many friends of mine can win a majority of online battles with him. But we're all 14 and 13 so we've never been in professional tournaments. Is the play so much different there that all of us would get crushed? I'm just curious. Thanks!

It's a lot more nuanced than that.

Ganondorf has an incredible punish and edgeguarding game, but his lack of mobility and out of shield options are to the extreme that many of the fast top tier characters destroy Ganon so long as they take the time to respect his options.

This is a good example, Ray Kalm ended up losing to his brother (Sheik) pretty convincingly because Yoh played a very safe spacing game.

I personally wouldn't put Ganon on the bottom of the tierlist because of his extremely good punish and offstage games, but the truth of the matter is that he's somewhere in the bottom. That shouldn't stop you from trying him out in tournaments if you are most comfortable with him, just keep in mind that mobility is king in fighting games.

 

[Darkshadovv]

Ganondorf was considered middle tier in Melee. In addition to his strong attacks and edge-guarding, his attacks weren't actually that much slower than Captain Falcon's outside Volcano Kick and Warlock Punch, and had really good down and up throws that could combo into killing moves. He was only held back by slower mobility, a supbar grab reach, lack of approach options, and subpar recovery.

Brawl Ganondorf was excessively nerfed towards his speed, reach, combo ability, KO power, and recovery, with a majority of these nerfs being considerably nonsensical. He's very easy to out-maneuver and hit without retaliation, he was given the shortest grab reach, his grab game can't combo anymore nor does he have any killing throws, and his strength isn't that much stronger than a majority of the cast. Forward air, the crux of his Melee metagame, was completely butchered with an extremely weak sourspot, 1.5x more landing and ending lag (doesn't end even from both his jumps), and less reach. A few of Ganondorf's moves are notably the weakest in the game despite his "powerhouse" stature, most notably, Dark Dive which doesn't KO until 300% from the center of Final Destination. The only positives he got were stronger tilts and Flame Choke, but even then they don't help.
In essence, Brawl Ganondorf's completely outmatched by everyone in competitive play, which is why he's on the very bottom.

Sm4sh Ganondorf was overall buffed, but received significant nerfs as well. He is overall more powerful, has strong shield breaking capabilities, and less landing lag on aerials. However, his staple down aerial is weaker and Flame Choke is now techable, his recovery is even weaker as super armor no longer exists on grabs, and a significant amount of flaws he had in Brawl weren't addressed (Dark Dive, overall reach especially his grab, poor grab game, slow mobility, etc.).
So while Sm4sh Ganondorf isn't anywhere near his Melee incarnation and is still low tier, his new power should save him from being at the very bottom.

 

[Z1GMA]

2on2 is a totally different story, tho.
Ganon is top of mid - possibly even bottom of high when it comes to 2on2. At least as long as your mate is still alive.

 

[Sykkamorre]

He's not bottom tier imo. But there is a huge stigma that people hold since his brawl incarnation was so terribad.

 

[Dark Phazon]

I was looking on the tier list for Smash 4 and I noticed Ganondorf is consistently on the bottom, on the lists for Melee and Brawl as well. I was curious because I know several fantastic Ganondorfs, including OmegaTyrant on YouTube and (not to toot my own horn but) myself. Many friends of mine can win a majority of online battles with him. But we're all 14 and 13 so we've never been in professional tournaments. Is the play so much different there that all of us would get crushed? I'm just curious. Thanks!

I think even though his moves and his movement is super slow its more of having 2 of the most important parts of smash that he is terrible at.

1.Grab
2. Recovery

Imo

I main him & DDD still and i consider myself a very good ganon too.

Youtube: "Dirty Day Ganon"
Thats all me theres about 27 episodes and a few DDD ones too

 

[Darkshadovv]

I think even though his moves and his movement is super slow its more of having 2 of the most important parts of smash that he is terrible at.

1.Grab
2. Recovery

Imo

I main him & DDD still and i consider myself a very good ganon too.

Youtube: "Dirty Day Ganon"
Thats all me theres about 27 episodes and a few DDD ones too

3. Low knockback moves.

Sourspotted jab, late hitboxes of neutral aerial, Warlock Thrust, Wizard's Kick, Wizard's Assault, Dark Dive, Dark Vault, Flame Chain, all throws... It's a really huge contradiction to his status as a powerhouse. I mean, no one else has moves that KO extremely late in the 300% or even 400% in a neutral stance.

 

[verbatim]

That's not really true though, especially considering 90% of the moves you listed are custom variants of weak special moves. Insofar as I'm aware Ganondorf's the only character in the game that can kill with jab 1 at percents you'd actually get in a real match. Sure he doesn't get a kill throw, but bar that literally EVERY SINGLE move he has can kill in a competitively useful situation.

