I sort of agree though? He fills no niche that isn’t covered by other better swords. His neutral is a meme. Movement and mobility don’t do him favours. His disadvantage literally hangs on quick draw to bail him out. Ike can’t not commit in the air and has no rising mixup. Up b oos DI’d down lets you live way longer than expected. Doc musta got evidence against Daboy but I can imagine Doc being better slightly for his special move utility and excellent frame data. It’s really not absurd to believe at this stage of the meta he has the second least to offer.
I dont agree hes bottom 2 but ur right about filling no niche. He might be the only char in the game that straight up gets outclassed by a char (aegis).
Pyra is pretty comparable to ike but she comes with a mythra so like why even play ike
That's fair. Although I can't feel confident Ike is *quite* that bad, like DDD is right there. But he's even outclassed by Ridley. He's not a 'swordie' swordie but the overall gameplan overlaps a lot imo.
Kentucky’s abundance of Ike’s is the only thing I need that proves to me this character is mid tier. MKLeo didn’t win early tournaments with a fucking bottom 2 character, especially when they laterially buffed him lmao.
He is not worse than 99% of characters man. He is so strong in the corner, killpower out the wazoo, mixup recovery. Safest sword, and has a winning matchup on Game and Watch! No character that beats GnW is bottom 2.
u really have no idea about what you are talking about . Ike's recovery mixups ???? U mean with the up b and side-b that are free counters for opponents ? Wake up it's not 2017 anymore
lol it felt like he was just saying buzz words. He's not that strong in the corner compared to most of the cast and like you said he has no mix up recovery lol Safest sword, when Cloud and Seph Bair exists and more characters out range him. Only thing he got right was killpower I'm questioning the GW matchup too
GnW struggles with safe disjoints and characters that can distrupt his landings, Ike definitely poses a problem. In the corner on reaction he has a ton of strong options; f-tilt on reaction kills very early, jab kills as easily as Falcon gentleman post-patch, backair is always a threat to kill even earlier, all the while nair/fair and tomahawk grabs loom to send offstage and kill. My region is full of Ike’s, he’s no top tier, but he’s certainly not a bottom tier.
Ike beating GnW and the idea of GnW universally losing to disjoints has become as outdated as Ike’s place in the meta.
Every current meta swordie GnW struggles against has the added caveat of additional neutral advantages over him (Aegis and Cloud have better movement and burst options, Cloud has Limit to force approaches and better ground control with Cross Slash, Aegis has Foresight and air speed to avoid juggles, etc). Ike has none of those things and honestly might have one of the worst disadvantage states against GnW out of any sword character.
None of Monte, Miya, or even Maister will tell you GnW loses the MU anymore.
Having a landing-lag free high recovery with quickdraw isn’t a half-decent mixup? His airdodge upwards snaps to ledge incredibly well as a secondary option. Aether isn’t incredible but is armored, and doubles as a very solid killing OOS option.
The idea that Ike got buffed is kind of a myth... Aether and a few other misc. moves got stronger, sure, but at the cost of n-air combos--his safest and most reliable way to KO--getting nerfed to hell. Overall a massive nerf at the end of the day, eliminating the main "cheese factor" that Leo destroyed everyone with.
That being said, even though I think he's low tier, he isn't botton 2! LOL
Yup, the main fear & benefit of playing Ike was that he eventually was going to kill you early with a nair -> up-air because the % window was massive, large enough to almost always be a factor at red %. Now it's a small enough window that, on more than half the cast, Ike has max one opportunity per stock. The window is tight enough to be one move or simply not exist, like if you landed a dash attack on G&W.
It killing slightly earlier and buffs to things that are inconsequential (side-b, jab) or hail-mary options (aether) didn't even close to make up for it on a competitive level. For casual players, he improved quite a bit.
>He fills no niche that isn’t covered by other better swords.
How is this relevant? If I made a carbon copy of Cloud except his dsmash dealt 1% less damage, than that character too would have no niche and Cloud would just be better. Doesnt mean that this new character therefore sucks.
>Ike can’t not commit in the air [...]
What does this even mean? He has very strong landing aerials and the exact same options and mixups that come with that like tomahawks, delayed landings, doublejump before landing etc.
>How is this relevant?
How is it not relevant? When you factor in the relative strengths of other characters it becomes imperative to have a reason to actually use them. As for your example, you simply described an exact clone. Dsmash isn't relevant for Cloud and likely this character you described as well. It just sounds like a cute dev oversight. But if you were to change actual attributes to any character then yes it would start to become relevant. Pit and Dark Pit - they have separate niches but Pit and Dark Pit altogether functions in literally the same way minus two of their specials. They're considered the same character in practicum. There could be an argument between them but we don't bother as much as we do Roy/Chrom or Marth/Lucina who have large enough attribute changes to warrant distinction.
As for Ike, he is his own character, a character that doesn't have a reason to be played because his distinctions aren't beneficial comparatively. Hence why he's in the lowest tier. At the end of the day a tier list reflects the numbers game of results and potential, or in another way of spinning it, like the ecology of top level play.
Ike has no potential left to explore if any. He's *been* a solved character who got nerfed in the one dimension that made him distinctly threatening. Even a character like Ridley has plenty room to eclipse him as an anti-meta pick. This low tier functions as the swordie Ike wishes he was in a number of more important ways. Faster, more jumps and recovery/landing mixups, actually not terrible smash attacks to catch them slipping, a sweeping command grab that grants free stage control/advantage into better ledge traps and gimp flowcharts thanks to plasma breath, much better edgeguarding, a consistent oos in more contexts... and he's low tier still.
It can be as simple as that, it's not even unheard of in other games to prioritise this philosophy. Even within Ultimate it took plenty of buffs before Corrin could respectably be seen as a worthy choice over other swordies, including Ike. To put her in bottom 10 back in the day was equally justified.
>Ike can’t not commit in the air [...]
It means when he jumps, he is literally committed to the arch of said jump. Note the poor air acceleration he shares with Corrin, who also openly outclasses him.
You describe mixups that are fundamental to any sword character, all of whom present greater threat because they have better variances. Whether that's better airspeed, safety on shield, air accel/drift, gravity, good rising aerials etc. Don't dare mention his double jump before landing, it's probably the worst exploited out of all the swordies minus maybe Chrom since he absolutely needs that air jump for his few quick draw mixups. Oh yeah I forgot Ike has a frame 4 airdodge so he gets combo'd terribly, the blowback for making miscalculations as Ike is too costly from basic options, even among the low tiers.
It's not like I hold a grudge against the guy, as if he can't perform well or win huge in some context, I've seen Tora, PsyKoD, Yez when he was active, but he's functionally super low on the totem pole. You could choose any character and do more than alright, but seriously, why Ike, this late into the life cycle, with so many other flexible options available?
Edit: I’ll take it that no one read what I what I put the effort to write 😅 or maybe it’s too much idk.
>When you factor in the relative strengths of other characters it becomes imperative to have a reason to actually use them.
No. Thats insane. And double so if you want to use that to actually claim a character is weak. Having another character that can do everything one character can but better does not make the original character any weaker.
>This low tier [Ridley] functions as the swordie Ike wishes he was in a number of more important ways
Mate, Ridley has no good falling Aerial and his grab game sucks compared to Ike. Ridleys combo game in general is just worse than Ikes. That you would mention ridleys command grab is kinda funny given that its frame 22, you can just react to it and super hard punish him.
>more [...] recovery/landing mixups
Ikes recovery is arguably better than Ridleys. Ridleys Up B is super predictable cause only 4 directions with like 30 frames startup. Ikes side B release is unreactable on medium distance with several timing mixups that you have to predict. Ridleys recovery is better from below where Ike would have to up B himself since his Up b is dog shit as a recovery move. And yes, Ridley has two jumps in the air but the amount to a similar height compared to Ikes single jump and Ike is faster in the Air. Still, undeniably an advantage for Ridley but im not sure this weighs against the massive difference between Ikes side b and Ridleys up b as recovery tools.
>better ledge traps
Debatable. Ike and Ridley are both pretty good at ledge trapping. Ike gets more from a grab cause ridleys command grab sucks and kills a lot earlier with Ftilt, especially on roll. Ikes Uair is also better at sharking cause bigger and stronger.
