Smash 3DS The balance in this game is just awful.

[FallofBrawl]

One of the better balanced games, and the best balanced in smash for sure.

 

[BobVance_]

Agreed, somewhat...Right now you can dominate with a lot of the characters if you're good enough, mostly because the game hasn't been out long enough for people to figure out everyone's gimmicks. However, as time goes by then yeah, it'll probably come down to a select few; Shiek and ZSSamus being two big ones. But, really, did you expect anything different? I mean, it's clear listening to Sakurai in interviews that this is not at all intended to be a serious "fighting" game. It's unfairness is meant to be broken up by the use of items and potentially more than two fighters; he's made that pretty clear in several interviews.

Still, having a lot of fun with the game, even with the lag.

 

[kindred.dread]

It's the most balanced Smash in my opinion. The majority of the characters have a winning shot. I haven't used anyone yet considered "high-tier" and have found plenty of success.

That being said, the good characters are GOOD. Hopefully Nintendo adds balances to patches.

 

[Spirst]

Unfortunately, it's correct that this game isn't created with competitive balance and character viability as an utmost priority so I wasn't necessarily expecting a tight roster in that regard. I don't like it, but it is what it is and the best we can do is hope for any kind of patch in the future. Fairly doubtful it'll really change character balance though.

It seems a bit too early for me to make a well-stated rationale behind the balance in this game in comparison to the preceding ones but from what I've garnered thus far, the game seems to be relatively decent in terms of balances. There's no MK-like character that just obviously dominates the rest. Yeah, there are some better ones, but it isn't monopolized.

 

[Niko Jims]

The only characters that are OP imo are Rosalina and ZSS, Rosalina for Luma being too strong (8 second respawn, equivalent power of Rosa, tanks damage, can be controlled from a distance etc) and ZSS for the dumb stuns, big ass hitboxes, and insane speed, while the only character I see as UP is Luigi (haven't tried DK yet). The majority are very much viable.

It's unfairness is meant to be broken up by the use of items and potentially more than two fighters; he's made that pretty clear in several interviews.

Which is funny because Rosalina can not only absorb items, but her Luma will also tank for her. She is the only one that is amazing at both casual and competitive play.

 

[Dwanny]

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[link2702]

its a hell of a lot better than brawls.

We've had 3 smash games prior to this, by now we know with sakurai developing the games that they'll never be very well balanced, so its not like this is surprising. It at least did a better job than brawl at balancing, but at this point I think its a given that no smash game will ever be very well balanced.

 

[Clemente]

You mean to say the difference between Zelda and Meta Knight is tiny in Brawl?

Or the difference between Fox and Mewtwo in Melee?

No, the person I was replying to was talking about fighting games as a whole.

Maybe this is the best balanced Smash game, but I don't know if that means that much.

Agreed, somewhat...Right now you can dominate with a lot of the characters if you're good enough, mostly because the game hasn't been out long enough for people to figure out everyone's gimmicks. However, as time goes by then yeah, it'll probably come down to a select few; Shiek and ZSSamus being two big ones. But, really, did you expect anything different? I mean, it's clear listening to Sakurai in interviews that this is not at all intended to be a serious "fighting" game. It's unfairness is meant to be broken up by the use of items and potentially more than two fighters; he's made that pretty clear in several interviews.

Still, having a lot of fun with the game, even with the lag.

Sakurai can't have it both ways -- say "its not a serious fighting game, it's a party game" and then set up a ranked 1v1 with EVERY STAGE in the game having a boxing arena style 1v1 stage type.

 

[Neanderthal]

Super Smash Brothers has to be the hardest fighting game in the world to balance.
Just think of how complex and different each character is. And they have to somehow be balanced in such a way that it's balanced at different levels of skill and with different rules for 50 characters. This is virtually impossible.

How balanced it's seeming so far is shockingly impressive. I'm really amazed at how balanced it feels so far considering the above. (Ofcourse as the meta progresses it could turn out to be much less balanced than it seems now).
Tekken also has balance issues, despite being a much more simple fighter with much less character variation.

 

[Clemente]

I legitimately feel so far that the balancing is at it's worst for the series, which is ironic, since they focused on it this time, but Sakurai has no idea how competitive play works, so I guess it makes sense. It looks like he went "Well, that character was high tiered. Let's nerf them! That one was low tiered. Let's buff them!"

This is exactly what it looks like to me also @bolded text.

Specifically using the Japanese tier lists, too.