All Smash Attacks/All tilts/fair/bair/dair/uair all kill in the neutral. Wizkicking off the stage can score kills with it's high base knockback, Flame Choke can Ganoncide, you can kill off the top with dark dive, nair edgeguards really well, and I've gotten kills with jab oos on the Smashville platform.

 

[Curleh_Mustache]

Pros:
-Powerful
-GANONCIDE
-Dair is very powerful
-Ability to tech chase with flame choke??? (IDK)

Cons:
-Slow character overall
- Horrible recovery
- Bad approaches

 

[Naroghin]

Pros:
-Powerful
-GANONCIDE
-Dair is very powerful
-Ability to tech chase with flame choke??? (IDK)

Cons:
-Slow character overall
- Horrible recovery
- Bad approaches

I like your format here but I'd like to expand on the information a bit

Pros:
-All moves have kill power at viable percents
-A fair amount of moves pop-up characters for followups
-Has a fair amount of followup options (though not guaranteed) from multiple moves
-Flame choke can be used for tech chases, resets, and Ganoncides (which can turn around an unwinnable situation)
-Wizkick auto cancels at the edge; aerial variant spikes with huge initial knockback and has good shield damage
-Usmash has a lot of IASA frames meaning it can be interrupted sooner than expected, allowing super easy bait-and-punishes
-The above three points represent the fact that Ganon can be very surprising and throw off those who don't know his options
-Almost all of his aerials auto-cancel in very usable ways (especially considering platforms)
-Fair is the only aerial that doesn't, but specials can be buffered out of it
-Deceptively good edgeguarding/anti-edgeguarding. I wouldn't put it quite at the level some here do, but it's good.
-Excellent punish game
-Good zoning and defensive play
-lowest edge-hanging hurtbox in the game
-pretty good survivability

Cons:
-Besides some situational movement shenanigans (and maybe some timing/super armor ridiculousness), neutral special is mostly useless
-Utilt is only useful insofar as it is a deceptively safe option for edgeguarding when the only other option is "do nothing"
-Soaks damage and gets hit by everything
-gets juggled pretty easily
-slow
-no projectiles
-short grab
-bad OoS options (besides Usmash in certain situations)
-strings and followups can become easy to escape as they tend to be limited and pretty similar
-missteps/tech errors are very punishable

Considering the above information, I would say Ganon's greatest strength comes in that many of his attributes are deceptively better than most of your opponents (even those that play/dabble in Ganon) will think. Most of his pros aren't really things that are excellent, or in the "top," but they make a character that is faster, more agile, and harder to punish than he should be. Playing Ganon is definitely about knowing what your opponent does not and exploiting this fact as much as possible. Let him stay low on the tier list; playing him at full potential puts him higher but part of that placement would be due to the common misperception that he should be so low.

This would all be so much more convincing if I weren't so terrible at playing Ganon. Oh well.

 

[Curleh_Mustache]

I like your format here but I'd like to expand on the information a bit

Pros:
-All moves have kill power at viable percents
-A fair amount of moves pop-up characters for followups
-Has a fair amount of followup options (though not guaranteed) from multiple moves
-Flame choke can be used for tech chases, resets, and Ganoncides (which can turn around an unwinnable situation)
-Wizkick auto cancels at the edge; aerial variant spikes with huge initial knockback and has good shield damage
-Usmash has a lot of IASA frames meaning it can be interrupted sooner than expected, allowing super easy bait-and-punishes
-The above three points represent the fact that Ganon can be very surprising and throw off those who don't know his options
-Almost all of his aerials auto-cancel in very usable ways (especially considering platforms)
-Fair is the only aerial that doesn't, but specials can be buffered out of it
-Deceptively good edgeguarding/anti-edgeguarding. I wouldn't put it quite at the level some here do, but it's good.
-Excellent punish game
-Good zoning and defensive play
-lowest edge-hanging hitbox in the game
-pretty good survivability

Cons:
-Besides some situational movement shenanigans (and maybe some timing/super armor ridiculousness), neutral special is mostly useless
-Utilt is only useful insofar as it is a deceptively safe option for edgeguarding when the only other option is "do nothing"
-Soaks damage and gets hit by everything
-gets juggled pretty easily
-slow
-no projectiles
-short grab
-bad OoS options (besides Usmash in certain situations)
-strings and followups can become easy to escape as they tend to be limited and pretty similar
-missteps/tech errors are very punishable

Considering the above information, I would say Ganon's greatest strength comes in that many of his attributes are deceptively better than most of your opponents (even those that play/dabble in Ganon) will think. Most of his pros aren't really things that are excellent, or in the "top," but that they make a character that is faster, more agile, and harder to punish than he should be. Playing Ganon is definitely about knowing what your opponent does not and exploiting this fact as much as possible. Let him stay low on the tier list; playing him at full potential puts him higher but part of that placement would be due to the common misperception that he should be so low.

