Will R.O.B. rise up in the ranks?

[horizons889]

I'm relatively new to smash. I've been mainly sticking with Ness and Fox. I messed around with R.O.B. the other day and he seems pretty strong. Good kill moves, up-air seems nice, great recovery, etc. Not to mention, I find him very fun to play. So my question is why is he ranked relatively low on most tier lists? Will he be one of the characters to rise up in the meta game later on? Or is there something hindering him from achieving that.

 

[Mister Eric]

Here's my take on ROB:

At low to mid level, ROB is good. Up smashes that scoop you. Nair that seems nonpunishable. Up b for days. Spam.
These are a few things that make an average player want to throw their controller. And that's cute.

At high level and above play, it gets less and less cute.
We are punished for our size, our linear recovery, our lack of combo breakers, our not so safe SH nair.
We are called out on our gyro gimmicks, on our upsmash only hitting at a wide reach while they are on the ground, and our lack of tilt range.

This is where top lvl ROBs usually get further ahead of the pac. Because to compete with ROB at a top lvl requires a lot of discipline. It's knowing how to use your recovery to the fullest, how to do gyro setups on a whim without making them obvious, how to insta toss into combos, how to mix up landings to a science, how to use every movement tool such as instant gyro cancelling and perfect pivots to make every moment worth while.

I honestly see ROB moving up. Especially if I can ever get a true handle on the character. And I would consider myself a high level ROB who sees a ton of improvement for the character. I've yet to see a ceiling in a long time, tho I thought I did in the early days of Wii U. Now my mind is changed and I must lab more, I must practice more, and I must explore more. I must take a very limited number of options in a tight situation and choose the best one.

I perhaps see ROB, at nearly his fullest potential, as a top 10 character. Assuming that what I see left to work on is virtually his fullest potential. ROB got a lot harder to play in this game than compared to Brawl at high level. But the reward for improving will pay off more in this game.

tl;dr
ROB has a ton of untapped potential. And I honestly see him as a top 10 character if we keep moving in the right direction.

 

[BoTastic!]

Hurry up and make a ROB video Mister Eric dammit

 

[Crome]

We can only go up from here. R.O.B gets combod to hell but has some of the best tricks and neutral game of the entire roster.

Also,

Hurry up and make a ROB video Mister Eric dammit

This, srsly. It's been like a month or two.

 

[HaywireAndroid]

There are a lot of characters in A tier that should not be there. One character I definitely feel should be there is R.O.B. if not top A tier, but pretty close to top

 

[Jams.]

I personally think ROB is just going to drop from his placement on the official tier list as more mid tiers like , , , , etc. get exposure and continue to outshine ROB at large events, and as more players develop and refine item counterplay. /pessimism

 

[Thinktron]

I personally think ROB is just going to drop from his placement on the official tier list as more mid tiers like , , , , etc. get exposure and continue to outshine ROB at large events, and as more players develop and refine item counterplay. /pessimism

I second this, More characters are growing while R.O.B is Pretty much Solidly staying were he is. For every character he beats there's always a lower tier character that can hit rob hard like

 

[1FC0]

Sure and he can go even higher if you mash B instead of holding it!

 

[MockRock]

R.O.B. is a character with a huge amount of strengths and not that many weaknesses, but the weaknesses that he does have are unfortunately pretty punishing against high tiers. He's got no get off me option, he's heavy, and he's huge. That basically turns him into juggle food. It's all well and good to talk about momentum canceling and advanced gyro setups, but really, it's kind of a moot point if ZSS is comboing you off the top over and over and over. That being said, R.O.B. is still fairly solid, but might need a pocket character for some matchups (ZSS and Villager are pretty brutal).