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Why were we placed so low on the tier list?

McDeathstrider

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I just checked the 4BR tier list again and started questioning why Roy is so low. I always felt like he had some of the same weaknesses that a char like Marth has, but maybe I'm wrong. What do you guys think? Am I missing a BIG weakness that Roy has?
 

medofbr

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Roy is lower than he should be, but yes he definitely has weaknesses. first off if you haven't noticed by now Roy's sword is the length of a toothpick. that combined with his lack of projectile gives Roy a tough time dealing with spacey characters (I'm looking at you Mega Man). Also he is easily comboed because of his weight and is recovery is sub-par.
 

ShadowKing

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Yes Roy has lots of weaknesses but he shouldnt be that low. As M medofbr quoted even through Roy lacks a projectile game you play aggressive against the characters who do have projectiles and a given fact is Roy was never built to play a defense role he has been a aggressive character because of the hitbox on the sword plus he does have a great combo game like for example you can perfect frame his upair > jab > nair > fair
 
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~ Valkyrie ~

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Like most said above, Roy has good sum of noticeable weaknesses. Things however being now that these weaknesses have been taken completly for granted as of late - because Roy has started to make rather impressive tournament results from his pros.

Abandango losing his Mewtwo ironically to "one of the worst characters" in the game at Smash Con 2016 and had to result on Rosalina to get away in a slim chance because Ryo SD:d on him - while there's also been noticeable results with 3 Roys placing quite high to mid across the top list players in Smash The Record 2016.

I'd be quite baffled if Roy would still be deemed "low" after this as of the next tier placement, especially since he's sitting next to bottom tier at the moment. I'd be fine if he was Mid-Tier, but to take on some high + top tiers in such high play is something that can't be ignored. We can safely look toward to a bit more progression and concretely positive tier placements with Roy from here on.
 
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Ark of Silence101

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Like most said above, Roy has good sum of noticeable weaknesses. Thing however being that these weaknesses have been taken completly for granted as of late - because Roy has started to make rather impressive tournament results from his pros.

Abandango losing his Mewtwo ironically to "one of the worst characters" in the game at Smash Con 2016 and had to result on Rosalina to get away in a slim chance - while there's also been noticeable results with 3 Roys placing quite high to mid across the top list players in Smash The Record 2016.

I'd be quite baffled if Roy would still be deemed "low" after this as of the next tier placement, especially when he was pretty much dropped next to bottom tier. To me it'd be fine if he was Mid, but to take on some high + top tiers in such high play is something that can't be ignored. We can safely look toward to a bit more progression and concretely positive tier placements with Roy from here on.
Just hope it can turn out better next year, if only we had a better recovery and better sourspot.....
 

~ Valkyrie ~

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Just hope it can turn out better next year, if only we had a better recovery and better sourspot.....
Got to make what we have - though so far, it's been anything but for naught.



I mean, you could have a god-awful grab and laggy smashes along with tools that are more better benefited by your own opponents. (:4pacman:)
 

Ark of Silence101

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Got to make what we have - though so far, it's been anything but for naught.



I mean, you could have a god-awful grab and laggy smashes along with tools that are more better benefited by your own opponents. (:4pacman:)
But WE DO have laggy smash attacks however(up and forward), but the grab is definitely something to be highly grateful though.
 

EnGarde

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Uhh, our forward smash strikes on frame 14, and kills crazy early. Yeah it has endlag, but I mean, it's a smash attack so it's kinda *supposed* to have endlag. Upsmash isn't bad at all, and dsmash comes out as fast as a tilt at frame 6. Yes, they're laggy on whiff, but again, we really shouldn't be whiffing smash attacks lol.

Moreover, we have a solid set of tilts that can also kill, and those are quite a bit safer. Ftilt and Utilt come to mind on that.

Roy has a functional toolkit imo. All of his moves flow together, he has great combos, and they all serve a purpose in his game plan. We're very lucky to have that.
 

~ Valkyrie ~

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Uhh, our forward smash strikes on frame 14, and kills crazy early. Yeah it has endlag, but I mean, it's a smash attack so it's kinda *supposed* to have endlag. Upsmash isn't bad at all, and dsmash comes out as fast as a tilt at frame 6. Yes, they're laggy on whiff, but again, we really shouldn't be whiffing smash attacks lol.

Moreover, we have a solid set of tilts that can also kill, and those are quite a bit safer. Ftilt and Utilt come to mind on that.

Roy has a functional toolkit imo. All of his moves flow together, he has great combos, and they all serve a purpose in his game plan. We're very lucky to have that.
Noteworthy being that it took a long while to get us to that conclusion, especially through rather silent times after the hype for Roy died down and people started to keep seeing him as a very "clashy" character with his intended playstyle + moveset attributes, but as we can see, time and especially actions, can change views substantially.
 
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Ark of Silence101

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Uhh, our forward smash strikes on frame 14, and kills crazy early. Yeah it has endlag, but I mean, it's a smash attack so it's kinda *supposed* to have endlag. Upsmash isn't bad at all, and dsmash comes out as fast as a tilt at frame 6. Yes, they're laggy on whiff, but again, we really shouldn't be whiffing smash attacks lol.

