Category Character Tier Lists

th3kuzinator · Nov 2, 2010

To Do List:
Approach
Shield Pressure
Tech Chase
Character/Stage Performance (idea by soup)

Technical Skill (From most technical to least technical)
1. Fox (Techs like Multi-shine, Shine Jab, SHDL, Running SDHL, SHSL, speed, teleport)
2. Yoshi (DJC, DJCC, DJCL, Parry, Nair Chains, Egg Cancelling)
3. Ness (DJC, DJL, Backwards Extended DJC, Fair Chains)
4. Mario (SH DAIR UAIR, Uair chains, SH fair/bair --> Uair, third directional UPB, mario tornado)
5. Pikachu (Uair chains, Double UPB)
6. DK (Platformed Uair Chains, Punch Canceled Shenanigans)
7. Luigi (SH DAIR FF UAIR, Luigi Tornado, Third Directional UPB)
8. Link (Usmash combos, uair/utilt chains, boomerang/bomb placement, platform canceled upb)
9. Falcon (fair/nair/bair combos, upb canceling, pivots)
10. Kirby (weak nair/bair combos, anything --> upb finisher, rock canceling)
11. Jiggs (teleport)
12. Samus (teleport)

Recovery (From best to worst)
1. Pikachu (UPB has really good range in all directions pika also has multiple periods of invulnerability during the move)
2. Mario (Great Vertical Recovery, Mario Tornado, Fireballs, good priority UPB)
3. Luigi (Great Vertical Recovery, Luigi Tornado, somewhat fireballs, upb has good range (not the best priority)
4. Kirby (A large amount of horizontal and vertical distance due to jumps, upb has good vertical)
5. Samus (very floaty, bomb recovery, invulnerability at start of upb)
6. Yoshi (Knockback resistance at most percents)
7. Jiggs (Good horizontal recovery because of jumps, even more horizontal because of pound recovery)
8. DK (Upb good horizontal, DK's arms are invincible)
9. Fox (Easy-ish to predict and sub-par upb priority)
10. Falcon (Easier to predict than fox's and only has a few frames of actually good range. The rest are too easy to edgeguard)
11. Link (good hitbox, terrible distance. Very vulnerable from the top)
12. Ness (I could write an essay why Ness' recovery is terrible. PAINFULLY easy to predict before and after upb is used. At top of ness' recovery he stalls in the air for a long time before able to fast fall. If lands on the stage W/O fastfall --> 16 frames of lag, with fastfall its 32 frames (THATS HALF A SECOND). Even if lucky enough to grab ledge, all getup options are mediocre and ledgehopping with ness' second jump is easily punishable and ness is back to square one. Oh, did I forget that all one has to do it hover above ness for a second and intercept his pk thunder and ness is done. Any DECENT edgeguarder should not be able to let Ness recover once he is off the stage.)

Combo Ability (From greatest to least)
1. Falcon (fthrow/usmash --> uair x 6 --> upb is too easy. This is made easier by his speed and approach)
2. Fox (All his arials can be combo starters and his utilt and dtilt are good for starting. Usmash and uairs are very good finishers and can be combod into very easily)
3. Kirby (Utilt is **** honestly. Linking a weak bair/nair into fsmash after the uairs is too good)
4. Pikachu (usmash -> utilt -> fair chains. Any variation of these three moves guarantee a good start. Bair/nair finishers.
5. Jiggs (dair --> utilt is very easy and does not even require zcancel. Depending on percent rest, nair or uair finisher. Fthrow also works well when followed up with uair chains ending in rest.
6. Yoshi (Utilt and uair chains are great against heavies, dash attack/nair/ftilt are great against floaties)
7. Luigi (uair chains, sh dair ff uair is a good starter on bigger characters. Though his uair chains are sometimes harder to keep consistent, his upb and downb are both extremely easy finishers)
8. Mario (uair chains, sh dair uair is a good starter on all characters. Has a bit of trouble finishing which, with floaties, usually requires a ledge)
9. Ness (Has uair, fair and nair chains. A lot of starters but has a lot of trouble finishing. More of a tech chaser.)
10. Link (Uair combos can be continued to death percents with platforms. Walking utilts are always good. Usmash is a good setup for both of these (can DI out of this though))
11. DK (Although his uair chains are very good and can end in Usmash, they are very situational. If not by a platform all DK has is downb --> big punch or fthrow to upb/fair)
12. Samus (She can hardly combo at all. Maybe fair chains if no DI, some interesting stuff can be done with a broken shield but thats about it.)