This would all be so much more convincing if I weren't so terrible at playing Ganon. Oh well.

We should also add "King of Disrespect"

 

[Naroghin]

We should also add "King of Disrespect"

King, Duke, Earl, Roy, Lord, Baron, Sultan, etc.

 

[PRGN]

S+

========== ============

S

========== ============

A+

========== ============

A

========== ============
......

Ganondorf will try to g-cide characters on each tier and bring them down

 

[Blobface]

Ganon in some ways is every single tier at once due to his inconsistency. He's better than Sheik when things are going well, worse than Jigglypuff when they aren't.

 

[Dar4]

Gannon is low tier because he has polarizing traits that good players will exploit. His moveset is very commital. He's one of the slowest characters in the game. His approach options are not good. This makes him susceptible to camping...he's probably the easiest character in the game to camp. He also has one of the worst recoveries, and can be edgeguarded really hard. On top of that, he's combo food.

He can be good in certain matchups but overall yeah, he's definitely somewhere in the bottom 10, bottom 15 at best in my opinion.

Formula for beating gannon seems to be to stay just outside of flame choke range, force gannon to approach and commit to something, and then punish. Rinse, repeat. Edgeguard when he's off stage.

 

[Darkshadovv]

That's not really true though, especially considering 90% of the moves you listed are custom variants of weak special moves. Insofar as I'm aware Ganondorf's the only character in the game that can kill with jab 1 at percents you'd actually get in a real match. Sure he doesn't get a kill throw, but bar that literally EVERY SINGLE move he has can kill in a competitively useful situation.

All Smash Attacks/All tilts/fair/bair/dair/uair all kill in the neutral. Wizkicking off the stage can score kills with it's high base knockback, Flame Choke can Ganoncide, you can kill off the top with dark dive, nair edgeguards really well, and I've gotten kills with jab oos on the Smashville platform.

Bowser has a stronger jab iirc. But either way, none of his moves kill late like Ganondorf's. In fact, C. Falc's Dive and Kick KO much earlier than Ganondorf's counterparts. Heck, does anyone else have an offensive move that KOs at 300%?

Off-stage Wizkick only works with the initial hitbox and it needs a full hop to be able to return to the stage. Dark Dive upper blast line kills aren't easy to land nor can he set them up unlike many other characters, plus it's much weaker than ZSS's or MK's up-Bs.

Pros:
-All moves have kill power at viable percents

All moves? A few I listed earlier KO extremely late for a character of Ganon's stature.

 

[Tarry]

Gannon is low tier because he has polarizing traits that good players will exploit. His moveset is very commital. He's the slowest character in the game. His approach options are not good. This makes him susceptible to camping...he's probably the easiest character in the game to camp. He also has one of the worst recoveries, and can be edgeguarded really hard. On top of that, he's combo food.

He can be good in certain matchups but overall yeah, he's definitely somewhere in the bottom 10, bottom 15 at best in my opinion.

Formula for beating gannon seems to be to stay just outside of flame choke range, force gannon to approach and commit to something, and then punish. Rinse, repeat. Edgeguard when he's off stage.

You lost me at "Gannon".

 

[Naroghin]

All moves? A few I listed earlier KO extremely late for a character of Ganon's stature.

I should have said "most," with throws being the most notable exception. Obviously sourspotted moves won't kill, and these are most often timed/spaced purposefully for followups so I'm not sure why you would want them to kill anyway. Customs are mostly banned so I don't understand the point of even bringing those up unless you're setting up straw men. Wizkick and DD do kill at viable percents and in controllable situations. They might not kill very soon from the middle of the stage, but there's little value in that kind of information, anyway. I can go into depth on these if you want.

I will concede, however, that some of his stats just don't make sense for his character type (at least his perceived "smash" character type), and enhancing these stats to fit that type would increase his viability as a competitive character. In other words, moves with consistently low knockback should do more damage, moves using magic should have better priority and hitbox shape/size, and more high risk moves should have super armor frames.