 

[Einyuri]

I think you mean MvsC2. MvsC3's balance is actually pretty good, basically just because every character is insanely broken (aka, Smash 64 or XMen vs Street Fighter-style balance). It basically doesn't matter who you're playing against, you're going to die in one hit and the opponent will probably build like 2 bars doing it. As such, you see pretty much every character in competitive play even if a couple are more common than others.

I do feel that MvsC3 is too homogenous, though, a lot of characters feel pretty similar to each other since "damage output" and "defense" are not factors in the game.

No. I mean 3 100%. Don't get me wrong, 2 was very broken as well. But in MVC3, every character is only "broken" when you have X-Factor activated, because it gives them not only huge damage/recover/speed, but it also gives access to infinites due to said speed bonus. Without that at least 85% of the cast is over shadowed by another character/team composition.

I was surprised to see Justin Wong beat Chris G's Morg/Vergil/Doom combo with Wolv/Storm/Akuma at last years EVO grand finals with how one sided that match up usually is.

But enough about MVC3/MVC2. This is Smashboards.

 

[Supermario12]

Ive beaten every character with Wario

 

[DeiSakuChris]

I disagree, kinda.

It's true that some character are above others characters, like Sheik and Zero Suit Samus being powerful for having a great mobility and few landing lags.

And that certain characters are inferior to others, like Palutena and Ganondorf.

But in the middle, it really is greatly balanced in my opinion.

Each characters have a chance, each characters feel viable compared to the last games and fighting games in general.

For example, like I said earlier Ganondorf is low tier, but unlike Brawl where you could simply do nothing with him, in this game you're still able to keep up with the rest of the cast, and have some struggle with Sheik, but you're still able to win.

Now it's hard to talk about balance when people say "I have beaten every characters with Ike, you're wrong then" does these people have fought people that were at the same level of "skill" as them ?

I have fought a guy named "V" who used a blue Charizard (Charizard is generally considered not that great) and I was using Bowser (a character that is generally considered great) and he still manage to beat me, and I can safely say that we were at the same level in terms of experience and techniques. It's hard to explain it, but he was just great with Charizard, and I was just great with Bowser, but he beats me, and this in my opinion is great balance.

Now, another thing that could help the balance is having an alpha mode who turns stages into Battlefield.
Because one of the problem with this game, is that the DF version of stages encourage defensive play and improve the strength of spammy characters (Robin for example) and so it's hard to go into hand-to-hand fight with character like Charizard who will get hurted by projectiles while trying to catch up the opponent.
Alpha mode could annihilate spammy strategy of Zero Suit Samus for example, and so making her more weak and not that top tier.

No fighting game have perfect balance, but for now, I found the balance to be really good, and I'm winning against great opponents that use Sheik with Megaman, Fox and Bowser.

To be honest, I have mostly lose against "middle characters" than top tier characters. That Blue Charizard was strong.

 

[Terotrous]

Super Smash Brothers has to be the hardest fighting game in the world to balance.
Just think of how complex and different each character is. And they have to somehow be balanced in such a way that it's balanced at different levels of skill and with different rules for 50 characters. This is virtually impossible.

Honestly, I don't think it's nearly that hard. Smash has been around for 15 years now, we know what properties are desirable in a character, and we know how well characters performed in past games. All you really have to do is give good characters less good properties and give bad characters more good properties.

They did this right with some characters (Mario, Samus, Yoshi, etc), they just apparently forgot some others existed. Also, PM is very balanced, so clearly it can be done.


Incidentally, I would think a game that allows indepth character customization (MMOs, Mech Fighters, etc) would be way harder to balance than this.

No. I mean 3 100%. Don't get me wrong, 2 was very broken as well. But in MVC3, every character is only "broken" when you have X-Factor activated, because it gives them not only huge damage/recover/speed, but it also gives access to infinites due to said speed bonus. Without that at least 85% of the cast is over shadowed by another character/team composition.

Nah, thanks to TACs your character doesn't need an infinite / TOD, you can just TAC to someone who has one. The ability to land the first hit is what really matters.

 

[ZombieBran]

It may be the most balanced Smash game yet but that means very little.

OP may have said some things harshly but he's right that certain characters are graced with many properties and specifically many of the weaker veterans from Brawl were underbuffed. As a Zelda main, I can't tell you how much power disparity there is between her and Rosalina, Sheik, and Zamus. They are all light and ideally glass cannons in their own ways. But Rosalina, Sheik, and Zamus are far more capable of adapting to nearly any opponent than Zelda. Not to mention they are faster.

Then you have Ike and Shulk. Slow characters with a BFS (big fracking sword) and lots of kill power. Except Shulk can change his stats at will to deal with several types of situations. And he has more range and movement capabilities without Arts.

Honestly, it seems like some veterans were outright neglected.

