Yoshi High Tier Material?

[DstyCube]

Thanks alot. I appreciate your response.

It's not that Yoshi is "horrible" per say, but he just isn't cut out to be top tier. One can only hope the best when optimism takes control, eh?

Lol, np. It's a lot better to hope then to not, right?

I forgot I was going to respond to your first post!

Not even close to high tier, and he was significantly nerfed. Not simply because of his moves, but because of the game engine change as well. These aren't assumptions i'm making, because I have played the game alot.

1st. Yoshi's aerials can only gimp, but they don't have any sort of good knockback considering that his only decent aerials are laggy. his Nair gimps, his Bair gimps, his dair gimps, his Fair gimps, and his Uair is only liable when you talor it to KO'ing at high percentages. Yoshi can only play effectively near the edge, where as other characters have better mid screen approaches and safer aerials that have better priorities.

4. No DJC. This was Yoshi's best aerial approach tactic. It made all of his aerials connect faster. Without the DJC, the only good SH aerial he has is his Bair.

These were the main things I didn't fully agree with. Yoshi's moves may have received a nerf as far as damage goes, but gained more ranged? I think it seems like an equally fair trade. His aerials have practically no landing lag, which is great for comboing. I never thought of Yoshi to be a power house to begin with, he's got some fairly good combos for racking up damage so that when his few finishing moves do land, you'll hopefully get the kill.

Brawl has changed to be based on more aerial fights, I think the loss of DJC was for the better. If he still had DJC it would put him at an extreme disadvantage because recovery looks to be very important in this game. I mean I can't even recall how many times I've gimped myself off the ledge because of his DJC, and I feel his new recovery was needed, it was probably one of the biggest gripes against Yoshi in melee.

All in all I think Yoshi definitely got buffed from melee. I personally think Peach, Shiek, Marth, and Fox got more nerfed than Yoshi did.

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

Lol, np. It's a lot better to hope then to not, right?

I forgot I was going to respond to your first post!







These were the main things I didn't fully agree with. Yoshi's moves may have received a nerf as far as damage goes, but gained more ranged? I think it seems like an equally fair trade. His aerials have practically no landing lag, which is great for comboing. I never thought of Yoshi to be a power house to begin with, he's got some fairly good combos for racking up damage so that when his few finishing moves do land, you'll hopefully get the kill.

Brawl has changed to be based on more aerial fights, I think the loss of DJC was for the better. If he still had DJC it would put him at an extreme disadvantage because recovery looks to be very important in this game. I mean I can't even recall how many times I've gimped myself off the ledge because of his DJC, and I feel his new recovery was needed, it was probably one of the biggest gripes against Yoshi in melee.

All in all I think Yoshi definitely got buffed from melee. I personally think Peach, Shiek, Marth, and Fox got more nerfed than Yoshi did.

When I said the aerials got nerfed, i'm speaking on behalf of the knockback of the attacks. They are fairly fast, but you can't kill with his aerials (Besides his Uair). This could be a problem because he may have to rely on smashes and edge kills more than anything. Hopefully he can make a return to the stage without hitting the stage, resulting in a suicide.

Oh, and Marth really didn't get nerfed bad at all. He's practically the only character that plays the same as his Melee counterpart. Believe it or not, he was buffed as well. O_O

He's my main, so i'm some what skeptical.

 

[Zek]

No matter how pro you are, it's far too early to make any predictions about long-term balance, for any character. That goes double for claiming that a character is gimped. At least let the rest of the world get their hands on the game for a month or two before you claim to know exactly how the metagame will play out years from now. I think it's a big mistake to use knowledge from Melee to predict Brawl's balance.

 

[The Last Yoshi]

If tiers are based on how frequently the character is played, then Yoshi will always be bottom tier. Firstly, Yoshi just isn't "cool" enough for people to give a **** about for more than a lv 9 computer playmate. That leaves many less people to actually play Yoshi for the hours and hours it would take to fully understand his nuances.

Of course you have to accept characters weaknesses! That's how you MAKE your strategy to begin with. If you don't want weaknesses then you will never learn about mind games especially.

Anyway, I think we are having two different arguments here where one person defends against Yoshi being playable at all while the other is just saying "yeah but he's not top tier". If we could just move past that and say to guests to this forum: Thank you for paying attention to Yoshi discussion. We don't know why you are here because you'll never play Yoshi but we appreciate the stimulating conversation.