Discuss Away~

EDITS:

(11/2/10) - Removed the Mindgames list because no one seemed to think it valid

(11/3/10) - (Tech Skill Bracket)
Moved Mario to 4 (+1),
Moved Pikachu to 5 (-1),
Moved Luigi to 7 (+2, SH DAIR FF UAIR),
Moved Falcon to 9 (-2, easy technical moves),
Moved Jiggs to 11th (+1, Teleport),
Moved Samus to 12 (-1, very floaty and not very much tech skill involved)

Added reasons for my placements

SilentSlayers · Nov 2, 2010

I think kirby's recovery is worse.

linkoninja · Nov 2, 2010

I think Llinks recovery is worse than Ness'
that's just me though

dandan · Nov 2, 2010

link at mindgames, don't get it, to actually be good with it you have to be really smart with him, just spamming is not enough.
also, i really really do not agree about the falcon being so up in mindgames.

to linkoninja, ness recovery is the worst in the game, if ness is off stage, he should not recover (unless there is noone there to stop him

)

th3kuzinator · Nov 2, 2010

Ness' recovery is bar none the worst.

I am also kind of shaky on the mindgames list. Upon thinking about it link should be higher and falcon should be lower. I still think falcon requires a lot of mindgames (maybe thats just me)

Sempiternity · Nov 2, 2010

Look at it this way: Link's second jump+UpB is a better recovery than Ness's second jump.

Ness's UpB is negligible.

linkoninja · Nov 2, 2010

dandan said:
link at mindgames, don't get it, to actually be good with it you have to be really smart with him, just spamming is not enough.
also, i really really do not agree about the falcon being so up in mindgames.

to linkoninja, ness recovery is the worst in the game, if ness is off stage, he should not recover (unless there is noone there to stop him )

Yeah but Link's sucks also. I mean it might be about even IMO
cause if the Ness is low enough he might have a chance to Angle the UP-B and live
like on Hyrule
Link can't do any of these shenanigans

#HBC | ѕoup · Nov 2, 2010

My list for technical:
1. Fox
2. Yoshi (feel like he is more technical then fox sometimes.)
3.Ness
4.DK
5.Pikachu
6. Falcon
7. Mario (LOL NO. seriously, i play mario and there is not alot of tech stuff involved with the fat plumber.)
8. Link
9. Luigi
10. Kirby
11. Samus
12. Jiggs

Mindgames:
1. Samus (+1)
2. Falcon (i'm not sure about this. falcon is all about baiting. not mindgames.)
3. Jiggs
4. Luigi
5. Yoshi
6. DK
7. Ness
8. Fox
9. Mario
10. Link
11. Pikachu
12. Kirby

Recovery:
1. Pikachu
2. Mario
3. Luigi
4. Kirby
5. Jiggs
6. Yoshi
7. Samus (not enough vertical up b length IMO)
8. DK
9. Fox
10. Falcon
11. Link
12. Ness

ballin4life · Nov 2, 2010

I have no idea how you would rank characters based on "mindgames". Those are an attribute of the player, not the character.

For recovery move Yoshi up a bit imo. Above Samus and Kirby i think. Also Kirby and Jiggs can't be too far apart since their recoveries are predicated on the same thing: going high. Kirby may have an upB, but it is pretty easy to hit him out of the upB, plus jiggs has pound recovery.