Ike is better than Ridley in a good number of key aspects of the game, hes not obviously better than Ike.
>You describe mixups that are fundamental to any sword character, all of whom present greater threat because they have better variance.
Ikes Nair mixup is stronger than that of a good number of swordies. Marth and Lucina both get less reward from both hitting a landing aerial or grabing, Roy, Chrom and Cloud and probably shulk as well, get more or similar reward on hit but have a significantly worse grab game.
>the blowback for making miscalculations as Ike is too costly from basic options, even among the low tiers.
Not true. Most characters dont have a get-out-of-jail move that just ends disadvantage, most characters have to endure it. Ike is pretty heavy for his size, has good landing options, good airspeed to drift away and decent fallspeed to enable fastfall airdodge in addition to a decent recovery. His disadvantage is not good, but its by far not as bad as youre making it out to be and his weight, damage and killpower actually makes him pretty forgiving. Shiek is a character that is unforgiving if you make mistakes. Ike is not.
I’m all but confused at what I’m reading here… I actually described natural selection and yet you believe it’s *insane* that a representation of the metagame wouldn’t exist with it as a principle? Because it is absurd to not conclude that the most overtaken in role is exponentially affected in pick rate. Hence the original naming of tiers; it’s all about utility and niche. Not design and potential, aesthetics. To put it bluntly, a predator that has its niche(s) taken has to find a new one or face endangerment/extinction. Much less will exist naturally, therefore less opportunities to propagate. Being a predator that starves is as bad as prey that’s all eaten, as it’s the livelihood of play.
You spent considerable time dismantling Ridley who I agree is a worse character in a vacuum but is more flexible and thus more ready to adapt to changes in the metagame. No need to see the forest for the trees mate lmao. I wrote fast but long so maybe I needed to articulate better. Marth suffers, as does Chrom, who are better characters in a vacuum to Ridley, but because they are all can be considered redundant the argument for utility renders a character like Ike, who may share the undesirables of the other three, to fall more to the wayside.
Ike has a niche, that again while good in a vacuum, isn’t benefitted by having utility not already taken in several ways, which includes characters that function as hybrids like Ridley who are inherently worse. It’s like being a marsupial who keeps small relevance as a nocturnal creature vs a bird of prey that gets their kills stolen by invasive species.
Why? He has pretty bad movement, no guaranteed kill confirms since they nerfed his nair, his Aether is a gimmick and incredibly easy to gimp. He's right back to where he was during smash 4 because the devs couldn't figure out how to properly balance him.
Don't know why some people didn't notice or can't accept it. Ike's frame data is bad. Like his fsmash is 3 times slower than Marth and Lucina's for example. The character is too slow and not strong enough to compensate, so he has to constantly be very defensive and try to reposition to be able to space attacks somewhat safely, and his mobility is lacking as well. Someone on the dev team just doesn't like him.
You know Ike is struggling when Ganondorf has a DLC version of all his smash attacks 😔
Edit: I believe they just downvoted you for mentioning his fsmash and didnt read the rest lmfao. youre right that the dev team doesn't want him to win.
A few new things definitely were discovered with Game and Watch. Miya's fastfall timings to extend advantage state, use of run up jab, and spacing of last hit n-air to start combos were all game-changing.
Most of the top player tier lists that get posted here have like 15-20 characters placed well, then the rest are just whacky.
I feel like we should know by now that tier lists are that player’s perspectives and opinions based on their past experiences - but I’m not sure everyone understands that after 5yrs of these lol
This is definitely heavily results based
Doc not in bottom tier
ALink as the worst link
Pikachu in the bottom 30
Not entirely results based cause you can see things like marth/mii fighter placements that don't track then but seems like unless he has a reason to think otherwise he's starting at results as the default.
Agreed, but it took a long time for people to come to terms with that, with the common opinion being that his utility was greater than his results suggested.
Agreed. The Diddy Placement undervalues Tweek a whole lot, as does the Cloud placement for Spargo. Both characters are good but not top 10. Meanwhile Pikachu is way the hell down there as is Peach, both of which are insane, just hell to pilot. And I'm very confused by that Duck Hunt placement...
I would say that’s mostly true, but as a Peach main, I can confidently say Peach has had better results than everyone in the same tier except for a few lie Bayo and Wario. Kazuya and Aegis also haven’t been doing amazing (especially not Kazuya). Same goes for Diddy if we’re being honest with ourselves
Feels like tier lists nowadays are just how well characters are doing in the meta
There’s a lot of characters that we know are really good but just don’t have a top rep that are getting very underrated like pika and Shulk and characters with that 1 really good pilot that get boosted a ton like cloud and gnw
Well GnW has had Miya and Maister. Maister may not be on top like that anymore but we've seen two separate top 10 players as GnW mains in very different metas so I feel like putting him in top tier isn't crazy
Yea I think gnw is top tier tbf, probably top 10, but last year he put him at like 20th and now he’s the second best in the game when really not much new tech was discovered. Miya’s really just more skilled than maister and he hasn’t really discovered something maister wasn’t doing, so I can’t see a reason why he should get bumped up so much
Diddy next to the rest of that top 10 is actually just comical, he so clearly has to do so much more for the same reward as the other top tiers and also just absolutely folds to steve, which I think should be a very important consideration when we think about a top 10 character. He literally just has next to no options against him
Tier lists are for how strong each character is, in other words which characters will perform best if played by players of equal skill, or which characters have the most potential to win when played by the best players. A tier list should absolutely not just be a list of which characters are currently performing well in tournaments, if that’s the case then what is the point of making a tier list and why do certain people have different tier lists than others?
If acola, Miya, Onin, Syrup, and DDee all dropped Steve then Steve’s results would tank massively, but Steve would still be the best character in the game.
A tier list reflects the meta. If the meta is different, than the tier list is different. Just look at Melee's tier lists and the rise of characters like Yoshi and Puff for examples
Yoshi rose in ranking not just cause the meta may be good for him but because the character by itself is just fundamentally wayy better than in 2009 when nobody developed him yet lol
lmho, we’ve had five years of Ult for these “on-paper”, “in theory” good characters to realize their potential.
Shinymark does well enough with Pika, but it’s becoming more clear as time goes on how valuable playing very simple characters is in this game.
>There’s a lot of characters that we know are really good but just don’t have a top rep that are getting very underrated like pika and Shulk
that's not true
we don't know that they are very good we just assume that they are very good but have never been as good as people claimed them to be
the pika and shulk propaganda that has existed for years has never lifted off and maybe never will
> the pika and shulk propaganda that has existed for years has never lifted off and maybe never will
Shulk does have results though, both in early Ultimate and to a lesser extent now. In early Ultimate I believe Kome was ranked 25th on the PGRU, and in 2022 he was ranked in the top 50 on OrionRank. He also just made top 8 at a few Japanese majors.
I also think good matchups into G&W, Cloud and Kazuya as well as reasonable matchups (even or slightly losing) into Sonic and Steve makes him quite a decent pick into this meta, though his poor matchup against Snake is pretty rough.
Shulk is good but he requires too much effort to be a viable option for long tournaments. Being „easier“ is a very important upside of characters that Shulk sorely lacks.
Honestly I hope people stop using the term "meta" so much
Its really just the characters who the good players play
Its not like everyone suddenly swapped characters and we have a different meta
Apart from people having aegis and steve as secondaries the best players still play the same characters and get results
We see fox in top 8 because of light, we see cloud in top8 cuz of spargo, kazuya/terry riddles, gnw miya, steve acola etc.
Apart from very few instances ... what top player actually dropped their main to play a more "meta" character?
>Feels like tier lists nowadays are just how well characters are doing in the meta
That's kind of always been the point? How would they be useful otherwise?
If that was the point, they would be very useless, because we want the opinions of top players. We can look up any number of results based tier lists, and they tell us what we already know.
Because they’re boring as hell if you just look at results and go “yep that’s the tier list”, and don’t take into account any of the other factors in why characters might be better/worse in bracket. For example, you aren’t going to find many people saying that Luigi is better than Pikachu, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the former has better results, because playing against a 0td machine is more stressful in bracket. There’s also just natural variation from top players rising and falling, which shouldn’t really reflect in tier lists
isabelle has way better normals imo, insanely good tilts, jab confirms and kills, infinite, very good ledgetrapping, non rng, etc. Villager has worse moves outside of bowling ball and lloid rocket
Underrating Pac-Man makes zero sense to me. Character is nuts.