Lets face it, 99% of EVERYONE WHO PLAYS SMASH BROS' experience with Yoshi is either that their n00b little brother picks him when he plays with his tourney player big brother or a tourney player that when you are paired against him you say to yourself "loll..." then you win.

I know I'm not very articulate about this but what I mean is that there is SUCH a small percent of the smash community that knows a **** about this character that anyone who's main ISN'T Yoshi is probably talking out of their ***. Many that do main Yoshi also may not know much about him.

I wish Fumi was on these boards. I really want to see how he would use Yoshi.

Anyway, Yoshi's potential IS everywhere on the map like Dogger said, I believe, off the stage, recovering, edge guarding, doing dmg mid field, aerial combat, taking hits, range in general...

The ONLY nerf on Yoshi that has bothered me is the fact that he can't throw eggs beneath or upon himself and that his egg range is shorter. His egg roll feels a little slower too but the priority has improved and its very difficult to punish (when he got hit during egg roll in melee, he would suffer a full hit but in brawl it simply cancels most things). He can't egg roll back from hanging on the ledge anymore either which wasn't ever really necessary but it was just another trick in the bag that I enjoyed using.

I can't stress enough though, Yoshi's dAir got a HUGE buff. YES the overall damage was decreased BUT its MUCH easier to execute the full combo as opposed to melee where it took a meticulous spacing setup or it was easy to fast fall past the enemy or the enemy would fall faster than you while hitting him (effectively di-ing out of your move). Now ledge guarding with it and simply attacking with it is much more effective and easy and still just as satisfying. ALSO at low percentages it can be done while the enemy recovers from a nAir.

This brings me to another complaint about Yoshi. One more minor buff is that now the enemy player gets a couple invincibility frames after popping out of yoshi's nB eggs. This really decreases the effectiveness of my B>dAir>dGrab combo. The tradeoff is that eggs are harder to break out of at higher percentages THUS if you put them in an egg at 110% damage you can bring them up to 155% in maybe 1 or 2 seconds.

I can't WAIT to be able to trade friend codes with all of you (who really give a **** about brawl).

 

[Blade42]

i really hope yoshi is gonna be decent, at least better than his melee counterpart, ive been a yoshi main for 4 years now and it was always tough for me to beat my friends when they used the "higher-ups"(marth, fox, samus...). i always put up a good fight but all my friends had to do is knock me off the edge and then fsmash is marth or missle with samus etc...im not giving up on the lil' guy no matter if he was nerfed horribly and im def. ready to pwn wit yosh

hey last yoshi, once i get brawl, we should have some yoshi dittos

 

[The Last Yoshi]

Be glad to. I don't fight many Yoshis so I'm actually not as good against him as I would be against, say, Capt. Falcon or Peach or Sheik.

 

[The Last Yoshi]

Be glad to. I don't fight many Yoshis so I'm actually not as good against him as I would be against, say, Capt. Falcon or Peach or Sheik.

 

[Shiri]

If anyone here thinks no DJC is a loss for Yoshi, I'd like to hear your reasons for thinking so.

This is just for the sake of discussion, really.

 

[The Last Yoshi]

Well it's hard to say really whether or not it's a loss or a gain. I think the lack of DJC enables Yoshi to chase aerial people quite a bit better while still utilizing the best of his attack ability. However Yoshi's ground game will have to be reduced to short hopping air moves and quick dodging like most normal characters. DJC was a hinderance to his air combat to be sure. Now that I've seen what it can do I have no doubt that I won't be missing it.

Due to the overall reduced speed of gameplay it makes Yoshi seem very much more enabled to keep up with other characters in basic ground combat. The bAir and fTilt and dAir make things very manageable.

 

[Chaotic-Strike]

Heres a question to all you brawl yoshi users I recently played smash bros 64 (first time in years) and was suprised how much better he was to me. So in brawl is he anything like the smash 64 version?

 

[The Last Yoshi]

In a way, YES--- Although everything in Brawl has been greatly advanced as far as move timing and the nuances of every attack, the one thing that brings it closer to Smash Bros 64 is that the balance between the characters is much much closer than it is in Melee. In Melee, the characters' utilization of certain tiny features such as Shffl laser or anything done with marth and the tip of his sword and wavedashing combined, made them drastically different in effectiveness.

SO FAR in Brawl, it really feels like each character has a really great chance of winning based on the quality of the player. Every character in Smash 64 had amazing combo ability among other things and just about anyone could win (go check it out on youtube, they can do some amazing ****). It really feels like they did a great job making every character plausable. Yoshi's dAir is more similar to N64 and that's about it as far as physical similarities go though.

