I'm am literally bored out of my brains, so I'm just gonna post what I think about each character and how they will move throughout the year, based on my observations and playing myself. I watch an awful lot of streams so thats where I get my opinions from mostly.
Firstly, I believe that this game is extremely well balanced and that no characters are 'unviable'.
His Buff might not have addressed his weaknesses but its just plain ridiculous how strong he is. I don't see many people using him because of how limited his playstyle is, despite it being obscenely strong. He will stay massively underplayed for how good he is.
In limbo since the game came out, I feel that once people become more aware of his many kill set ups and avoid them hes going to struggle more and more. His mains are doing well enough but when you hear of how well those players do with other characters it makes bowser jr seem quite underwhelming.
I've always thought Falcon was over-rated because people just don't mess with his recovery enough. Its almost like cloud, except people don't acknowledge it and kind of let him recover for free a lot of the time. Plenty of high tier traits but his weaknesses are significant and they are being exposed more as time goes on.
I feel like Charizard's lack of a safe kill move is somewhat unfair, almost every character in the game has at least one. No meaningful results in a long time and a quite unpopular character, he would need a lot of buffs to get more people playing him again.
A very good character and I wonder how the balance between clouds playing more optimally with charging limit break, and the opponents optimally edgeguarding him will play out. At the moment I feel like way too many people let cloud recover for free and they keep trying to gimp him or dsmash at the ledge and get hit by his upb repeatedly when all they had to do was dair.
Unfortunately, Gordos being reflected by almost everything in the game is almost as absurd as tripping was in Brawl. Possibly the most unsafe character overall in the game and will forever suffer vs anyone who is determined to keep him at mid-range. I've seen the very unique gordo combos people are doing more of and I believe he can turn matches around very fast with them, but setting those up is very rare.
Just like Pit, a very good character with no real weakness despite a severely low amount of people using him. Like Pit, maybe we may see more use of him as a potential villager counter.
I believe that Diddy, Fox and Sonic are the only viable contenders for a top 5 spot in the game after the blonde woman trio. He has all the traits, results and popularity of a top tier character with nothing but 'potential' seeing other characters rated above him.
Some people think that although he has his ridiculous kill throw combos, he still suffers heavily with his weaknesses. His results don't really show that at all. It's hard to imagine how anyone could optimise DK play, he doesn't really have room for custom combos but the enemy also cant adapt new playstyles to get around his ding dong, because hes going to grab you eventually, that's a fact. That said, playing him will become more and more of a chore to people as opponents camp more obnoxiously, potentially to the point of people giving up on the character.
Upb oos is what this character should be called. I think Doc players have far more room to optimise their playstyle than opponents do to him, especially with his downb as a recovery move. Capable of some strong combos but I think he is extremely prone to certain counterpick stages that give the enemy time to run away.
Mixing a woeful recovery with an inability to kill is a terrible choice and Duck Hunt has it the worst. I know he can get some very strong custom combos, but plenty of other characters can get stronger ones, more reliably. Unfortunately duck hunt needs them and cant really rely on fundamental gameplay to win.
Falco to me is a character that will suffer more and more as people begin to predict his options because he has some that are very strong, but hes not always going to be in a position to use them when he needs to. As long as you can avoid his bair, living to a decently high % vs falco isn't rare and unfortunately that's what I predict happening more and more in the future.
I feel like fox has far more of a claim to a top 5 spot than just about any other high tier in the game with a great mix of top player backing, results and custom combos. I don't see his status dropping anytime soon with no real exploitable weakness.
As per usual for poor Ganondorf, having a bunch of top tier characters completely wall him out shoots his viability completely down with no real way to work around it.
This character is one I have quite a controversial opinion on, but I stick to it. I feel like his combo ability, while clearly insane and best in the game when done correctly, is just unfeasible to pull off with any regularity in a real match because of how difficult it is to initiate it and this says nothing about actually doing the combos. Shuriken is massively overrated as a good projectile, its fast but that's all it has going for it. His sheer speed and kill combos are really good but racking that % is often mired in constant failed attempts at going for larger combos. I wish I saw more Greninja play that wasn't obsessive over going for nair-anything and a more careful playstyle that wouldn't see him swatted away every time he moves in.
Completely solid all-round. I have heard much about his massive custom combos but like so many characters, I don't see anyone going for them because his easy combos are so reliable and do decent damage anyway. Deserving of more representation for how good he is.
I love Jiggs, my main in melee and PM but if only her bair was faster... To me it feels like her bair is only a few frames short of making her a decent character, there's no reason why other characters have faster and stronger bairs than hers when it is her strongest aerial. With a lot of focus and careful spacing she can get in and escape combos if you react fast enough but its just not enough to counter the fact that she can almost never win any trade reliably.