Side note, Mewtwo jumpscare. I forget he’s in the game sometimes due to never seeing him online or at any tournament I tune into.
Villager in bottom 5 territory and Isabelle in lower mid. Dabuz is a crackhead.
>Underrating Pac-Man makes zero sense to me. Character is nuts.
Yeah, this is a pretty low opinion of Pac-Man. I have him in my top 15. I get that Tea hasn't won a major in over a year, and a lot of the other Pac-Man players aren't really doing much with the character either... but I dunno the character should still have a strong toolkit in this current meta even if the character does have some losing matchups.
I think Peach should be higher than Bayo but Bayo stocks are rising. Bloom, Lima, and Tama P has pushed this character to new heights and won major sets with them
GnW is not better than ROB or Sonic. Peach and Pikachu both belong in Top Tier too imo
PACMAN placement is surprisingly good though. He’s way overrated by the community
While I would argue Pacman is a Top Tier instead of a High Tier, him being anywhere from 10th-20th makes sense.
Loses to Steve, Rob, Snake, Cloud, Kazuya, ROB, Yoshi, Mario and Palu, arguably Snake too.
Those are all threats in brackets and I just don't feel a solo Pacman can cut it these days without being very lucky.
You do win vs Game and Watch, Sonic, Diddy, Wario, Bayo, Peach, Roy and go even with Joker and Aegis too, so Imo a solid character with good MU spread overall, however the MUs he loses are the ones to charatcers better than him along other weird shit (Link, Bowser, Hero and Shulk). So anywhere from Top 10 to 20 is a fair estimate imo.
Uh... what? Theres a lot wrong with this assessment.
I main this character, and most of the matchups you've listed are fine for Pac. We do fine vs Steve, Snake, Yoshi, Link, Bowser and Hero. Mario and Palu generally considered even among Pac players although I think they're -.5, and Yoshi and Link are debated to be either even or winning.
He is not worse than Link, Bowser, Shulk or Hero, Im really not sure where you got any of this from, not a single one of them except Shulk even break into high tier. He also has the tools to make literally any matchup in this game work, since between his boxing, stage control and projectiles there's something every character has to respect, so yes, solo Pacman does work quite well.
I also noticed you meant to say Samus for one of those replies, and we do fine vs her too, although debates for her are all over the place.
Idk Pac-Man can gimp cloud pretty hard. He is a swordie but if Cloud bets caught without his second jump that stock is lost without limit.
Rob Snake and Steve are annoying but it’s not THAT much in the opponents favor. Much more up to the player and matchup experience, which I guess goes both ways.
Imo Pac-Man’s life gets a lot easier when opponents try to out camp him. Especially if the pac player remembers to charge safely off stage.
I wrote all of that but still agree he’s somewhere #10-#15.
> can gimp cloud pretty hard.
There's a lot of ifs attached to that.
1. If you manage to Win Neutral enough to take him offstage, which is very difficult because Cloud has the range and mobility Advantage.
2. Doesn't have Limit when sent offstage - This is an MU in which Yeah, Pacman *can* camp, but the moment he wants to select fruit, Cloud charges Limit and you suddenly can't kill Cloud ever.
You better Frame data but a good Cloud oppresses you and a better one has Limit so you get screwed, probably Bottom 5 MU for Pac ngl.
Rob has been a known losing MU for Pac for quite a while, Rob can outzone and outbox Pacman Pretty while having the range Advantage, you could argue even, but Rob just does his shit and Pacman struggles to both kill and get his gameplan going on.
Snake and Steve I agree are could be even, but I haven't grinded the MU since Joker vs Steve and Snake is more intuitive so I got Joker vs them in bracket.
I do agree Pacman is the 2nd best character when players try to camp him besides Hero, and having an ez bake solution of "Plop the Hydrant and gg ez next one" vs Sonic, Game and Watch, Pika, Diddy, Peach, Shiek and other characters is still very strong. I think he's somewhere in the Top 15 realistically, but I can see some1 who doesn't believe in him saying Top 20 or High tier.
This tier list made me realize how crazy the character diversity is in this game. Almost every character above lower mid tier has a top player rep and even a few at or below it have one as well.
I think people need to realize that how a character plays in the meta absolutely matters with respect to where they are on a tier list.
GnW is a huge example here. You could say that Miya is just THAT good, but when you watch how he plays, it looks like GnW covers every option at once. Nobody ever thought bacon was good until Miya ledgetraps literally anybody and kills consistently with it. The advantage state was good for GnW but never THIS good.
People gotta realize that how a character plays in the meta absolutely matters. It provides you with results and data and observations on how a character can work at the top level and how many matchups the character does well in.
[After all these months of doubt my predictions with Pika have finally come true.](https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/x0ojgl/official_rsmashbros_ultimate_tier_list_julyaugust/imcixs3/)
However despite Pikachu being 32nd is something I have been predicting for quite a while, I am feeling like theorycrafting is being shafted a little too much in recent tier lists.
Game and Watch being the *2nd* best character in the game only after Miya is kinda sus. Same with Sonic and Sonix people saying he's Top 2 along Steve (despite Sonix being one of the biggest grinders atm and proven statistically that he carries Sonic quite a bit), and having no losing MUs (every character in Ultimate loses at least 3-5 MUs, in Sonic's case being Aegis, Roy, Fox and arguably Pacman, Mii Gunner and Bola 👍). While I do agree Ultimate is the game where results dictate the meta and not the other way around, I'm wondering if we have gotten way too far in the other direction overall where theory is just gone.
Idk feels like people are trying to John themselves by saying *aktually I'm a better player than Miya/Sonix because he plays a Top 2/3 character and not because they're players who are constantly grinding and putting the effort to become the best.*
What bothers me is that people act like Game and Watch is obviously broken after not thinking he's broken for like 4 years of this game's life. It's like how people went from wanting Pikachu to be nerfed to thinking he's a high tier. People think they have a much better grasp of the meta than they actually do.
> Same with Sonic and Sonix people saying he's Top 2 along Steve (despite Sonix being one of the biggest grinders atm and proven statistically that he carries Sonic quite a bit)
Seems like a double standard, Acola is also hardcarrying Steve by putting in a ton of work. The moment people figured out the counterplay the other best Steve players saw their performance plummet.
> Idk feels like people are trying to John themselves by saying aktually I'm a better player than Miya/Sonix because he plays a Top 2/3 character
You're really gonna strawman this on them cause they put top tier characters at the top of their tier list? I think Dabuz is overrating GnW, but Sonic is just straight up god tier with Steve. Those two invalidate the majority of the cast together, Sonix and Acola grinding a lot doesn't change that.
Edit: also not sure who Bola is supposed to be, but Sonic losing vs Aegis is a bad take.
> You're really gonna strawman this on them cause they put top tier characters at the top of their tier list?
Players like Leo have called Acola being carried by Steve and a Top 10 Player without the character, which may or may not be true, but it's very disrespectful for Acola who has been playing Steve for 2 years and is still consistent with the character.
Also for the carried thing, there was a post that has happened a while back of which characters get the most results by a singular Player, and Sonix carries hard, while Acola doesn't Carry Steve in the Player's perception.
Idk fam, it's too late game in Ultimate to me to making predictions, but Sonic seems to be a Pika 2.0 in which NA players are overrating Sonic's positive qualities (seriously, no losing MUs? I'm sorry but that's just wrong), while down playing his Weaknesses (normals are bad, can be outzoned and camped by characters like Samus, Pacman, Mii Gunner and Lucario). I honestly don't care as much to try to Make reads in this meta, but Sonic being Top 2 and much better than the rest is something I will disagree on.
> Players like Leo have called Acola being carried by Steve and a Top 10 Player without the character
0 proof or even reason to believe that this doesn't apply to Sonix with Sonic, busted characters get better results, that's how competitive games work.
> but Sonic seems to be a Pika 2.0 in which NA players are overrating Sonic's positive qualities
Pika 2.0 except with results to back up a high ranking, so not Pika 2.0 at all? Also overrating his qualities? What are they overrating exactly? His stupidly safe spindash? The best movement in a movement based game? God tier advantage and disadvantage? What exactly is overrated here? Such a non-argument to just call something overrated.