For tech skill move Mario up. I can't think of anything that requires much tech skill with pika (maybe sh double uair? Still not that difficult). Mario's dair uair is one of the hardest things for me to do in the game. Also Luigi should be higher because of sh dair ff uair. Jiggs and Samus should be higher because of teleport. DK seems too high also, what is that hard with DK? Run off fair maybe but that's a pretty uncommon move to use.

th3kuzinator · Nov 2, 2010

linkoninja said:
Yeah but Link's sucks also. I mean it might be about even IMO
cause if the Ness is low enough he might have a chance to Angle the UP-B and live
like on Hyrule
Link can't do any of these shenanigans

Any DECENT edgeguarder should be able to repel a ness as soon as hes off the stage unless he reverse ledge DIs.

Link's recovery is obviously shorter, but it has a fairly good horizontal hitbox on plain with his sword.

Of course he is vulnerable to attacks from above, but if you are a bit sloppy or do not make it to the ledge in time to get on top of him, beating his upb from the side takes difficult timing.

#HBC | ѕoup · Nov 2, 2010

@ Ballin

While Mario's Dair to Uair is very tough to master, it is very easy to use once you got it down.
i think there are SOME technical use to mario, but i don't think he needs more tech stuff then Falcon or other characters above him.

but once again my opnion.

also, might edit my list, i like the conversation going on.

ballin4life · Nov 2, 2010

Soupamario said:
@ Ballin

While Mario's Dair to Uair is very tough to master, it is very easy to use once you got it down.
i think there are SOME technical use to mario, but i don't think he needs more tech stuff then Falcon or other characters above him.

but once again my opnion.

What does falcon do that's technical? Pivots? I've been practicing dair uair for a long time and I still mess it up fairly often. The fact that the timing is different when you hit nothing vs when you hit shield vs when you hit the opponent makes me miss a lot of z cancels.

Plus anything where you have to button slide is way more technical than anything I can think of for Falcon.

Also Link's recovery >> Ness's. It's actually pretty hard to edgeguard the upB when Link is in range.

Surri-Sama · Nov 2, 2010

Mario should be #2 in technical imo

DK and Falcon are far less techy chars imo, dk is mad gimps all the time with little situational abuses + finishers like Down B --> DK Punch (thats mad technical) and falcon...well see my Rage painting

What Ballin said about mind games is true IMO

Link is worse then ness in recovery imo. both are like watching a suicide, but ness can cover more grounds faster. (this is all from a recovery point, if you include using Links UpB as an attack then links is better hands down)

i think kirby and jiggly should be numbers 3 and 4 respectively in recovery

Also, there where 9 people viewing this thread when i posted this xD

Edit: 3 posts in between the time i started replying and finished it, ha go smash64!

th3kuzinator · Nov 2, 2010

ballin4life said:
I have no idea how you would rank characters based on "mindgames". Those are an attribute of the player, not the character.

For recovery move Yoshi up a bit imo. Above Samus and Kirby i think. Also Kirby and Jiggs can't be too far apart since their recoveries are predicated on the same thing: going high. Kirby may have an upB, but it is pretty easy to hit him out of the upB, plus jiggs has pound recovery.

For tech skill move Mario up. I can't think of anything that requires much tech skill with pika (maybe sh double uair? Still not that difficult). Mario's dair uair is one of the hardest things for me to do in the game. Also Luigi should be higher because of sh dair ff uair. Jiggs and Samus should be higher because of teleport. DK seems too high also, what is that hard with DK? Run off fair maybe but that's a pretty uncommon move to use.

I mean capacity for mindgames to make a characters better. If you have no mindgames, your samus will be fairly crappy while you can still get away with spamming utilt for kirby and be fine.

Yoshi gets ***** by grabs.

If hit at a low angle (fox dsmash) jiggs is done, kirby has a decent chance at least.

Pika is fairly technical, getting his uair chains down was tough for me

Marios dair uair is tough for me too, after some practice I can do it now fairly ez. I dont think that one tech requires him a move up.

I forgot about sh dair ff uair, that does require some re-evaluation.

Also did not take into account jiggs samus fox teleport. I will think about this as well.