Ridiculously underrated, but then again no one plays him. Kirby never gets much love but that's because hes so slow and linear. I think he has a similar viability to DK but we may never actually see that in practice.
Like shulk, he is forever overrated and underrated. Sometimes I think he is bottom 10, then I see a mac main do amazingly well and then they lose horribly immediately after. Duck hunt is an awful stage and shouldnt even be a counterpick, it forces mac mains to ban it and then they get stuck with other heavy platform stages.
Link to me feels like he is a kill confirm on a throw away from being mid to high tier. More than anyone else I think he is a very good character but is missing just one thing to make him really strong, but maybe he needs that to counter the ridiculous KO power he has on some moves.
I used to main Lucario in brawl and love the character but in this game so much of his moveset are contenders for bottom 20 in the game of each attack and it shows. I wish more aggressive Lucario playstyles were viable. I know that Motsunabe or however you spell it won a tournament in Japan, I watched it, but it was literally made of flukes. You make your own luck with this character. I dont see him getting above mid tier because his consistency is just so difficult.
Lucas mains are getting more and more proficient at his throw combos and the payoffs are showing. His popularity seems to be slowly growing and this will translate to being perceived as higher tiered as the game gets older.
Seen as a contended for worst in the game and IMO, not far off it. Her kill power can be obscene at times but almost the entire cast has some sort of extended combos or powerful throws, she has hardly any. Barring a band-aid fix like what Bowser got, I don't see her status improving.
Its such a shame that he had so many mains who only used him for cheap wins and then dropped him. He will remain an extremely annoying matchup for many characters but not really to any of the top tiers.
Even if players like Ally drop Mario, I don't see him falling much in peoples eyes. Everyone knows how good Mario is and with an answer to almost everything its unlikely his supposed position in any tier lists is going to be overtaken.
I honestly believe that Marth is more limited than Lucina because his ability to get fsmash tippers in many ways, relies on the opponent making mistakes with their spacing. If their spacing is right but their timing is off, a FAR more likely scenario, Lucina will get harder punishes more often. I don't see any room for players to expand upon his gameplay.
Who knows where to place this character. It feels like Megaman is unlucky in how so many good characters have at least 1 top level player regularly using them, but Megaman doesn't really outside of one instance we saw at MLG. Maybe the Megaman mains feel like there isn't anything left to explore with him? I don't know.
Cheese: The Character. It is good that loyal MK mains have stuck with him since his first iteration in this game and continue to push him to new heights to this day but anti-MK strategies are now popping up with ledge camping in early %'s and optimal DI mix-ups while being combos by uair. These aren't things that MK mains can adapt to, they instead have to rely on other means to rack up damage. He has oppressive matchups vs many characters and winnable vs the top tier but I feel like at the highest level he is going to get walled out by the likes of Sheik, Toon Link and Diddy.
I've never thought Mewtwo was a bad character and I think the recent buffs are equivalent to basically getting 14-24% extra damage for free every match. He has ridiculous combo potential with his dtilt to FF nair but like peach, it is so unreliable that going for it and dropping it when you could have got a 35% combo for free is too risky, I don't see that part being optimised but his edgeguarding still has room for optimisation. I am seeing more and more people be intelligent with shadowball usage and with that, he feels mid-tier or higher to me.
Id like to see more use of G&W, if anything because he has proven to be a solid Pikachu counter and I feel like he has the potential to do really well vs other high tier characters if we just had more top level players showing this.
Solidly in the top 10, he has representation higher than what many would suggest he is deserving of. It seems like Ness was fully developed at a time much earlier than just about every other character except Mario and Luigi and for as long as his uair and bthrow exist, its unlikely that multiple characters
Half the time I see oOimar he is getting bopped, the other half he is dominating. It feels like he has winnable matchups versus everyone but sometimes the RNG gods really do not favour him when they keep giving you whites and you land a grab when the enemy is at 160%.
Fading in popularity because like Bowser, his optimal playstyle is rather boring to play as. Clearly capable at handling just about any matchup in the game, his very low use would make people forget about what Pacman players have done in the past and he hasn't been nerfed since doing that, just not played.
I have seen what Palutena players do but I just solidly believe that character matchup experience and a decent reaction time really damages her viability. The core of her gameplay is her jab and personally, I find reacting to the jab cancel and jumping out of it not overly difficult to do. Maybe the people I play against arent doing it frame perfectly but the thing about it is you can almost always expect it, her playstyle is quite predictable.
We know about the shenanigans peach can pull with her uair but whether people like it or not, the difficulty in pulling off those combos has to be factored in, otherwise characters like MK would literally never lose a stock ever if you assume everyone is perfect. I feel she is a great character but will never be top 15 or so because her combos, while devastating, are just so difficult to reliably pull off, the narrow % range it works on makes it even harder.