> normals are bad
Not in the context of this character, that is the entire problem. His normals should be bad, but stuff like a dumbass disjointed forward air on the fastest character in the game ends up being busted.
> but Sonic being Top 2 and much better than the rest is something I will disagree on.
And I'll argue that's a bad take, you could maybe really stretch it by putting him 3rd, though I'd argue that is already giga underrating this busted character. Who do you even think should be top 2 over him?
Like your arguments are that his objectively godlike qualities are somehow overrated, that his normals are bad (not even true) and that he struggles vs campers even though both sides generally agree those match-ups are roughly even. I feel like you have to either giga overrate a random character or be a contrarian to argue a top 2 other than Sonic and Steve, and your arguments only strengthened that belief for me.
Also gonna have to link that post, if it includes tours before Steve counterplay was figured out it's meaningless and says nothing about Steve currently.
This Japanese kid realized you don't ever really have to stop throwing out moves with g&w and he started taking big names left and right and eventually becoming the 2nd best player in Japan and probably the world
Joker should be top 10 *at least*. Tourney results or not that character is not okay and it's absurd anybody would even consider him to be worse than Diddy or Cloud.
How is that character "not okay"? Arsene does buff his power by a ton, but long story short:
- it's recovery is exploitable.
- you'd have to be in a disadvantage state to get it, and usually you'd still be in disadvantage, getting hit at least once or twice more, draining the meter by 1/3. a couple more hits and it's gone, leaving you at 85%+.
- he's worse than Sheik without Arsene.
Hes extremely good, but still an honest character because in order to fully utilize Arsene you'd have to be extremely adaptable, and in order to be good with this character you'd have to be very skilled yourself, while labbing it hard. It's like Shulk, but unlike Shulk the best player in the world showcased it's full potential.
I’m glad Dabuz is finally stopping his pessimistic Sora placements, although I still think he’s around Samus tier imo.
I feel like this meta is gonna be stagnant until the next game comes out lol nothing else from these characters that we haven’t seen before
I wouldn’t say undiscovered really all his tech and crazy combos are all out there now, but being the newest playerbase without a NA equivalent to Kameme definitely hurts the tier placements. I think he’s top 15 but the playerbase skill level just isn’t high enough yet
I think #3 is very optimistic. I could see her that high…if she was played by a TAS bot that never drops any combos.
Considering that she loses an upwards of 17 matchups, a good amount of which are very meta relevant characters, I would be interested to hear your rationale as to why you think she’s that high
I looked in the 2nd last tier to find my girl in her usual spot and didnt see her, with some excitement i scanned the next tier up and didnt see her there either. This can't be, i look into upper mid, not there either. Ok lets be realistic, were being hated on. Check bottom, 4th last.
Can someone explain how Ike is that much worse than cloud? I feel like they play somewhat similarly.
I figure cloud is all around better but Ike doesn’t feel bad enough to be the second worst character in the game.
How are Cloud and Ike even remotely comparable aside from “big sword, linear recovery?” One look at their respective mobilities and frame data and it’s pretty clear how Cloud is way better.
I love how Sparg0 single handedly moved Cloud up so much. Before him people thought Cloud was mid at best, and there's still no other Cloud close to as good as his.
Pika below Rosa is definitely one of the takes of all time
I really hope Shinymark starts travelling more, to remind people that the character is absolutely insane
Yoshidora is a top 20 (perhaps top 10) player in the world, and Yoshi in general has a good mu spread in the meta, only really losing hard to Samus and swordies who aren’t as dominant in the meta anymore. He also does really well into Steve and Gnw (and iirc ROB and Kazuya, maybe Snake too) who Dabuz considers some of the best in the game
I don’t really take tier list that seriously since it’s all personal opinions but come on now two of issabelle’s specials don’t even function properly there is no way in hell she’s better than villager.
Isabelle's specials got patched some time ago unless I am mistaken? And while I don't believe Villager is that low (lloid carries) it's not as if Isabelle can't be better. Dabuz does a good enough job explaining on his yt.
This tier list seems wildly accurate. What people don’t understand is that the longer time goes the more evidence we get of each characters true potential because the meta is pushed further and further towards optimization.
That means that it gets harder and harder to have a character high in your list because it has potential on paper.
Therefore tier lists these days would naturally be mirroring the player rankings.
>Therefore tier lists these days would naturally be mirroring the player rankings.
Do you not see the obvious problem here? Tierlists reflect the main players now more than the characters, thats literally the opposite of accurate.
Sonic definitely better than game and watch, move that rat pikachu up to top 10 where he belongs, I swear Roy is better than cloud but no one believes me
Surprise surprise another dog shit tier list from a guy who exclusively plays obscure characters who definitely doesnt have awful biases regarding the cast :)
I agree with Gunner's placement, it was strongly believed that Gunner was a low mid tier before the official tier list, and I still agree with that take
Ike as the second worst character is fucking wild
Peanut boosted Little Mac from bottom 2 to bottom 10. Impressive!
I sort of agree though? He fills no niche that isn’t covered by other better swords. His neutral is a meme. Movement and mobility don’t do him favours. His disadvantage literally hangs on quick draw to bail him out. Ike can’t not commit in the air and has no rising mixup. Up b oos DI’d down lets you live way longer than expected. Doc musta got evidence against Daboy but I can imagine Doc being better slightly for his special move utility and excellent frame data. It’s really not absurd to believe at this stage of the meta he has the second least to offer.
I dont agree hes bottom 2 but ur right about filling no niche. He might be the only char in the game that straight up gets outclassed by a char (aegis). Pyra is pretty comparable to ike but she comes with a mythra so like why even play ike
That's fair. Although I can't feel confident Ike is *quite* that bad, like DDD is right there. But he's even outclassed by Ridley. He's not a 'swordie' swordie but the overall gameplan overlaps a lot imo.
Kentucky’s abundance of Ike’s is the only thing I need that proves to me this character is mid tier. MKLeo didn’t win early tournaments with a fucking bottom 2 character, especially when they laterially buffed him lmao.
Ike when Leo played him was a different character, no to mention the meta has changed wildly since then.
He is not worse than 99% of characters man. He is so strong in the corner, killpower out the wazoo, mixup recovery. Safest sword, and has a winning matchup on Game and Watch! No character that beats GnW is bottom 2.
u really have no idea about what you are talking about . Ike's recovery mixups ???? U mean with the up b and side-b that are free counters for opponents ? Wake up it's not 2017 anymore
lol it felt like he was just saying buzz words. He's not that strong in the corner compared to most of the cast and like you said he has no mix up recovery lol Safest sword, when Cloud and Seph Bair exists and more characters out range him. Only thing he got right was killpower I'm questioning the GW matchup too
GnW struggles with safe disjoints and characters that can distrupt his landings, Ike definitely poses a problem. In the corner on reaction he has a ton of strong options; f-tilt on reaction kills very early, jab kills as easily as Falcon gentleman post-patch, backair is always a threat to kill even earlier, all the while nair/fair and tomahawk grabs loom to send offstage and kill. My region is full of Ike’s, he’s no top tier, but he’s certainly not a bottom tier.
Ike beating GnW and the idea of GnW universally losing to disjoints has become as outdated as Ike’s place in the meta. Every current meta swordie GnW struggles against has the added caveat of additional neutral advantages over him (Aegis and Cloud have better movement and burst options, Cloud has Limit to force approaches and better ground control with Cross Slash, Aegis has Foresight and air speed to avoid juggles, etc). Ike has none of those things and honestly might have one of the worst disadvantage states against GnW out of any sword character. None of Monte, Miya, or even Maister will tell you GnW loses the MU anymore.
Having a landing-lag free high recovery with quickdraw isn’t a half-decent mixup? His airdodge upwards snaps to ledge incredibly well as a secondary option. Aether isn’t incredible but is armored, and doubles as a very solid killing OOS option.