Dk has uair chains. Platform drop uair, sh uair etc. I think those are really tough. Also some cool stuff you can do with punch cancelling that takes some skill

#HBC | ѕoup · Nov 2, 2010

to the 3 posters above me.

@kuz, YOU TOOK MY ARUGEMENT FOR DK BEFORE I POSTED IT JARK.

[quote="th3kuzinatior]I mean capacity for mindgames to make a characters better. If you have no mindgames, your samus will be fairly crappy while you can still get away with spamming utilt for kirby and be fine.[/quote]

yoshi does indeed get ***** by grabs but.. [quote="Sheermadness]you can't grab parries.[/quote]

In a short retrospect getting pika's uair comboing down is fairly hard;then it's a mass destruction weapon of chaos once you have it down.

@Surri

DK needs techs to survive, a DK without techs is like a kirby with no utilt, you can still do good, but your skill/power is dropped exponetitally.

yeah but you can't mess up link's recovery, you can atleast get redemption with ness if you get it right.

AND SURRI STOP THE MADNESS I CAN'T REPLY THIS FAST AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAG

thegreginator · Nov 2, 2010

Luigi and Mario should be higher for technical. Honestly SH -> dair-> fast fall -> uair -> z cancel is one of the things I have the most trouble doing consistently in the game.

This is the kind of discussion that would be good to have in the backroom and to have the original poster update the first post with the consensus opinion so we can get more "official" qualifications of things.

The Star King · Nov 2, 2010

I agree with ballin, making a mindgames list is kind of silly. Yes, you need better mindgames for Samus than spamming utilt with Kirby, but that's just because Samus is a worse character and needs to make up for it. Mindgames is based on the player, not the character.

#HBC | ѕoup · Nov 2, 2010

this also contributes to another thing i want to work on..

STAGE COUNTERPICKING.

link on peach's castle is quite possibly the worst.

@Star

i think mindgames in itself is dependant on the player only but i guess what kuz was thinking is that who can pull off the mindgames easiest.

th3kuzinator · Nov 2, 2010

I meant that yoshi gets ***** by grabs when he is recovering.

He especially gets destroyed by Big Punch and Pikachu's DownB (IDK why that thing does so much damage)

Yoshi is also very bad under shield pressure (except dropping ur sheild and parrying) so grabs do **** him altogether.

Under 50%, if recovering properly, most yoshis will survive (hard to gimp)
-if you go too close to the ledge --> grab

Under 100% you're still fairly ok (big punch, rest, luigi upb, pika downb, link dair and other power moves will stop you).
-there is a good chance you might get knocked away too far and are forced to recover early and may run out of super armor before you return to the ledge
-again, if you hug the side ur done.
-you can be baited into attacking or recovering too far onto the stage and have the opponent hit you just as ur armor wears off

over 120%ish
-you get hit --> you are done.

People with tether grabs (link and samus especialy) can take a yoshi down fairly early if they time it right

I remember JaimeHR would just intercept me recovering from a few feet from the ledge with his grab and then just repeat until an ez edgehog or bair got me.

#HBC | ѕoup · Nov 2, 2010

oh.

DK's big punch is a truck on steroids. also, dat hitbox. same with pikachu's down b.

and the rest i agree with.

The Star King · Nov 2, 2010

Soupamario said:
i guess what kuz was thinking is that who can pull off the mindgames easiest.

What are you even talking about? The ability to "pull off mindgames" is ased entirely on the player.

Combo ability should be one of the tiers BTW

ballin4life · Nov 2, 2010

th3kuzinator said:
I mean capacity for mindgames to make a characters better. If you have no mindgames, your samus will be fairly crappy while you can still get away with spamming utilt for kirby and be fine.

Yoshi gets ***** by grabs.

If hit at a low angle (fox dsmash) jiggs is done, kirby has a decent chance at least.

Pika is fairly technical, getting his uair chains down was tough for me

Marios dair uair is tough for me too, after some practice I can do it now fairly ez. I dont think that one tech requires him a move up.

I forgot about sh dair ff uair, that does require some re-evaluation.