Much like brawl I feel like Pikachu is massively over-rated and carried by one player alone. There is literally no reason why people would be putting Pikachu as top 4, while putting villager any lower than 5th by their logic. The rat is ridiculously safe but susceptible to edge camping where he loses his extremely strong cross-up ability and I foresee this being used against him more and more.
A solid character just like in brawl with no real weaknesses. No one seems to really overrate or underrate this character despite a really poor representation in western scenes probably because he lacks a single, very powerful option. His upsmash is good enough to fill that role though.
ROB is probably top 15 IMO and has an answer to literally everything. I feel like if an established top level player stared using him, it would be unquestionable that he is in the same league as pikachu, mario, diddy etc.
Outside of that dthrow combo I feel like Robin is just too limited versus the multitude of fast characters that occupy top tier. I know there are robin mains out there doing well with her but I dont see her popularity gaining anytime soon while characters around her do.
Luma tricks are getting more and more obnoxious and I think she keeps cementing herself as a top tier character every time someone doubts her.
What can you do when every one of your approaches is punishable and no projectile? I feel so frustrated trying to play Roy because my most reliable way to hit the enemy is upb and the risk associated with his playstyle is so drastically skewed to the risk side. His combos are very good and can get you to kill % early but when you cant land that kill move and the enemy ends up living to 120... it was almost for waste.
Focus attack is completely broken and a contender for best move in the game, yes even better than his upb. He has some of the best talent in the world maining him, yet he cant manage results that would indicate a top tier character. If they cant do it, who can? This generally leads to people dropping characters, top level players don't take 5th place and lower finishes for long before getting bored. I think he is top 10, but on the lower end.
If her jab and nair are fixed, I'd say shes mid tier. Some characters like Greninja can function fine with their fsmash being bugged out because its not a critical part of a moveset but when nair and jab are, that's a big deal. Versus characters that aren't always in your face I think shes fine but once again, the top tier is full of them...
I think she is on par with ZSS, the disparity between the two winning everything can almost entirely be attributed to the skill level of those playing her. You can have a region like SoCal where so many really good players are using Sheik and you just know this is because she is 'the best'. I am confident that Zero mained ZSS, you would find there would be far more top level ZSS players than Sheik because of all those trying to emulate his success.
Shulk has the unusual distinction of having a whole range of top level players all using him at some point, and all dropping him. I guess not only were they unable to win with him but they didn't believe he had the potential to work around his weaknesses. In a game where optimisation is seeing the increasing use of custom combos, Shulk is lagging behind with his inability to convert hard off a hit.
Along with Fox and Diddy, I believe he is the only other contender for a top 5 spot in this game. Opponents cant simply adapt to Sonic, because he is literally made of options, he will always have at least one more than the opponent does and this can lead to future optimisation specifically with how reactionary and safe he can make his approaches.
Hyuuga was amazing and Toon Link has solid representation everywhere. His combos are predictable, but powerful. However, I see the future not going in Toon Links favour as people stop falling into his traps and willingly take an option which might result in them getting hit, but it sure is better than taking a bomb-fair to the face.
I don't think anyone has been 'sleeping' on villager, he just isn't strong enough to be an obvious top tier choice. Villager can adapt to any situation and its usually him dictating the pace of them match. With a massive comeback potential, villager isn't really ever threatened and for that reason will always remain a high tier, top 10 character IMO.
Wario mains keep dropping him but its obvious why. Reading a recent Sakurai interview about how he made his fsmash better in this game by giving it more range is just sad. With his brawl fsmash I'm sure he would be easily high tier. Without it, he is a contender for worst kill options in the game (except for waft of course) only surpassed by the likes of Jigglypuff, Duck Hunt, Lucina etc. Will probably continue to drop in usage, might even end up in the lower tiers honestly.
WFT is a good character that requires the player to be very opportunistic but also very patient, her gameplan is a double edged sword. I don't see the character ever breaking past the mid range of mid tier because her optimal playstyle just isn't popular and like so many characters that will affect how much she advances compared to others.
Yoshi, I believe is a top 10 character with the worst representation of all the high tier characters. I think in many ways he suffers because of his unorthodox combo game and he doesn't really have an option to get very early KO's. He will probably forever be underused for how good he is.
Yeah, Zelda is bad. Her elevator combo is amazing but some truly horrid landing options make her frustrating to play. Not much to say here, get lots of rage and elevator to win.
I think she is on-par with Sheik and possibly better. I feel like the only thing separating the two is Sheiks dthrow-upb but when people call that a 50:50 its not really true since vanish doesn't combo at higher %'s. Meanwhile, ZSS simply kills earlier with rage and you don't even need the upb to finish. Her punish game can only get more varied and refined.
These three we may never know how they rate. We know they aren't top/high tier but most people don't even know what their attacks are, there are too many unknowns.
Xandercosm
can see a Samus combo vid and some tourney results.