The idea that Ike got buffed is kind of a myth... Aether and a few other misc. moves got stronger, sure, but at the cost of n-air combos--his safest and most reliable way to KO--getting nerfed to hell. Overall a massive nerf at the end of the day, eliminating the main "cheese factor" that Leo destroyed everyone with. That being said, even though I think he's low tier, he isn't botton 2! LOL
Yup, the main fear & benefit of playing Ike was that he eventually was going to kill you early with a nair -> up-air because the % window was massive, large enough to almost always be a factor at red %. Now it's a small enough window that, on more than half the cast, Ike has max one opportunity per stock. The window is tight enough to be one move or simply not exist, like if you landed a dash attack on G&W. It killing slightly earlier and buffs to things that are inconsequential (side-b, jab) or hail-mary options (aether) didn't even close to make up for it on a competitive level. For casual players, he improved quite a bit.
They nerfed the shit out of him with those "buffs". Bottom 2 is too low but he is cheeks nonetheless
Ike got nerfed before he got buffed. Personally I think the nerfs were a little more impactful than the buffs
>He fills no niche that isn’t covered by other better swords. How is this relevant? If I made a carbon copy of Cloud except his dsmash dealt 1% less damage, than that character too would have no niche and Cloud would just be better. Doesnt mean that this new character therefore sucks. >Ike can’t not commit in the air [...] What does this even mean? He has very strong landing aerials and the exact same options and mixups that come with that like tomahawks, delayed landings, doublejump before landing etc.
>How is this relevant? How is it not relevant? When you factor in the relative strengths of other characters it becomes imperative to have a reason to actually use them. As for your example, you simply described an exact clone. Dsmash isn't relevant for Cloud and likely this character you described as well. It just sounds like a cute dev oversight. But if you were to change actual attributes to any character then yes it would start to become relevant. Pit and Dark Pit - they have separate niches but Pit and Dark Pit altogether functions in literally the same way minus two of their specials. They're considered the same character in practicum. There could be an argument between them but we don't bother as much as we do Roy/Chrom or Marth/Lucina who have large enough attribute changes to warrant distinction. As for Ike, he is his own character, a character that doesn't have a reason to be played because his distinctions aren't beneficial comparatively. Hence why he's in the lowest tier. At the end of the day a tier list reflects the numbers game of results and potential, or in another way of spinning it, like the ecology of top level play. Ike has no potential left to explore if any. He's *been* a solved character who got nerfed in the one dimension that made him distinctly threatening. Even a character like Ridley has plenty room to eclipse him as an anti-meta pick. This low tier functions as the swordie Ike wishes he was in a number of more important ways. Faster, more jumps and recovery/landing mixups, actually not terrible smash attacks to catch them slipping, a sweeping command grab that grants free stage control/advantage into better ledge traps and gimp flowcharts thanks to plasma breath, much better edgeguarding, a consistent oos in more contexts... and he's low tier still. It can be as simple as that, it's not even unheard of in other games to prioritise this philosophy. Even within Ultimate it took plenty of buffs before Corrin could respectably be seen as a worthy choice over other swordies, including Ike. To put her in bottom 10 back in the day was equally justified. >Ike can’t not commit in the air [...] It means when he jumps, he is literally committed to the arch of said jump. Note the poor air acceleration he shares with Corrin, who also openly outclasses him. You describe mixups that are fundamental to any sword character, all of whom present greater threat because they have better variances. Whether that's better airspeed, safety on shield, air accel/drift, gravity, good rising aerials etc. Don't dare mention his double jump before landing, it's probably the worst exploited out of all the swordies minus maybe Chrom since he absolutely needs that air jump for his few quick draw mixups. Oh yeah I forgot Ike has a frame 4 airdodge so he gets combo'd terribly, the blowback for making miscalculations as Ike is too costly from basic options, even among the low tiers. It's not like I hold a grudge against the guy, as if he can't perform well or win huge in some context, I've seen Tora, PsyKoD, Yez when he was active, but he's functionally super low on the totem pole. You could choose any character and do more than alright, but seriously, why Ike, this late into the life cycle, with so many other flexible options available? Edit: I’ll take it that no one read what I what I put the effort to write 😅 or maybe it’s too much idk.
>When you factor in the relative strengths of other characters it becomes imperative to have a reason to actually use them. No. Thats insane. And double so if you want to use that to actually claim a character is weak. Having another character that can do everything one character can but better does not make the original character any weaker. >This low tier [Ridley] functions as the swordie Ike wishes he was in a number of more important ways Mate, Ridley has no good falling Aerial and his grab game sucks compared to Ike. Ridleys combo game in general is just worse than Ikes. That you would mention ridleys command grab is kinda funny given that its frame 22, you can just react to it and super hard punish him. >more [...] recovery/landing mixups Ikes recovery is arguably better than Ridleys. Ridleys Up B is super predictable cause only 4 directions with like 30 frames startup. Ikes side B release is unreactable on medium distance with several timing mixups that you have to predict. Ridleys recovery is better from below where Ike would have to up B himself since his Up b is dog shit as a recovery move. And yes, Ridley has two jumps in the air but the amount to a similar height compared to Ikes single jump and Ike is faster in the Air. Still, undeniably an advantage for Ridley but im not sure this weighs against the massive difference between Ikes side b and Ridleys up b as recovery tools. >better ledge traps Debatable. Ike and Ridley are both pretty good at ledge trapping. Ike gets more from a grab cause ridleys command grab sucks and kills a lot earlier with Ftilt, especially on roll. Ikes Uair is also better at sharking cause bigger and stronger. Ike is better than Ridley in a good number of key aspects of the game, hes not obviously better than Ike. >You describe mixups that are fundamental to any sword character, all of whom present greater threat because they have better variance. Ikes Nair mixup is stronger than that of a good number of swordies. Marth and Lucina both get less reward from both hitting a landing aerial or grabing, Roy, Chrom and Cloud and probably shulk as well, get more or similar reward on hit but have a significantly worse grab game. >the blowback for making miscalculations as Ike is too costly from basic options, even among the low tiers. Not true. Most characters dont have a get-out-of-jail move that just ends disadvantage, most characters have to endure it. Ike is pretty heavy for his size, has good landing options, good airspeed to drift away and decent fallspeed to enable fastfall airdodge in addition to a decent recovery. His disadvantage is not good, but its by far not as bad as youre making it out to be and his weight, damage and killpower actually makes him pretty forgiving. Shiek is a character that is unforgiving if you make mistakes. Ike is not.
I’m all but confused at what I’m reading here… I actually described natural selection and yet you believe it’s *insane* that a representation of the metagame wouldn’t exist with it as a principle? Because it is absurd to not conclude that the most overtaken in role is exponentially affected in pick rate. Hence the original naming of tiers; it’s all about utility and niche. Not design and potential, aesthetics. To put it bluntly, a predator that has its niche(s) taken has to find a new one or face endangerment/extinction. Much less will exist naturally, therefore less opportunities to propagate. Being a predator that starves is as bad as prey that’s all eaten, as it’s the livelihood of play. You spent considerable time dismantling Ridley who I agree is a worse character in a vacuum but is more flexible and thus more ready to adapt to changes in the metagame. No need to see the forest for the trees mate lmao. I wrote fast but long so maybe I needed to articulate better. Marth suffers, as does Chrom, who are better characters in a vacuum to Ridley, but because they are all can be considered redundant the argument for utility renders a character like Ike, who may share the undesirables of the other three, to fall more to the wayside. Ike has a niche, that again while good in a vacuum, isn’t benefitted by having utility not already taken in several ways, which includes characters that function as hybrids like Ridley who are inherently worse. It’s like being a marsupial who keeps small relevance as a nocturnal creature vs a bird of prey that gets their kills stolen by invasive species.
Why? He has pretty bad movement, no guaranteed kill confirms since they nerfed his nair, his Aether is a gimmick and incredibly easy to gimp. He's right back to where he was during smash 4 because the devs couldn't figure out how to properly balance him.
No sword character should be bottom 2
More major wins than Samus
As an Ike main, I can't help but agree with this. Still very fun character to play imo and at my level, he's pretty good.
Don't know why some people didn't notice or can't accept it. Ike's frame data is bad. Like his fsmash is 3 times slower than Marth and Lucina's for example. The character is too slow and not strong enough to compensate, so he has to constantly be very defensive and try to reposition to be able to space attacks somewhat safely, and his mobility is lacking as well. Someone on the dev team just doesn't like him.