Moreover, we have a solid set of tilts that can also kill, and those are quite a bit safer. Ftilt and Utilt come to mind on that.

Roy has a functional toolkit imo. All of his moves flow together, he has great combos, and they all serve a purpose in his game plan. We're very lucky to have that.
Meta Knight's fsmash says hi.
 

EnGarde

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Noteworthy being that it took a long while to get us to that conclusion, especially through rather silent times after the hype for Roy died down and people started to keep seeing him as a very "clashy" character with his intended playstyle + moveset attributes, but as we can see, time and especially actions, can change views substantially.
Ehh, these boards may be silent, but the Roy community is pretty vibrant imo. I'm pretty excited with what the future holds for us, I think the next year will be a blast.
 

godogod

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I do think roy is underrated as well, and belongs somewhere in middle or high low tier. I personally haven't had too much of an issue with characters with projectiles.

My biggest gripe is his recovery. He's too easily gimped. I wish his blazer had more vertical distance... Also, I feel like his fall speed is hurting him more than helping him in recovery. It's almost impossible to get back up on the stage after trying to spike someone with down aeria(lwhich really needs less ending lag). Also, while the first hit of double edge dance does slow his fall speed a little, his fall speed is too fast to really make a difference.
 

~ Valkyrie ~

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I do think roy is underrated as well, and belongs somewhere in middle or high low tier. I personally haven't had too much of an issue with characters with projectiles.

My biggest gripe is his recovery. He's too easily gimped. I wish his blazer had more vertical distance... Also, I feel like his fall speed is hurting him more than helping him in recovery. It's almost impossible to get back up on the stage after trying to spike someone with down aeria(lwhich really needs less ending lag). Also, while the first hit of double edge dance does slow his fall speed a little, his fall speed is too fast to really make a difference.
It does have feasible amount of control though, so you can read ways your opponent might attempt to gimp before letting them be sucked to Blazer midway. Makes for fun stage spikes if you hit them to the sides of it. But yeah, the recovery's kinda poor.

I usually don't bother with straight gimps unless I really have a long-way momentum and might see a "hard read" on someone attempting to recover in high percents. And perhaps stocks to spare. D-Air is pretty awful in regular practice, so yeah.
 

godogod

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I actually get down air to connect on stage usually.. lol. Its fun. Especially in FFA.
 

Elray

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With Ryo playing Roy more often now, I think that Roy can only go up from here in the tier lists, especially since tournament results that are holding Roy back.
Noteworthy being that it took a long while to get us to that conclusion, especially through rather silent times after the hype for Roy died down and people started to keep seeing him as a very "clashy" character with his intended playstyle + moveset attributes, but as we can see, time and especially actions, can change views substantially.
I think that most people viewed Roy as a pure rushdown character, which we now know he obviously isn't. Now that we know what his real playstyle is, we've optimized it in that direction. Imagine if Bayonetta was played like Villager; she wouldn't nearly be as high in the tier list as she is with her true playstyle.
 
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It's hard to form a clear idea of the character, how good they are, or how to play them when they're both a high skill-cap character and underdeveloped, but a lot of people (mainly commentators) tend to make assumptions about Roy, and it hurts the character's image.
That's where your typical "toothpick sword, dismal recovery, no spacing, no combos, no approach, only aggression, only risk-reward playstyle, worse Marth, bottom 5/10" ideas come from, and it doesn't help that they're commonly enforced when more people start to mutter the same things over time.
I'm not exactly going to be quick to trust commentators who still call his side-b "Dancing Blade."

A lot of people in the Smash community are young and impressionable, and they don't have much reason to believe anything on the contrary or genuinely hear out the other side when it comes to Roy. The general Smash community has many popular ideas and taboos of their own that are hard to break, and not all of them are necessary respectable. Not all of them make sense or are logical or perfect. There's not much reasoning as to why they form to begin with, they just happen. We're unfortunately victims of that.

There's not much reason to believe Roy is bad, but there's also not much reason to believe he's good without digging further into his results and more notable moments. A lot of players don't care to dig, because whether or not Roy's good doesn't concern them much. This can lead people to believe that Roy deserves to be near the bottom of the tier list. Any given top player who makes a living off this game is just as prone to this as the average joe, because they don't have the time to worry about details such as this for each and every character.

A lot of people in the Smash community also ride off hype and expectations, and when something doesn't immediately meet their expectations, they tend to write it off in absolutes as long as they can, until proven otherwise. It's not a healthy mindset, but it feels like a lot of people in the community are trying to set an example that it's okay, this being one of those instances.