Also did not take into account jiggs samus fox teleport. I will think about this as well.

Dk has uair chains. Platform drop uair, sh uair etc. I think those are really tough. Also some cool stuff you can do with punch cancelling that takes some skill

Kirby doesn't have much of a chance of getting back from low because he'll just get dsmashed again.

How are pika uair chains technical? Maybe if you're trying to incorporate a sh double uair but the vast majority of my pika uair chains don't even use that. Sh double uair is also way easier than mario's dair uair.

DK platform drop uairs are somewhat difficult.

#HBC | ѕoup · Nov 2, 2010

ShootingStar said:
What are you even talking about? The ability to "pull off mindgames" is ased entirely on the player.

Combo ability should be one of the tiers BTW

I suppose. i was trying to make sense of it somehow.

also, agree with combo ability.

Also, you should add character development process meaning a learning curve.

some characters are easy to get down and some take practice.

you know, i must admit i love this board, there's actually people who know what they are talking about.

Surri-Sama · Nov 2, 2010

Pikas Uair chains can get techy.

When dropping from the flat part of hyrule, to the slant on the left side and NOT jumping, but using Uair and then keep going with the combo...Isai loves this and so do i :D

#HBC | ѕoup · Nov 2, 2010

AND NOW I HAVE TO POINT TO THAT STAGE COUNTERPICKS!

some characters, believe it or not, are better on some certain stages.

pikachu is a god on dreamland.
link sucks on peach's castle.
Falcon ***** on sector z.
etc. etc.

th3kuzinator · Nov 2, 2010

ShootingStar said:
I agree with ballin, making a mindgames list is kind of silly. Yes, you need better mindgames for Samus than spamming utilt with Kirby, but that's just because Samus is a worse character and needs to make up for it. Mindgames is based on the player, not the character.

Think of it this way.

I understand mindgames are relative to the player, but I am ranking each character by its ability to make us of proficient mindgames.

Lets say a person with ABSOLUTELY 0 MIND GAMES plays a game with each character
Now lets say that same person trained for the rest of his life and developes amazing mindgames and then plays a game with each character.

this skill improvement would be most evident when comparing his new samus to his old samus and least evident when comparing his new kirby to his old kirby (of course all his characters would improve a great deal, but the ACTUAL INCREASE GAP would be largest for samus and least for kirby. IMO of course)

edit: I was actually thinking of doing 3 more lists
one with combo ability, one with approach, and one with shield pressure.

What you guys think?

The Star King · Nov 2, 2010

That's not difficult at all Surri.

@Kuzinator I feel like the improvement is mostly the same for all characters, just look at Malva.

Surri-Sama · Nov 2, 2010

I find it more difficult to do consistently then most things said in this thread anyways

#HBC | ѕoup · Nov 2, 2010

and yet, sometimes i wish we had noobs on this board.

the un-experienced would probably have a way different perspective on everything we say here.
now, while them being wrong, it still shows it from someone different.

i just had a conversation with someone who thinks link is the best character. LOL
he also said he was going to **** me and laughed when i said pikachu is the best.

****'s sad bro.

@kuz didn't see you edit.

do a combo ability. it really furthers even more broad topics. all of this knowledge and discussion is giving me a raging brainer.

The Star King · Nov 2, 2010

How is that related lol?

#HBC | ѕoup · Nov 2, 2010

i was just imagining less experienced react to this whole entire board and even thread.

back when i sucked, i thought some of these things being discussed were hard, that aren't so difficult in retro-spective.

the link thing is just a bit of a gab if you must. sorry.

ballin4life · Nov 2, 2010

Surri-Sama said:
Pikas Uair chains can get techy.

When dropping from the flat part of hyrule, to the slant on the left side and NOT jumping, but using Uair and then keep going with the combo...Isai loves this and so do i :D

So you're saying being able to run off a platform and uair without jumping counts as tech skill? That's something that applies to every character anyway.

th3kuzinator said:
Think of it this way.

I understand mindgames are relative to the player, but I am ranking each character by its ability to make us of proficient mindgames.