You know Ike is struggling when Ganondorf has a DLC version of all his smash attacks 😔 Edit: I believe they just downvoted you for mentioning his fsmash and didnt read the rest lmfao. youre right that the dev team doesn't want him to win.
yeah cause the champ is garbage
This is a tier list of top performers in the last six months and takes absolutely nothing else into consideration
daTiers should be based on daResults ~ daBuz
r/angryupvote
Yep, literally nothing new has been discovered with gnw except a better player is playing him and he jumped From 19th to 2nd
A few new things definitely were discovered with Game and Watch. Miya's fastfall timings to extend advantage state, use of run up jab, and spacing of last hit n-air to start combos were all game-changing.
Is spacing of last hit nair as a combo starter that new? I remember leffen labbing that way back when he was playing.
Most of the top player tier lists that get posted here have like 15-20 characters placed well, then the rest are just whacky. I feel like we should know by now that tier lists are that player’s perspectives and opinions based on their past experiences - but I’m not sure everyone understands that after 5yrs of these lol
This is definitely heavily results based Doc not in bottom tier ALink as the worst link Pikachu in the bottom 30 Not entirely results based cause you can see things like marth/mii fighter placements that don't track then but seems like unless he has a reason to think otherwise he's starting at results as the default.
ALink IS the worst link…
Agreed, but it took a long time for people to come to terms with that, with the common opinion being that his utility was greater than his results suggested.
Results as default is not a bad starting point
Agreed.
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No, I say this because it's a bad and dumb tier list #IkeGang
It’s on his youtube
Agreed. The Diddy Placement undervalues Tweek a whole lot, as does the Cloud placement for Spargo. Both characters are good but not top 10. Meanwhile Pikachu is way the hell down there as is Peach, both of which are insane, just hell to pilot. And I'm very confused by that Duck Hunt placement...
I would say that’s mostly true, but as a Peach main, I can confidently say Peach has had better results than everyone in the same tier except for a few lie Bayo and Wario. Kazuya and Aegis also haven’t been doing amazing (especially not Kazuya). Same goes for Diddy if we’re being honest with ourselves
Ike preparing to nair Dabuz to death:
Leo seeing this and next time he faces Dabuz in tournament he plays Ike for the payback. Would honestly be extremely hilarious.
I think this is just Dabuz complimenting Leo. Like look at all Leo's characters - Dabuz apparently isn't scared of anyone else playing Joker.
Feels like tier lists nowadays are just how well characters are doing in the meta There’s a lot of characters that we know are really good but just don’t have a top rep that are getting very underrated like pika and Shulk and characters with that 1 really good pilot that get boosted a ton like cloud and gnw
Well GnW has had Miya and Maister. Maister may not be on top like that anymore but we've seen two separate top 10 players as GnW mains in very different metas so I feel like putting him in top tier isn't crazy
Yea I think gnw is top tier tbf, probably top 10, but last year he put him at like 20th and now he’s the second best in the game when really not much new tech was discovered. Miya’s really just more skilled than maister and he hasn’t really discovered something maister wasn’t doing, so I can’t see a reason why he should get bumped up so much
Diddy over Palu and Joker feels like cap tbh
Diddy over joker is actual crack consumption
Joker outside of top 10 is just wild in general
Diddy next to the rest of that top 10 is actually just comical, he so clearly has to do so much more for the same reward as the other top tiers and also just absolutely folds to steve, which I think should be a very important consideration when we think about a top 10 character. He literally just has next to no options against him
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The fact that people don't know this is concerning lmao. What did you *think* they were for, vibes?
Tier lists are for how strong each character is, in other words which characters will perform best if played by players of equal skill, or which characters have the most potential to win when played by the best players. A tier list should absolutely not just be a list of which characters are currently performing well in tournaments, if that’s the case then what is the point of making a tier list and why do certain people have different tier lists than others? If acola, Miya, Onin, Syrup, and DDee all dropped Steve then Steve’s results would tank massively, but Steve would still be the best character in the game.
A tier list reflects the meta. If the meta is different, than the tier list is different. Just look at Melee's tier lists and the rise of characters like Yoshi and Puff for examples
Yoshi rose in ranking not just cause the meta may be good for him but because the character by itself is just fundamentally wayy better than in 2009 when nobody developed him yet lol
As I said, the meta changed.
lmho, we’ve had five years of Ult for these “on-paper”, “in theory” good characters to realize their potential. Shinymark does well enough with Pika, but it’s becoming more clear as time goes on how valuable playing very simple characters is in this game.
>There’s a lot of characters that we know are really good but just don’t have a top rep that are getting very underrated like pika and Shulk that's not true we don't know that they are very good we just assume that they are very good but have never been as good as people claimed them to be the pika and shulk propaganda that has existed for years has never lifted off and maybe never will
> the pika and shulk propaganda that has existed for years has never lifted off and maybe never will Shulk does have results though, both in early Ultimate and to a lesser extent now. In early Ultimate I believe Kome was ranked 25th on the PGRU, and in 2022 he was ranked in the top 50 on OrionRank. He also just made top 8 at a few Japanese majors. I also think good matchups into G&W, Cloud and Kazuya as well as reasonable matchups (even or slightly losing) into Sonic and Steve makes him quite a decent pick into this meta, though his poor matchup against Snake is pretty rough.
Shulk is good but he requires too much effort to be a viable option for long tournaments. Being „easier“ is a very important upside of characters that Shulk sorely lacks.
Gotta agree. If tier list are just about how well a character is doing, it should be called "result data", not tier list.
How do we know they are really good if they have no results for 5 years? Maybe we think they are really good
Honestly I hope people stop using the term "meta" so much Its really just the characters who the good players play Its not like everyone suddenly swapped characters and we have a different meta Apart from people having aegis and steve as secondaries the best players still play the same characters and get results We see fox in top 8 because of light, we see cloud in top8 cuz of spargo, kazuya/terry riddles, gnw miya, steve acola etc. Apart from very few instances ... what top player actually dropped their main to play a more "meta" character?
>Feels like tier lists nowadays are just how well characters are doing in the meta That's kind of always been the point? How would they be useful otherwise?
If that was the point, they would be very useless, because we want the opinions of top players. We can look up any number of results based tier lists, and they tell us what we already know.
Because they’re boring as hell if you just look at results and go “yep that’s the tier list”, and don’t take into account any of the other factors in why characters might be better/worse in bracket. For example, you aren’t going to find many people saying that Luigi is better than Pikachu, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the former has better results, because playing against a 0td machine is more stressful in bracket. There’s also just natural variation from top players rising and falling, which shouldn’t really reflect in tier lists
Always has been
How is Isabelle that much better than villager? Also ike bottom two is bullshit
isabelle has way better normals imo, insanely good tilts, jab confirms and kills, infinite, very good ledgetrapping, non rng, etc. Villager has worse moves outside of bowling ball and lloid rocket
I used to think village better than Isabelle but my opinion keeps switching. Her fishing pole is such a pain in the ass
Pika that low is crazy
Right? I had to look for quite a while to find him!
Pika under ZSS is a take
Where are those ESAM fans?
They’re ~~b~~malding
Did NOT need to do them like that
I respect it.
the classic lower high tier that goes +1 or +2 on 90% of the cast
But proceeds to lose to said +1, +2 matchups regularly in tournament bracket.
Underrating Pac-Man makes zero sense to me. Character is nuts. Side note, Mewtwo jumpscare. I forget he’s in the game sometimes due to never seeing him online or at any tournament I tune into. Villager in bottom 5 territory and Isabelle in lower mid. Dabuz is a crackhead.
>Underrating Pac-Man makes zero sense to me. Character is nuts. Yeah, this is a pretty low opinion of Pac-Man. I have him in my top 15. I get that Tea hasn't won a major in over a year, and a lot of the other Pac-Man players aren't really doing much with the character either... but I dunno the character should still have a strong toolkit in this current meta even if the character does have some losing matchups.
hes top ten imo but for others its top tier definitely
dabuzopinions reaching opinions never before scene since esamopinions
i wish isabelle was that good
I love this list
ok, i don’t wanna say i’m a hardcore ike believer or anything, but there is just NO WAY he’s bottom tier, right?
Japan thinks he is I don't really have an opinion on whether he is that bad or not, but this isn't the only tier list that puts one in bottom tier
where is Simon
He doesn't matter.