 

[J-PiPe]

as for actual tier material, i can't say cause i personally haven't had a 'long' experience with brawl, but as for playing as him. i wouldn't mind workin with Yoshi being even my main. in my experience with him in brawl, he was fun to play as and easier to control in brawl. my own Yoshi training helped in brawl with it of course.

 

[PityLord]

I just wanna say that even though i wont main Yoshi (bummer) he will have certainly much attention of mine :D. The one reason is not that he certainly seems better but how the made him UBERLY CUTE!!! :D Its effin sweeeet how his attacks animate and sound. Seriously every Yoshi player has auto mindgames since only a heartless ******* would hit him hard .

Overall I see Brawls competetive scene to have now many, many viable characters to play. Yoshi being one of them.

And on last note, who here also feels that they like EVERY character and want to main all? xD Am I that weird? xD

 

[Winnar]

Heres a question to all you brawl yoshi users I recently played smash bros 64 (first time in years) and was suprised how much better he was to me. So in brawl is he anything like the smash 64 version?

After having just played Brawl all day today, I can honestly say that Brawl is no more alike its predecessors than an apple is to its seed.

Okay, just take a minute and let that analogy really sink in.

...

...yeah... <3

*cough*

Oh, and I did play Yoshi today :O Not a lot, as I was pretty much Character Select ADD. He's better. That's for sure. With more time, I could see him as being a respectable character. Without having to have someone like Fumi to prove it.

 

[heypancho]

Well, as an avid lurker.. from vids (which are lacking in the Yoshi department btw!!) it seems like kills in Brawl last up till like.... 800% ~_~. So more than likely, you're going to want to chase your opponent off the stage.. like Melee I know -_-.. but in Brawl it seems almost necessary. Yoshi I think can bring that with DJC out of the way and plus his DJ grants him superarmor so hmph! I don't think I need to mention auto ledge grab and his upb.. but.. yeah <_<

Yep, I think I'd agree if I played Brawl Winnar @_@, how I can predict that, I don't know.. but Yoshi does seem like an overlooked/not a top tier char, which is good though. I hate people who main chars based on tournament play or tier systems or whatever, and I hope Yoshi never becomes that haha.. but only for the purpose of being a sort of underdog.

and I guess he has more range than anything now, but less knockback power ie dsmash : (... but that's alright I guess, he sounds cuter this time around... awww .. well, back to lurking I guess ._.

 

[Gindler]

Well, as an avid lurker.. from vids (which are lacking in the Yoshi department btw!!) it seems like kills in Brawl last up till like.... 800% ~_~. So more than likely, you're going to want to chase your opponent off the stage.. like Melee I know -_-.. but in Brawl it seems almost necessary. Yoshi I think can bring that with DJC out of the way and plus his DJ grants him superarmor so hmph! I don't think I need to mention auto ledge grab and his upb.. but.. yeah <_<

Yep, I think I'd agree if I played Brawl Winnar @_@, how I can predict that, I don't know.. but Yoshi does seem like an overlooked/not a top tier char, which is good though. I hate people who main chars based on tournament play or tier systems or whatever, and I hope Yoshi never becomes that haha.. but only for the purpose of being a sort of underdog.

and I guess he has more range than anything now, but less knockback power ie dsmash : (... but that's alright I guess, he sounds cuter this time around... awww .. well, back to lurking I guess ._.

Yeah, I never was a big supporter of people that mained top tier character solely for the reason that they're top tier. Always went for the best in my eyes (yoshi) character and yep, I kinda hope he does stay an underdog because people would go "ha, a yoshi mainer? this should be a piece of cake" only to have them mauled the the viscous yet cut dragosaur.

 

[PityLord]

Yeah, I never was a big supporter of people that mained top tier character solely for the reason that they're top tier. Always went for the best in my eyes (yoshi) character and yep, I kinda hope he does stay an underdog because people would go "ha, a yoshi mainer? this should be a piece of cake" only to have them mauled the the viscous yet cut dragosaur.

Me neither . The character that I was using the most was Ganondorf and he was like highest tier char I was using along with Mario. And I dont like the ignorance of some people thinking of beating someone cause of what character they use. I mean I had some succesfull winning time with Mewtwo against my friend Shiek player. Although I have to say that he played her cause he though she was "hotter" then Zelda xD. So you can say he "liked" the char
not the tier.