It's also easy to use Roy as a scapegoat to make other characters seem better. He doesn't have the largest competitive playerbase, and as a result, it's easy for players to place him low in personal tier lists in order to fluff up the higher tiers. It's easy to mark him as an easy matchup in matchup charts, since it makes any given character seem better. It's easy to say he's a "free matchup" for any given character server on Discord. It's a way for people to make their own character seem better, and I don't blame them. Even if top players don't have the experience vs. multiple styles of Roy around their level (or any), leaving out matchups in your matchup chart isn't exactly professional. There's a lot of guessing and personal anecdotes in those charts, so we can't take them to heart. This doesn't make Roy any worse as a character, it mostly just creates a cheap, depressing placebo effect.

Roy is unfortunately doomed to unhealthy mindsets from a lot of the community, and a likely way to break it is to prove them otherwise. I've seen characters, both buffed and almost untouched since release, break their taboos. All it takes is one amazing player. Any of us could be that someday. Anyone can come out of nowhere and prove things with a character. Any top player could randomly start investing in Roy seriously and change some minds. We just have to stay optimistic and not doom ourselves to the absolutes of the general community, or else we're just playing into their hands and giving them what they want. Not what we might want for ourselves and our character.

Roy has the results to be at least a mid-tier character, despite being one of the most underdeveloped and underrepresented characters in his position:



(source: @Pablo_FAITH on twitter, 2016 national results)


If he had just a little more high/top-level representation on the national side, I don't believe there'd be much of a difference between him and Ike, Olimar, DK, Corrin, Pikachu, etc.

I don't want to say that he only has the potential to rise to mid-tier and limit him, because we never know how far he could rise in the right hands. A lot of people in the Smash community aren't patient. A lot of people need to form absolute ideas and opinions NOW, and everything needs to be ranked or judged NOW. It often feels like everyone has the mindset that the game's gonna die in 6 months, that everything has to settle either now or by then.

Roy's had a lot of time to prove himself, but I can't bring myself to say he's had enough time, especially when the latter half of 2016 has been looking up for him. I can't look at any character in the game and honestly tell myself that they've had enough time to prove themselves. Melee is proof of that, we've seen specific characters move multiple tiers in a 26 character game after over a decade, in a game where people like to rag on its roster balance heavily.

We'll need more time and patience that a lot of the community isn't willing to give us, but that's okay. We can't let them rush or push us, or else that's going to create more stress and more barriers.

Roy's not bottom-tier material, and he doesn't belong next to it. He doesn't really meet low-tier material from an objective standpoint, too.

I rambled and got a bit self-righteous, but I feel I answered the topic with a lot of it. :p
 
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ShadowCalibur

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Why do so many people dislike our boy he is a really good rush down character with all of his attacks having almost no ending lag or start up lag with brutal willpower hell his f smash is the best in the game Ryo beat abadango's mew two with him and his rosalina at LEAST middle to high
 
D

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Roy is without a doubt a underrated character. But as others have said, he has quite few weaknesses.

1. Bad Recovery
2. Unsafe/Weak sourspots
3. Poor range for a sword character
4. Bad against spacies
5. Combo food.

So with those in mind. He obviously isnt fit to be a top or high tier. But i think that he shouldve been placed in the mid tier region. He clearly is better than people say he is.
 
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DanTheMunchlax782

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I still think his recovery is great and here is why. It's just very flexible. I very rarely can't recover with Roy. His recovery can be very vertical or horizontal. Far below the stage or far off to the side, it gets the job done. It also is pretty good as an actual damaging attack.
 

godogod

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I still think his recovery is great and here is why. It's just very flexible. I very rarely can't recover with Roy. His recovery can be very vertical or horizontal. Far below the stage or far off to the side, it gets the job done. It also is pretty good as an actual damaging attack.
Blazer has less vertical distance than melee version. The horizontal distance maneuvering is ok, but overall, recovery worse than Marth's due to lack of verticality. Other than that.. I'd say the main things are that his neutral isn't safe, notably his aerials, mainly due to his lack of range(short sword, and he is very weak at the tip). It's a lot safer to have a sweet spot at the tip vs inside.. which is more dangerous. IMO, him having a fast falling speed isn't all that great either, because it messes up with his recovery.

It looks like Marth got quite buffed in Ultimate. Marth's tip's sweet spot is larger now apparently.. Hopefully Roy's sour spots do more damage, and his sweetspot on his blade is a bit larger. Dancing blade is also faster to execute/transition to the next attack in the combo faster as well.


So far the only things we know that Roy got buffed is
1. Jump squat animation got shortened to three frames
2. down aerial having less landing lag(and maybe other aerials too). That's great, but hopefully animation has been shortened too, as its really risky to pull out of the stage because the end lag is long, and his fall speed is too fast(reminds me of wolf's down aerial from brawl).
3. Flare blade being turned the opposite direction while being charged
4. neutral attack has more verticality.

dancing blade likely got buffed too like Marth's.

Hopefully his blade/overall range is longe, and Roy's sour spots do more damage or more comboable, and his sweetspot inside the blade gets larger.Besides that, down aerial's animation being faster/having less end lag would be fantastic too, so it makes it safe to use off the stage... maybe that and a slight reduced fall speed.
 
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