 

[wingo]

nintendo dont have the resources to balance the game

 

[LucidDreamGod]

I've been beating Rosalinas and Little Macs as Dedede and Donkey Kong. If you think it's unbalanced then that's on you.

Yeah, amazing how many times Little Mac will run straight into Dedede's hammer, and him dodging those gordos is a nightmare for him. Although if he combos close just a few times he can take the match.

If anything this game is pretty rock, paper, scissors. I feel like different characters offer different challenges as well, and I'm cool with that.

 

[ZombieBran]

I feel people should remember that beating bad players with low tier characters means nothing about how viable a character is.

 

[Dsull]

I feel people should remember that beating bad players with low tier characters means nothing about how viable a character is.

This

I was having a massive win streak with megaman a few days ago. Doesnt mean hes viable, in fact the next day that shifted to a massive losing streak because i faced some players that actually knew what combos meant and juggled the crap out of me.

 

[adamlon1]

Just wait and see how it turns out just like in melee in the beginner phases of the competitive melee scene Jigglypuff wasnt all that used now she's top tier siting high and mighty next to Marth and Sheik just let things grow and then see how the balancing fares

 

[DugongLaw]

Against friends, and online, I`ve been winning tons and my main is Donkey Kong. I think that all characters are viable, with a few falling off as you get higher skilled players.

It`s mostly matchups, I think. There are some characters like DK who have lots of bad matchups, particularly against top tier characters, but that doesn`t mean they can`t win or that they don`t stand a chance.

 

[clockwalker]

I've been seriously annoyed with balance in this game. I believe there was one huge factor that affected a character balance and creation:
Being part of a Mario title. I don't think it's a coincidence that Yoshi and Bowser happen to be the most buffed of any characters from the previous games. Bowser in particular is miles ahead of any other heavy which is a shame. And the two Mario newcomers, Bowser Jr. and Rosaluma are considered top ten right now. So yes, I think it's safe to say they weren't actually that concerned about affecting overall balance when they balanced these characters. I think it was just Nintendo making their most popular, iconic and best selling franchise characters really good.

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

Firstly, I don't think there are too many issues with balancing so far.

Secondly, I think it's waaaay too early to say the balance is "terrible". Not only has the game been out for roughly a week and a half, but it's only on the 3DS. If we're going go discussbalance, we'd be better off waiting for the Wii U version to come out. We'll have the best controller to use and what have you. We don't know much about all of the characters either.

I just think to say that it's poorly balanced is overstating something that nobody can really claim. I haven't seen much hard evidence to show it's as bad as some are saying, and the fact that there are more viable characters than past games would probably make it MORE competitively viable than past games. But even then, it's too early to tell.

Just give it time until the Wii U version is out. Then we can talk about balance.

 

[Luigi#1]

Better than Melee and Brawl.

 

[Aldri]

A lot of it depends on how you play, and characters need time for people to learn them to determine how useful they actually are.

For example, I played Marth a ton in Melee, since I like getting up close, spacing out attacks, and meleeing (pun kind of intended). In this new game I want to play Robin, but I keep using him like Marth--sword attacks all over the place. Not surprisingly, it doesn't work too well.

Does this mean Robin sucks or is a lower tier than Marth? No. It means I'm not using him the way he's meant to be used.

Characters like Sheik are easy for most to pick up and use in a intuitive way. As people begin to learn other characters, the tier list will form. But right now, its way, way too early to declare how balanced or unbalanced the game is.

 

[Tino]

The game feels pretty well balanced to me. I got no complaints about it at all.

 

[mygamecube]

From what I've played so far and from all the characters I've played this is probably the best balanced Smash Bros. game we'll ever get. I'm actually impressed.

Time will tell if there are characters that rise clearly above the rest. Rosalina, Lil Mac, and Shiek are pretty troublesome, but they are still beatable.

 

[SmashWolf]

The biggest issue with complains about balance is that people have different levels of skill. To use Fox efficiently as a "ZOMG, GOD TIER" in Melee, you had to be really good, fast, and make no mistakes. To anyone of mid to low skill, he was probably an average speedy character.

There's the same problem here. We won't know the real potential untill we see enough professional matches. HOWEVER, I do believe some characters are looking mighty overpowered for the time being, like and .

 

[BobVance_]

Yeah, amazing how many times Little Mac will run straight into Dedede's hammer, and him dodging those gordos is a nightmare for him. Although if he combos close just a few times he can take the match.

If anything this game is pretty rock, paper, scissors. I feel like different characters offer different challenges as well, and I'm cool with that.

Off topic and random question but what's the gif in your signature originally from?