*ekhm*

Anyway I reall, really ,really hope that brawl will turn out as I predict to be able to play a character in any type of game and be able to success.

 

[IrishSheikah]

This Thread is a bit overboard, tiers won't come out for another three years probably.

 

[Winnar]

Well, as of now it seems like there aren't any clear cut "better" or "worse" characters. Just those who we've either figured out tricks for quickly, those who we have yet to work out the notches for, those who we don't yet know how to counter properly, and those who we need to figure out how to stop being countered.

Maaaaan, now I wish I hadn't played Brawl. This next week is going to suck big time D:

 

[Gojira]

Lol

I read here and laugh at how people know exactly how Yoshi will be in the tier list when the game is not even released yet and there is zero meta game.

 

[The Last Yoshi]

I read here and laugh at how people know exactly how Yoshi will be in the tier list when the game is not even released yet and there is zero meta game.

Go read a book? Fly a kite? Touch yourself?

There is nothing wrong with speculating nor conversing because that's what message boards are for...

You like attention no matter how you get it so you make really weak comments in opposition to the general flow of a thread and get a teeny hard on when someone gets offended.

If you use another character really well and have never even touched Yoshi or even if you did use Yoshi a few times and thought he sucked, the truth is that you are just really bad with him and give up and claim he is a bad character.

I'm very well aware that Yoshi has flaws that are extremely hindering in the making of a high tier character. I think you just saw the title of this thread and went "PPHHHSH! No one threatens <3MARTH<3 I'll tell these dweebz". Really though, there's been enough people who have played Yoshi seriously to promote stimulating conversation about his flaws and strengths compared to other characters. Also, there is a possibility that some things may be tweaked between the Japanese and US releases. Only slightly (like when Melee first came out vs a copy of Melee you'd buy now). This would alter things only slightly but would throw off a lot of tier-based speculations.

I'm personally not relying on any tier list I see for up to a year after the games US release and even then its subject to change a little because even Melee took many years to discover fully.

(TL:DR)
Don't come in here being a chode. This isn't a "hey lets talk about why Yoshi shouldn't be played" thread and any such talk is blasphemy, I don't care how low tier he may ever be, what matters is that I beat people senseless with him.

 

[The Last Yoshi]

sig check hurr

 

[kingofping4]

DISCLAIMER: I haven't played brawl yet, and I wasn't competitive in melee.

Now that that's out of the way...

I finally listened to Gimpy's "accepting weakness" speech, and it got me thinking. What would you guys, competitive and casual, say are Yoshi's weaknesses? As a casual melee player, all I could come up with is
-Recovery
-Slow grab

So in melee I played Yoshi on the ground almost exclusively and almost never double jumped unless it was for recovery. Also I never used his grab. Against my other casual friends and some of my competitive friends I do really well with Yoshi.

So I ask again, what do you guys think his weaknesses are, and how can we change our playstyle to accomodate them?

 

[Winnar]

Hm...I'd say his biggest weakness is that he's too cute. Honestly, I don't think there's a more adorable character in the game.

And this...is very bad.

 

[Gindler]

DISCLAIMER: I haven't played brawl yet, and I wasn't competitive in melee.

Now that that's out of the way...

I finally listened to Gimpy's "accepting weakness" speech, and it got me thinking. What would you guys, competitive and casual, say are Yoshi's weaknesses? As a casual melee player, all I could come up with is
-Recovery
-Slow grab

So in melee I played Yoshi on the ground almost exclusively and almost never double jumped unless it was for recovery. Also I never used his grab. Against my other casual friends and some of my competitive friends I do really well with Yoshi.

So I ask again, what do you guys think his weaknesses are, and how can we change our playstyle to accomodate them?

I just had to listen to gimpy's speech after reading this, being a yoshi main I learned really fast about him being easily gimped if attacked after your "super armor" is gone in the double jump, and the slow grab speed was always a problem but I figured they only do like 6% anyway which is like one yoshi tailwag anyway so that wasn't a problem. But all the pro's (over) use throws so I soon get bored of seeing "pro" matches, but besides that yoshi is an amazing character able to get damage racked up fast and finish them off easily.

and yes, he was the cutest character in the game, which was kind of a problem. I'm glad he isn't like a vicious velociraptor looking thing though.

 

[Blarfenzo]

From what I've seen in videos Yoshi doesn't look as bad as people make him out to be, but high tier? Eh only time will tell but I somehow doubt it.