 

[Darkshadovv]

I should have said "most," with throws being the most notable exception. Obviously sourspotted moves won't kill, and these are most often timed/spaced purposefully for followups so I'm not sure why you would want them to kill anyway. Customs are mostly banned so I don't understand the point of even bringing those up unless you're setting up straw men. Wizkick and DD do kill at viable percents and in controllable situations. They might not kill very soon from the middle of the stage, but there's little value in that kind of information, anyway. I can go into depth on these if you want.

I will concede, however, that some of his stats just don't make sense for his character type (at least his perceived "smash" character type), and enhancing these stats to fit that type would increase his viability as a competitive character. In other words, moves with consistently low knockback should do more damage, moves using magic should have better priority and hitbox shape/size, and more high risk moves should have super armor frames.

-I won't deny that the sourspots are less of an issue now, but the one currently present on Ganondorf's jab is just disgusting; 4% on the chest that doesn't kill whatsoever. As far as I'm aware, no other character has a silly sourspot like this.
-Even though customs are frowned upon, I don't think they should be left out. I mean 1.1.1 mostly touched customs.
-I'm aware Wizkick and Dark Dive can actually kill, if you mean Wizkick near the edge and Dark Dive stage spikes or upper blast line, but then creating those killing situations aren't exactly easy. If you mean Wizkick near the edge and Dark Dive stage spikes or upper blast line. Furthermore, a special move killing about twice the percent than a tilt/smash attack would is just absurd.

My point is, Ganondorf's unusually unrewarding at times and remedying that might boost Ganondorf up a couple tiers.

 

[Zam053]

The main reason I think Ganon is low tier is that he is combo food for almost everyone. He is big, heavy and has a high fall speed that makes juggling pretty easy, and he has very few options of safe landing (DownB isn't safe unless you hit the enemy, and even then it is risky). He's also pretty bad against most projectiles (with Ness's PK Fire and Lucario's Aura Sphere with at most Aura 1 being the points outside the curve). On Sm4sh's current meta of jugglers and zooners, Ganondorf turns into someone that can't get close and can't let people get close to him. If the meta switches into a mid-range battle, with more attrition battles, or a slower meta, he would raise a little bit on the tiers.

But a reason that Ganondorf is low tier that I can't agree is the whole "lol, Ganon is bad because Brawl". He received buffs and he's not as unbearably awful as he was before, reaching the point to get out of Bottom 5 (and even Bottom 10 on my opinion)

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

Ganondorf has a good deal of flaws that make him rather bad.

• No long range options.
• Approaches are not safe, and can even be punished.
• Sluggish on the ground, and in the air.
• Recovery is poor.
• Grab range is bad for someone his size.
• Has no reflecting moves, making him vulnerable to projectile spamming.

Also, even though Ganondorf has received some buffs since Brawl, they don't exactly make things better for him. For an example, while Ganondorf does gains super armor while charging up Warlock Punch, it's still easily countered by grabs.

If you're finding yourself losing to Ganondorf, you'll just have to understand him better, since most fighters are more than capable of containing him. I'm not saying that Ganondorf can't win, but in most cases, he'd be the one who struggles the most during a match.

On a side note, Ganondorf pretty much needs Wizard's Dropkick and Dark Fists, since they do help improve his normally bad recovery, and the latter is a huge improvement over Dark Dive in the offensive department.

 

[Sykkamorre]

You people definitely underestimate ganon.

Disjoits, priority, range and some of the best moves in their category. Eg uair, bair, usmash.

Once you enter DA range with ganon, few character can respond to his options. Camping ganon isn't anywhere nearly as effective as people think, especially since he has enough power on his moves to beat out most projectiles.

 

[randomguy1235]

You people definitely underestimate ganon.

Disjoits, priority, range and some of the best moves in their category. Eg uair, bair, usmash.

Once you enter DA range with ganon, few character can respond to his options. Camping ganon isn't anywhere nearly as effective as people think, especially since he has enough power on his moves to beat out most projectiles.

I agree that people do slightly underestimate him, but he really does have too many glaring flaws to compensate. If Dark Fists and Wiz Dropkick were his default moves things would be different, but instead we're left with much worse variants. I don't understand why they couldn't have given Smash 4 Ganon his Melee Dark dive and Down B...

 

[Zam053]

I agree that people do slightly underestimate him, but he really does have too many glaring flaws to compensate. If Dark Fists and Wiz Dropkick were his default moves things would be different, but instead we're left with much worse variants. I don't understand why they couldn't have given Smash 4 Ganon his Melee Dark dive and Down B...

Wizkick isn't that much worse than Wiz Dropkick. It is worse as a recovery move, but it is a better landing option (as risky as it is) and it is a good tool to follow rolls. If the move was safer on shield, it would be a better move, but it isn't as bad as you are putting.