Lets say a person with ABSOLUTELY 0 MIND GAMES played a game with each character
Now lets say that same person trained for the rest of his life and developed amazing mindgames and then played a game with each character.

the improvement in skill of those characters would be most drastic with samus and least drastic with kirby (imo of course)

I don't follow. Mind games is not a quantifiable thing. There is no such thing as 0 mind games. If you're saying that a complete noob would be better with kirby then who disagrees with that?

Also combo ability list (taking into account combo starters, continuations, and finishers):

1) Falcon - fthrow/usmash are best combo starters, uair is best continuation, upB is a great finisher
2) Fox - so many options here for continuations, usmash is a great finisher, but not always the best at starting combos
3) Kirby - utilt, plus can finish with aerials
4) Pika - utilt and uair chains. Kirby is much better at starting combos though.
5) Jiggs - really good against heavies, overrated against floaties. Dair is like her only real combo starter at mid percents and up against floaties.
6) Yoshi - utilt is hax against heavies, djc nair and dash attack are hax against floaties
7) Luigi - trouble starting a combo but uair is good and has really easy finishers
8) Link - utilt is pretty good, has good finishers with fair/dair/upB
9) Ness - utilt and djcs are good but he has trouble finishing
10) Mario - uair is a good continuation move but struggles with finishing.
11) DK - uair is a good combo move but other than that there isn't much (fthrow -> upB). Now if I were counting tech chases with DownB or his grab in the tent this would be a different story.
12) Samus - dair bair and the occasional use of fair -> something are pretty much it.

The Star King · Nov 2, 2010

Oh ok lol

@Kuz's edit I like those.

@ballin4life Kirby is way too high, he can start easily but he has trouble finishing especially vs. floaties.

dandan · Nov 2, 2010

Surri-Sama said:
Pikas Uair chains can get techy.

When dropping from the flat part of hyrule, to the slant on the left side and NOT jumping, but using Uair and then keep going with the combo...Isai loves this and so do i :D

the pika combo i like most is uair uair to land then off the mid platform (in hyrule) uair (without jumping) to turn around util, uair and bair. it is a hard combo to di out of and catches many unprepared.

#HBC | ѕoup · Nov 2, 2010

@ballin

basically agree with that list.

mine:
Falcon - fthrow/usmash da bess. can also do this with just usmash. fair/dair can also be used as a finisher if offstage.
Fox - Too many options for combos. usmash is awesome finisher, but as ballin said, not the best.
Pika - Utiltan, fairan, dairan.
Kirby - utilt, USMASH, and uair chains. agree with ballin.
Yoshi - agree with all except that you can start a uair combo on heavies at mid-high percents.
Jiggs - utilt= always hax. can end this with either a usmash (depending on the hitlag) or a down b. djc nair=always hax.
Luigi- what he said.
Link - what he said.
Ness- what he said.
Mario - what he said BUT you can finish with a spaced fair or a usmash.
DK - what he said
Samus - what h- oh nevermind.

edit: kuz, if you change something in the op could you list or show the changes?
that's just a if.

ballin4life · Nov 2, 2010

ShootingStar said:
Oh ok lol

@Kuz's edit I like those.

@ballin4life Kirby is way too high, he can start easily but he has trouble finishing especially vs. floaties.

Against floaties you could put pika and maybe jiggs above him, but the pwn kirby brings against heavies puts him above both of those IMO. Even against pika with Kirby I can do 70+% combos off an utilt, which is one of the easiest combo starters.

th3kuzinator · Nov 2, 2010

Ok so the betas of each list are up now. This is what I have thought of since first posting them.

I will document any more changes based on your input and will list them in OP

#HBC | ѕoup · Nov 2, 2010

moved post

The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 10 characters.

th3kuzinator · Nov 2, 2010

Woah. I just noticed my combo matchup list is almost exactly ballins >_>

two great minds think alike?

Surri-Sama · Nov 2, 2010

i heard that expression goes...

Great minds think alike but fools seldom differ

lol no offence i just find it funny xP

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