 

[Gojira]

Go read a book? Fly a kite? Touch yourself?

There is nothing wrong with speculating nor conversing because that's what message boards are for...

You like attention no matter how you get it so you make really weak comments in opposition to the general flow of a thread and get a teeny hard on when someone gets offended.

If you honestly think those are my intentions you are very wrong. My message goes out to the people arguing "no his is much better, he will be the best" For you to go out of your way and insult me like you did is making me think you are the one wanting attention by shutting me out and trying to sound awesome doing so.

I was not trying to offend anyone........I am just saying wait till the game is out and more Yoshi is played before we start jumping on each other.

Now my two cents.
I have played a Yoshi player in brawl and he was not even a big yoshi guy. I noticed yoshi had some obvious improvements (one being his eggs seem to be much faster and spammable) and was overall better in brawl.

 

[fissionprime]

DISCLAIMER: I haven't played brawl yet, and I wasn't competitive in melee.

Now that that's out of the way...

I finally listened to Gimpy's "accepting weakness" speech, and it got me thinking. What would you guys, competitive and casual, say are Yoshi's weaknesses? As a casual melee player, all I could come up with is
-Recovery
-Slow grab

So in melee I played Yoshi on the ground almost exclusively and almost never double jumped unless it was for recovery. Also I never used his grab. Against my other casual friends and some of my competitive friends I do really well with Yoshi.

So I ask again, what do you guys think his weaknesses are, and how can we change our playstyle to accomodate them?

Well, another one of his weaknesses would have to be his slow dodge, i havent played brawl yet either so i dont know if its still like that. I really hope all the stuff is true about evening out tiers because what would be more interesting then tourneys with people playing as every character?

 

[Metzger]

Yoshi won't really be "high tier" in Brawl, I don't think. I think he's been improved enough that you won't see him near the bottom, though. Somewhere in the middle, maybe low-mid.

 

[secretweapon]

if the winner of the gamestop tourny plays yoshi then yeah, he will probably be high tier

yoshi needs his superior edge-guarding skills from ssb64 back

 

[Winnar]

Hm...Wouldn't it be nice if all the characters were so balanced that tier lists wouldn't exist?

Ah...that would be wonderful.

Also yeah, even if Gojira HAD been trying to be offensive, no need to fight fire with fire (especially if you freak out like that).

But he makes a good point, no one knows the metagame of any character right now. We won't know the metagame on Sunday, either. It will probably be AT LEAST a month or two before characters start to level out in terms of play. Actually, it'll probably be closer to a year or two or four if Melee's any indicator.

So basically, we shouldn't concern ourselves with the tier list yet. General strategies and techniques seem like the more obvious thing to focus on. But that'll probably come about starting Sunday.

 

[Gerudo Warrior]

Yoshi is god tier

 

[Kamagwi~Yoshi]

keep in mind that tiers are/were generally altered by the virtue of toruney results nd pro competitive usage. I like to imagine that this effectively makes the notion of tiers tainted by a fad mentality which is a product of the masses. I personally never paid much attention to tiers and I believe that they just serve as a guide to character appeal, even if they do hold a certain degree of weight to them.

Beyond that, I see what Eternal Phoenix said earlier may indeed have some weight to it, and like Dsty Cube, I do not believe that Yoshi is bottom tier material, even if my opinion at this point is nulled by my overall view of tiers. Despite this, I like to imagine that if Brawl has been better balanced than the less tactful mash fest that is Melee, then the tiers should be less significant than ever in any case.

In any case, there have been some very good Yoshi users in the past and I think that we can all agree that this dinogon can sport some pretty intense moves (effective ones too!) and that should stand as proof that even characters that are out of favour with most of the Smash community can perform just as well with a good set of hands on the controls. Take a minute to remember Fumi, Bringer, and those other chosen pros of Yoshi-kind.

My final remark is that Yoshi is not a bottom feeder on the tier list, but I think he is not worthy of being at the top of the food chain, this is due to the style and techniques required to use him effectively, he is by his nature, not a straightforward character to use. Unique, if you will. Remember that a lot of the other characters are more alike one another when it comes to making an effective approach that suits their style. Yoshi has always been Very different from the rest of the characters in the Smash Universe. Better balancing should mean that tiers will account for less anyway and hopefully focus on concrete matters in game.

Besides it's amusing and makes me feel good to break conventions by winning against the odds with Yoshi.