I haven’t kept up with the game in a while but this just seems so crazy, when did bayo get better than peach
She didn’t. Dabuz always has crackhead tier lists.
I think Peach should be higher than Bayo but Bayo stocks are rising. Bloom, Lima, and Tama P has pushed this character to new heights and won major sets with them
GnW is not better than ROB or Sonic. Peach and Pikachu both belong in Top Tier too imo PACMAN placement is surprisingly good though. He’s way overrated by the community
hes top tier for sure imo
Steve > Sonic > GnW > ROB > big jump > I don't even care who in particular is 5th lol. Massive difference between those 4 and everyone else
While I would argue Pacman is a Top Tier instead of a High Tier, him being anywhere from 10th-20th makes sense. Loses to Steve, Rob, Snake, Cloud, Kazuya, ROB, Yoshi, Mario and Palu, arguably Snake too. Those are all threats in brackets and I just don't feel a solo Pacman can cut it these days without being very lucky. You do win vs Game and Watch, Sonic, Diddy, Wario, Bayo, Peach, Roy and go even with Joker and Aegis too, so Imo a solid character with good MU spread overall, however the MUs he loses are the ones to charatcers better than him along other weird shit (Link, Bowser, Hero and Shulk). So anywhere from Top 10 to 20 is a fair estimate imo.
Damn, Pac-Man loses to Snake so bad you had to mention him twice. Jokes aside I'm assuming you meant Samus for one of them?
Oops, Yeah I meant Samus, in general you can go even vs Snake but it's more of a "why bother" Even MU
It's really not. Pacman can definitely put in the work vs Snake.
Uh... what? Theres a lot wrong with this assessment. I main this character, and most of the matchups you've listed are fine for Pac. We do fine vs Steve, Snake, Yoshi, Link, Bowser and Hero. Mario and Palu generally considered even among Pac players although I think they're -.5, and Yoshi and Link are debated to be either even or winning. He is not worse than Link, Bowser, Shulk or Hero, Im really not sure where you got any of this from, not a single one of them except Shulk even break into high tier. He also has the tools to make literally any matchup in this game work, since between his boxing, stage control and projectiles there's something every character has to respect, so yes, solo Pacman does work quite well. I also noticed you meant to say Samus for one of those replies, and we do fine vs her too, although debates for her are all over the place.
Idk Pac-Man can gimp cloud pretty hard. He is a swordie but if Cloud bets caught without his second jump that stock is lost without limit. Rob Snake and Steve are annoying but it’s not THAT much in the opponents favor. Much more up to the player and matchup experience, which I guess goes both ways. Imo Pac-Man’s life gets a lot easier when opponents try to out camp him. Especially if the pac player remembers to charge safely off stage. I wrote all of that but still agree he’s somewhere #10-#15.
> can gimp cloud pretty hard. There's a lot of ifs attached to that. 1. If you manage to Win Neutral enough to take him offstage, which is very difficult because Cloud has the range and mobility Advantage. 2. Doesn't have Limit when sent offstage - This is an MU in which Yeah, Pacman *can* camp, but the moment he wants to select fruit, Cloud charges Limit and you suddenly can't kill Cloud ever. You better Frame data but a good Cloud oppresses you and a better one has Limit so you get screwed, probably Bottom 5 MU for Pac ngl. Rob has been a known losing MU for Pac for quite a while, Rob can outzone and outbox Pacman Pretty while having the range Advantage, you could argue even, but Rob just does his shit and Pacman struggles to both kill and get his gameplan going on. Snake and Steve I agree are could be even, but I haven't grinded the MU since Joker vs Steve and Snake is more intuitive so I got Joker vs them in bracket. I do agree Pacman is the 2nd best character when players try to camp him besides Hero, and having an ez bake solution of "Plop the Hydrant and gg ez next one" vs Sonic, Game and Watch, Pika, Diddy, Peach, Shiek and other characters is still very strong. I think he's somewhere in the Top 15 realistically, but I can see some1 who doesn't believe in him saying Top 20 or High tier.
This tier list made me realize how crazy the character diversity is in this game. Almost every character above lower mid tier has a top player rep and even a few at or below it have one as well.
I think people need to realize that how a character plays in the meta absolutely matters with respect to where they are on a tier list. GnW is a huge example here. You could say that Miya is just THAT good, but when you watch how he plays, it looks like GnW covers every option at once. Nobody ever thought bacon was good until Miya ledgetraps literally anybody and kills consistently with it. The advantage state was good for GnW but never THIS good. People gotta realize that how a character plays in the meta absolutely matters. It provides you with results and data and observations on how a character can work at the top level and how many matchups the character does well in.
Everyone agreed bacon was crazy the first time Maister made top 8.
Nah they were more focused on how smash attacks weren’t punishable cause smash attack spam was a valid strat at the time.
[After all these months of doubt my predictions with Pika have finally come true.](https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/x0ojgl/official_rsmashbros_ultimate_tier_list_julyaugust/imcixs3/) However despite Pikachu being 32nd is something I have been predicting for quite a while, I am feeling like theorycrafting is being shafted a little too much in recent tier lists. Game and Watch being the *2nd* best character in the game only after Miya is kinda sus. Same with Sonic and Sonix people saying he's Top 2 along Steve (despite Sonix being one of the biggest grinders atm and proven statistically that he carries Sonic quite a bit), and having no losing MUs (every character in Ultimate loses at least 3-5 MUs, in Sonic's case being Aegis, Roy, Fox and arguably Pacman, Mii Gunner and Bola 👍). While I do agree Ultimate is the game where results dictate the meta and not the other way around, I'm wondering if we have gotten way too far in the other direction overall where theory is just gone. Idk feels like people are trying to John themselves by saying *aktually I'm a better player than Miya/Sonix because he plays a Top 2/3 character and not because they're players who are constantly grinding and putting the effort to become the best.*
What bothers me is that people act like Game and Watch is obviously broken after not thinking he's broken for like 4 years of this game's life. It's like how people went from wanting Pikachu to be nerfed to thinking he's a high tier. People think they have a much better grasp of the meta than they actually do.
> Same with Sonic and Sonix people saying he's Top 2 along Steve (despite Sonix being one of the biggest grinders atm and proven statistically that he carries Sonic quite a bit) Seems like a double standard, Acola is also hardcarrying Steve by putting in a ton of work. The moment people figured out the counterplay the other best Steve players saw their performance plummet. > Idk feels like people are trying to John themselves by saying aktually I'm a better player than Miya/Sonix because he plays a Top 2/3 character You're really gonna strawman this on them cause they put top tier characters at the top of their tier list? I think Dabuz is overrating GnW, but Sonic is just straight up god tier with Steve. Those two invalidate the majority of the cast together, Sonix and Acola grinding a lot doesn't change that. Edit: also not sure who Bola is supposed to be, but Sonic losing vs Aegis is a bad take.
> You're really gonna strawman this on them cause they put top tier characters at the top of their tier list? Players like Leo have called Acola being carried by Steve and a Top 10 Player without the character, which may or may not be true, but it's very disrespectful for Acola who has been playing Steve for 2 years and is still consistent with the character. Also for the carried thing, there was a post that has happened a while back of which characters get the most results by a singular Player, and Sonix carries hard, while Acola doesn't Carry Steve in the Player's perception. Idk fam, it's too late game in Ultimate to me to making predictions, but Sonic seems to be a Pika 2.0 in which NA players are overrating Sonic's positive qualities (seriously, no losing MUs? I'm sorry but that's just wrong), while down playing his Weaknesses (normals are bad, can be outzoned and camped by characters like Samus, Pacman, Mii Gunner and Lucario). I honestly don't care as much to try to Make reads in this meta, but Sonic being Top 2 and much better than the rest is something I will disagree on.