But default UpB is pretty bad...

 

[Xinc]

He hasn't many safe approach options, which harms him overall, but I wouldn't say he's that low. He received significant buffs that even help him with combos and follow ups at lower percents so your opponent can reach a Death-to-FSmash range with rage.

 

[randomguy1235]

He hasn't many safe approach options, which harms him overall, but I wouldn't say he's that low. He received significant buffs that even help him with combos and follow ups at lower percents so your opponent can reach a Death-to-FSmash range with rage.

He's definitely low tier even after the buffs.

 

[LozNerd]

I think he is pretty good but his slow running and walking speed as well as lack of projectile makes him easy to camp with projectiles and his weight/bad recovery makes him easy to edge-guard and combo.

100th post!

 

[Darkshadovv]

Wizkick isn't that much worse than Wiz Dropkick. It is worse as a recovery move, but it is a better landing option (as risky as it is) and it is a good tool to follow rolls. If the move was safer on shield, it would be a better move, but it isn't as bad as you are putting.

But that's all Wizkick basically does. It deals crap damage, kills very late for a character of Ganon's stature, and is even weaker than Falckick in both regards.

 

[S_B]

Gdorf should absolutely have a throw that kills ~80-120% at the edge of most stages, depending upon the weight of the opponent.

Seriously, I have no idea how Dorf turns into stretch armstrong when it comes to snapping to ledges, but a T-rex when he tries to grab people, but given how horrendous his range is, he should get some INSANE mileage off of it...

Also, Sakurai made a point of mentioning that magic users/psychic characters are more likely to have powerful throws and Dorf is definitely a magic user...

 

[Blobface]

Gdorf should absolutely have a throw that kills ~80-120% at the edge of most stages, depending upon the weight of the opponent.

Seriously, I have no idea how Dorf turns into stretch armstrong when it comes to snapping to ledges, but a T-rex when he tries to grab people, but given how horrendous his range is, he should get some INSANE mileage off of it...

Also, Sakurai made a point of mentioning that magic users/psychic characters are more likely to have powerful throws and Dorf is definitely a magic user...

I do agree with giving Ganon a kill throw, but I would definitely make it U-throw. Buffing F-throw and B-throw run the risk of overtuning Ganon's edgeguarding against some characters, and as is he almost never uses U-throw.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

A kill setup out of throw (like d-throw to F-air) would be just as good (and way cooler to watch).

 

[Blobface]

A kill setup out of throw (like d-throw to F-air) would be just as good (and way cooler to watch).

While I love the idea of Ganondorf slamming people into the ground and decking them, unfortunately any kill confirm will be absurdly hard to balance due to the sheer power of Ganon's aerials. They'd be fine with no Rage, but due to how Rage multiplies knockback Rage would make them ridiculous. Full rage throw confirms from Ganon would probably be killing around 40-70% depending on the aerial, and while it's hard to land grabs with Ganon, that level of reward would be way too disproportionate with the rest of his kit.

 

[Darkshadovv]

A kill setup out of throw (like d-throw to F-air) would be just as good (and way cooler to watch).

I'm all for more reliable combos out of down throw, but a kill throw out of it would be overpowered. Just look at Diddy Kong and Luigi, their d-throws got nerfed hard.

 

[Zam053]

But that's all Wizkick basically does. It deals crap damage, kills very late for a character of Ganon's stature, and is even weaker than Falckick in both regards.

On the ground, yeah, it kill pretty late (actually, I think it only kills at like 200%). But the damage isn1t really that bad (not good if you consider the risk at neutral, but not bad after a read) and it turns into a pretty stylish and efficient kill move on the air, while Falcon's Falcon Kick isn't really that good on the air, but godly on the ground.

 

[anas abou]

this guy is obviously new to the smash bros competitive scene (nothing wrong with that we were all noobs at some point).

but basically ganon is considered bad because most of the time he can't do anything.

when he does do his stuff he gets rewarded heavily for it. but because he's so slow with no projectile which means he doesn't get rewarded for camping AND can't get in so most of the time he just jumps around looking to punish (which is very hard against lagless top tiers).

also when characters camp him he can't stop them cuz they'll just use their superior speed to keep a safe distance. and when they start comboing him he can't stop them again cuz he doesn't have fast "get off me" moves.

 

[Dark Phazon]

But that's all Wizkick basically does. It deals crap damage, kills very late for a character of Ganon's stature, and is even weaker than Falckick in both regards.

UpB and Ground wizkick will never stop bugging me how pathetic weak they are....so true..i cant stand it...please sakurai buff.

Im actually more concerned about the next balance patch notes then who the new character is.