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

It is too early to speak to the balance of this game until a proper meta develops. In the meantime, this game is much more balanced than previous titles. There is no standout monster (like Brawl's Meta Knight), and lots of characters are really tough.

 

[kro_]

To me, this game seems strange, kind of like project m, where it seems a lot more balanced. To complain that the game is unbalanced, is like complaining you got more presents from Santa this Christmas

I'd say a more fair comparison would be your brother getting more presents than you one year, and the next year, the imbalance is less, but still there. You're still allowed to complain, though it's at least good it's better than before.

 

[K-45]

So what if other characters are stronger others right now this is the first smash bros that can be updated to buff/nerfing certain characters. Just because characters like Yoshi and rose are strong now doesn't mean they will be OP forever.

 

[BobVance_]

So what if other characters are stronger others right now this is the first smash bros that can be updated to buff/nerfing certain characters. Just because characters like Yoshi and rose are strong now doesn't mean they will be OP forever.

I'd be REALLY, but pleasantly, surprised if Sakurai developed extra DLC for this game or patches.

 

[K-45]

I'd be REALLY, but pleasantly, surprised if Sakurai developed extra DLC for this game or patches.

We already know that patches can be applied to this game. There's almost 100% chance of dlc from all the rom leaks. I bet the first 2 years this game will get a ton of dlc and patches. Don't for get the 8 player matches and boss rush mode that's found in the game but no were to be seen.

 

[Bauske]

I've been beating people left and right with Pac-Man online. Likewise, I've been destroyed by people with far greater skill than me. I don't ever feel I've been beaten because someone used a cheap, overpowered character. Every time I lose a round, it's usually due to their skill being greater than mine, and that's exactly how it should be.

From my personal perspective, this is the most balanced SSB game we've ever had. Is it perfect? No. No game is ever going to be perfect, but I think all things considered, there's really not much to be upset about in the game's balance so far.

 

[ミスティック Speed]

Wtf is this? This game is extremely well balanced. Definitely more-so then Melee or Brawl ever was. >.>

 

[PenguinFluff]

Generally speaking, this game feels as balanced as some other fighting games.

Sure there are tiers, but most fighting games have tiers. that doesn't mean characters are not viable.

Also, the game has only been out for a week, and to call it unbalanced is just speaking too early. Some characters might feel pretty great early on, but it's not confirmed that they'll dominate the game.

Give the game time, let it develop, things that seem bad atm might change as everyone gets better.

 

[Dark 3nergy]

I love Ganon. I haven't seen alot of *insert high tier character* so I can't say much about those but lemme tell you a bit about Ganon this time around. Like every character without a projectile he's still got issues with range and gets around the stage quite slow. He's nowhere near perfect.

Since rolls are overused and shieldstun is very low hes got jab, f-tilt, and f-smash depending on how punishable the move is in that order. They deal decent damage and knockback, very good tools.

You can combo up-air from dash attack and some throws at certain percentage. Forward-b has good tech chase potential. Speaking of up-air, it's rather quick and people above you have to watch out for it.

Edgeguarding can be done with b-air, d-air, air down-b (which I think still spikes), and best of all, Ganoncide (forward-b). If you suspect your opponent about to sweetspot the ledge or has a vulnerable up-b, you can jump off the stage and forward-b into the ledge and this will setup multiple traps for Ganoncide since the active frames last quite long, even if they sweetspot they can mess up and let their invincibility frames disappear. Ganoncide has changed in smash4 for the better. Your opponent will ALWAYS die first when suiciding.

TL;DR Ganon requires some patience, but he's kind of like a 1 hit Lil Mac with a few more flaws, but gains Ganoncide.

Sorry longpost

By the way, side b > dtilt exists for ganon. Had a few do it to me before in previous matches. Dunno if character specific but im glad he has it.

 

[CryoGX]

Characters can have counters, in which case they're going to have a bad time against them, more than likely.

The game just came out, and I can confidently say that it's more balanced than Brawl. Not perfect, per se (obviously), but it's so much better that there's no single character who has his own SS tier (glaring at Meta Knight).

Overall, I find the balance pretty decent; let some more time pass and see how people come up with strategies and stuff/win tournaments with characters you wouldn't expect. The tier list will change over time, so it's still too early to truly finalize opinions.
A dude won the Pokemon world tournament with a Pachirisu
Inb4 WFT wins Big House 5

 

[Frank Weast]

Ike seems awfull at the moment. He cannot keep up with half of the cast,Very slow and he cant even pack a punch for gods sake! I can spend 2 minutes trying to launch a 150% Kirby and he still wont die!

You are clearly not doing something right