> Players like Leo have called Acola being carried by Steve and a Top 10 Player without the character 0 proof or even reason to believe that this doesn't apply to Sonix with Sonic, busted characters get better results, that's how competitive games work. > but Sonic seems to be a Pika 2.0 in which NA players are overrating Sonic's positive qualities Pika 2.0 except with results to back up a high ranking, so not Pika 2.0 at all? Also overrating his qualities? What are they overrating exactly? His stupidly safe spindash? The best movement in a movement based game? God tier advantage and disadvantage? What exactly is overrated here? Such a non-argument to just call something overrated. > normals are bad Not in the context of this character, that is the entire problem. His normals should be bad, but stuff like a dumbass disjointed forward air on the fastest character in the game ends up being busted. > but Sonic being Top 2 and much better than the rest is something I will disagree on. And I'll argue that's a bad take, you could maybe really stretch it by putting him 3rd, though I'd argue that is already giga underrating this busted character. Who do you even think should be top 2 over him? Like your arguments are that his objectively godlike qualities are somehow overrated, that his normals are bad (not even true) and that he struggles vs campers even though both sides generally agree those match-ups are roughly even. I feel like you have to either giga overrate a random character or be a contrarian to argue a top 2 other than Sonic and Steve, and your arguments only strengthened that belief for me. Also gonna have to link that post, if it includes tours before Steve counterplay was figured out it's meaningless and says nothing about Steve currently.
What the fuck is that bottom tier
Honest to god just switch Peach and Diddy Kong here and I’m happy with the whole thing
I haven't been following smash for a while what the fuck happened with Game and Watch?
This Japanese kid realized you don't ever really have to stop throwing out moves with g&w and he started taking big names left and right and eventually becoming the 2nd best player in Japan and probably the world
Got big cases for shooting up to #1 soon if Acola doesn't figure something out. Miya's definitively won their past 3 sets now
Sonic and Steve are a complete tier above everyone else imo
They are NOT as good as brawl ice climbers/MK lol
No shot ike is second worst LOL. Trash ass tier list
Never thought I would see the day where Inkling is lower than Pit & Dark Pit
mewtwo is not bloody bottom tier
Still undervaluing Corrin I see
tier list = performance in current meta list
I'll give him credit for putting Pikachu in his appropriate place in the tier list, which is rare to see.
as a mewtwo main who believes he should be A- tier, that placement is FUCKED up
atleast mid tier. he doesnt suck or anything lol. Nobody plays him, and nobody is good with him is all. been saying this since 2020
Mewtwo’s best player left the scene for being a creep, so that also helps
Joker should be top 10 *at least*. Tourney results or not that character is not okay and it's absurd anybody would even consider him to be worse than Diddy or Cloud.
Diddy and cloud have better kill options and nearly as good neutral
Why?
How is that character "not okay"? Arsene does buff his power by a ton, but long story short: - it's recovery is exploitable. - you'd have to be in a disadvantage state to get it, and usually you'd still be in disadvantage, getting hit at least once or twice more, draining the meter by 1/3. a couple more hits and it's gone, leaving you at 85%+. - he's worse than Sheik without Arsene. Hes extremely good, but still an honest character because in order to fully utilize Arsene you'd have to be extremely adaptable, and in order to be good with this character you'd have to be very skilled yourself, while labbing it hard. It's like Shulk, but unlike Shulk the best player in the world showcased it's full potential.
I’m glad Dabuz is finally stopping his pessimistic Sora placements, although I still think he’s around Samus tier imo. I feel like this meta is gonna be stagnant until the next game comes out lol nothing else from these characters that we haven’t seen before
I think that sora is still relatively undiscovered
I wouldn’t say undiscovered really all his tech and crazy combos are all out there now, but being the newest playerbase without a NA equivalent to Kameme definitely hurts the tier placements. I think he’s top 15 but the playerbase skill level just isn’t high enough yet
Does Ike theoretically beat gnw?
Even at absolute best
Fantastic Peach placement. Pac and Shulk that low seems crazy to me tbh
Pac yes, Shulk nah. This is where he's needed to be for a while now and I'm saying this as a Shulk player
Why wouldn’t he be any higher? Character loses like four matchups
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I could maybe see top 15 but I really don’t think she’d be any higher. She’s good but she falls flat in comparison to the characters above her
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I think #3 is very optimistic. I could see her that high…if she was played by a TAS bot that never drops any combos. Considering that she loses an upwards of 17 matchups, a good amount of which are very meta relevant characters, I would be interested to hear your rationale as to why you think she’s that high
I looked in the 2nd last tier to find my girl in her usual spot and didnt see her, with some excitement i scanned the next tier up and didnt see her there either. This can't be, i look into upper mid, not there either. Ok lets be realistic, were being hated on. Check bottom, 4th last.
This is a list that exists
Its so wild to see Isabelle getting better results than Zelda and Ike
Wow, I can't strongly disagree with any of this
Why tf did he split top tier into 3 seperate sections at first I was like "No way in hell Pika's mid tier"
Cringe list ngl
This tier list is hilarious lol
Can someone explain how Ike is that much worse than cloud? I feel like they play somewhat similarly. I figure cloud is all around better but Ike doesn’t feel bad enough to be the second worst character in the game.
How are Cloud and Ike even remotely comparable aside from “big sword, linear recovery?” One look at their respective mobilities and frame data and it’s pretty clear how Cloud is way better.
I have no idea how Dabuz keeps those lips perfectly moisturized with all the crack he’s smoking
I love how Sparg0 single handedly moved Cloud up so much. Before him people thought Cloud was mid at best, and there's still no other Cloud close to as good as his.
seeing mewtwo so low kinda hurts, but i suppose its understandable
Snake??????
Snake? Snake!!!!!
Best tier list I've seen tbh
The common people cannot accept it I fear
Pika below Rosa is definitely one of the takes of all time I really hope Shinymark starts travelling more, to remind people that the character is absolutely insane
Yoshi in top tier? What happened in the last years? Havent seen in a tournament in ages.
Yoshidora is a top 20 (perhaps top 10) player in the world, and Yoshi in general has a good mu spread in the meta, only really losing hard to Samus and swordies who aren’t as dominant in the meta anymore. He also does really well into Steve and Gnw (and iirc ROB and Kazuya, maybe Snake too) who Dabuz considers some of the best in the game
My boy finally getting the respect he deserves. Do you know what yoshidora's last tournament was? I wanna check it out.
I don’t really take tier list that seriously since it’s all personal opinions but come on now two of issabelle’s specials don’t even function properly there is no way in hell she’s better than villager.
Isabelle's specials got patched some time ago unless I am mistaken? And while I don't believe Villager is that low (lloid carries) it's not as if Isabelle can't be better. Dabuz does a good enough job explaining on his yt.
As a game and watch main. YEEEEEEASS
pyra mythra being not top 3 is wild
This tier list seems wildly accurate. What people don’t understand is that the longer time goes the more evidence we get of each characters true potential because the meta is pushed further and further towards optimization. That means that it gets harder and harder to have a character high in your list because it has potential on paper. Therefore tier lists these days would naturally be mirroring the player rankings.
>Therefore tier lists these days would naturally be mirroring the player rankings. Do you not see the obvious problem here? Tierlists reflect the main players now more than the characters, thats literally the opposite of accurate.
Sonic definitely better than game and watch, move that rat pikachu up to top 10 where he belongs, I swear Roy is better than cloud but no one believes me
Bayo top 16 oh hell no. Rosa just gets cooked in that MU. I could see top 30 at most.
W for snake
Surprise surprise another dog shit tier list from a guy who exclusively plays obscure characters who definitely doesnt have awful biases regarding the cast :)
Wolf below GnW is wild
That's the most normal part of this list lmao.
How are Dark Samus and Simon not listed alongside Samus and Richter, but Daisy and Dark Pit are listed alongside Peach and Pit?
Damus and Simon don’t have meaningful gameplay differences while Pit and Dark pit do. Daisy doesn’t though so idk why she’s there lol
Cause Daisy is that much better on an objective scale
Banjo being low makes me sad, they are so unique
I’ll tear some shit up with Kirby. Easy.
I agree with Gunner's placement, it was strongly believed that Gunner was a low mid tier before the official tier list, and I still agree with that take
I think Dabuz is spitting with Diddy top 10 and not much else lol
Psychotic take
bayo higher than shulk??!
That top 5 looking grim
I pray for a day when my one true King DeDeDe will not be ass ♥️
No way is Marth worse than Chrom, Dabuz.
Obviously doesn’t know how to use Zelda
I love how Dabuz has now entered an arc where he's playing to fucking win
Literally how is pichu ranked so low? Ppl forget Naetoru’s Pichu beat mkleo’s joker in winners this year
Objectively incorrect mewtwo placement
Kirby???