 

[Winnar]

Nicely put.

Though I'm not entirely sure what a "dinogon" is It sounds good D:

 

[FuLLBLeeD]

keep in mind that tiers are/were generally altered by the virtue of toruney results nd pro competitive usage. I like to imagine that this effectively makes the notion of tiers tainted by a fad mentality which is a product of the masses. I personally never paid much attention to tiers and I believe that they just serve as a guide to character appeal, even if they do hold a certain degree of weight to them.

Beyond that, I see what Eternal Phoenix said earlier may indeed have some weight to it, and like Dsty Cube, I do not believe that Yoshi is bottom tier material, even if my opinion at this point is nulled by my overall view of tiers. Despite this, I like to imagine that if Brawl has been better balanced than the less tactful mash fest that is Melee, then the tiers should be less significant than ever in any case.

In any case, there have been some very good Yoshi users in the past and I think that we can all agree that this dinogon can sport some pretty intense moves (effective ones too!) and that should stand as proof that even characters that are out of favour with most of the Smash community can perform just as well with a good set of hands on the controls. Take a minute to remember Fumi, Bringer, and those other chosen pros of Yoshi-kind.

My final remark is that Yoshi is not a bottom feeder on the tier list, but I think he is not worthy of being at the top of the food chain, this is due to the style and techniques required to use him effectively, he is by his nature, not a straightforward character to use. Unique, if you will. Remember that a lot of the other characters are more alike one another when it comes to making an effective approach that suits their style. Yoshi has always been Very different from the rest of the characters in the Smash Universe. Better balancing should mean that tiers will account for less anyway and hopefully focus on concrete matters in game.

Besides it's amusing and makes me feel good to break conventions by winning against the odds with Yoshi.

This post is win. +1

 

[BigRick]

I'm speculating here but I think Yoshi is going to be low tier in Brawl.

Low tier in Brawl won't be the same as Melee IMO... In melee low tier meant ''the character sucks'', in Brawl it's going to mean ''the character is not broken''

 

[FuLLBLeeD]

I'm speculating here but I think Yoshi is going to be low tier in Brawl.

Low tier in Brawl won't be the same as Melee IMO... In melee low tier meant ''the character sucks'', in Brawl it's going to mean ''the character is not broken''

I agree with this to an extent. Players like Taj and Fumi proved that low tier characters certainly don't suck, in fact they can kick much ***. But yea I agree, tiers won't make nearly as much of a difference in this game.

And Ike and Marth are still pretty broken. Jesus, its like Sakauri has a hard on for Fire Emblem...ffs nerf SOMETHING about them.

 

[Shiri]

And Ike and Marth are still pretty broken. Jesus, its like Sakauri has a hard on for Fire Emblem...ffs nerf SOMETHING about them.

Now, now, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Ike is far from broken. Marth is still the king of gay, but he's not quite broken yet. He's borderline, though, LOL.

Anyway, just dropping in to say that the Yoshi mains should do their best to bring out the best in their character! <3

 

[Deleted member]

Im loving the brawl yoshi. No Djc took me like 3 minutes to get over. More fun than ive ever had with the melee yoshi woot. I agree, if u want yoshi to be high tier, find some broken strategy or something and woops those marths.

P.S. Yoshi's bair is hax in a good way.
P.S.S Shiri howd u get that mini yoshi thing.

 

[ducky285]

I'm speculating here but I think Yoshi is going to be low tier in Brawl.

Low tier in Brawl won't be the same as Melee IMO... In melee low tier meant ''the character sucks'', in Brawl it's going to mean ''the character is not broken''

Maybe something like Guilty Gear where tiers are pretty much a formality. Johnny is considered one of the worst characters in the game, but the community basically agrees that he is still tournament viable in the hands of a dedicated player who has taken the time to learn everything about his/her character..

A very good source tells me that the first major GGXX Accent Core tourney was won by a Johnny main. In GG, low-tier means "be prepared to practice a LOT". Brawl might be similar.

What I'm thinking about how people are perceiving DK, Yoshi and the other supposedly low/bottom tier characters is that they don't care enough to learn how to use them to their highest potential. You have to actually pick up on the nuances of the character.

I didn't use Yoshi much when Melee came out but when I picked him up and learned some of the cool stuff, he quickly became my best character. While I didn't compete in Melee, I won a lot of casuals with the Yosh. Brawl Yoshi fixes a lot of the annoying stuff about him that bugged me in Melee so I'm a happy camper.