Smash Ultimate tier list prediction

[Lorisaur]

Please, don't tell me things like "there's too much time before the game comes out" or "we don't know more than half of the cast". You are right, but I just want to have fun here in thinking about how well will the characters do in the game so far. 95% is my personal prediction with no real proofs, so I'll explain all of my choices. Let's begin with tops

 

S-Tier (God Tier)

Zero Suit Samus

Sheik

Bayonetta

 

The possible gods of the game. Sheik has all the tools she needs for and when players will have mastered her she will go rampage. A perfectly versatile character. Bayonetta is still way too good, even after the nerfs. She still has combos and maybe smash ultimate wont feature SDI so witch twist will be awesome. Not impossible to edgeguard, but new airdodge mechanics will help her. First place to ZSS: we know very little about her, but the short tease was enough for a couple assertions: she still has her freaking combos, her frame 1 jab and her mobility. We have not seen however Bair Dtilt Ftilt and all the plasma whip moves. In my opinion, she will finally get a regular grab like now Link has as the devs are sticking more to the original games with smash ultimate and plasma whip IS. NOT. CANON. AT. ALL. Seriously, it has no reason to exist. Too bad for tether, Zair and Nair, but her recovery is still no sludge and unless they give her a horrible Nair she will be the best character of the game. Her neutral will be probably still ok even without the Zair, the new dashing mechanics help her much

 

A-Tier (Very High)

Marth

Pikachu

Rosalina & Luma

Pokemon Trainer

Luigi

Cloud

Inkling

 

The possible best characters of the game. Marth is still the same spacing monster, he takes advantage of new dashdancing mechanics pretty well, nothing really new for him but metagame shifts will favour him much. Pikachu got instead INSANELY buffed for its Dair, Nair, Bair (autocanceled out of short hop), he doesn't suffer for lack of airdodges thanks to quick attack and his combo and edgeguard games are incredible. Rosalina & Luma might seem a bit far fetched, as she received nerfs with her new Nair and limited airdodge, but she has notable buffs strangely, being the huge shield covering the Luma better than it did in sm4sh, the possibility to Dtilt in a dashdance that improves greatly her neutral game even with the lack of her amazing tool, Fair being autocanceled aut of a short hop (with perfect Lunar Landing possibilities that make it a pretty good move in neutral too), new Luma's upair has a greater hitbox able to hit very high improving the mid% Rosa's grab game potential and probably the possibility to reverse neutral B like Roy or Chrom (not yet confirmed but llikely to happen) and she will be able to use it as a pseudo-wavebounce by reversing it and turning around. She's not worse at all, she will just play a different neutral. 7th character is Red/Leaf, as they got the GREATEST buffs in the game, with the removal of some stupidly hurtful things like Stamina and ledgehogging Ivysaur, there's so much to talk about him but Esam is better than me at this so you might watch his video as well. Luigi the best bro will finally take the scene. With his new amazing uptilt he can setup for combos like Dair - Nair - UpB and sooo much more stuff, Luigi mains know what am I talking about. Also upB looks more consistent as a recovery and as a kill option with greater height and slightly less landing lag than in sm4sh, making it less risky overall. He's also the character who probably benefits the most of the new perry as his shield sliding effect hurted so much his punishing game and with new perfect shield he will get his grab or upB with no problems. I'm a bit worried for the cyclone, but I'm pretty sure it will stay unchanged. With an amazing and improved combo game, a solid neutral and his own broken tricks he really deserves to be a top tier. Good Job! Cloud, Cloud... he got heavy right nerfs, in his Nair Upair and limit charge. Many players have told about him and probably you alredy have your idea about him, but he still is an incredibly solid character with good kill options. Additionally, he makes a good use of dashdance and possibly running tilts. Last character in A-Tier is Inkling. I know that godlike players like ZeRo or Esam ranked it much lower, but I belive that mobility is crucial in this game and he has arguably one of the best dash startups in the game, if not the best, he has good spacing tools and a great mobility overall. He has a very good neutral, but his playstyle relies on making the opponents commit a mistake by conditioning him with specials and dashdance to hard punish him with ink and incredible aerials. His only problem is that he struggles to find kill confirms, he has good smashes but they are pretty unsafe and he probably has no confirms into them. However, he can ink opponents or use the roller to increase knockback or bury the opponents. He is extremely good as a character, but he struggles with a couple matchups, notably pokemon trainer who can freely switch to get rid of ink. And now, Tier-B 

 

B-Tier (High)

 

Simon/Richter

Ryu

Greninja

Captain Falcon

Dark Samus

Lucina

Snake
Ridley

Peach/Daisy

 

 

Simon and Richter's placing might be controversial, but I'm sure that with such a good Nair, incredible spacing tools (in a game that completely revolves around good spacing) a tether grab and good overall qualities can't be bad. There is enough footage about him to tell that he is a really scary character, able to get good punishes from like anywhere. The nerf of air dodges help them much, as in sm4sh it would have been easy to dodge the aerial attacks... but not in this game. The range is incredible, and altough the attacks are quite slow on startup they are safe on shield so this is ok. They might struggle with some faster ranged characters as Bayonetta, Marth or Corrin but being able to outrange Pikachu, Sheik, Squirtle, Inkling, Falcon and many others is incredibly good. I can't tell who is better of the two actually. Ryu is instead a decently buffed character, he has his own dashdance and it's pretty good to create space. Also, his running tilts will be used to confirm into Shoryuken safely. Greninja will ABUSE of dashdance tilts in neutral and to extend combos. IN sm4sh he relied on the ppuptilt to link a Dthrow into a falling upair. He hasn't jablocks in this game, but his very good combos and kill confirms as well as his incredible speed and jump height allow him to get a very high ranking on the tier list. Falcon is not so different, Dthrow has been proved again to link into Nair at mid% with no problems, I'm quite sure he will have again his upair to knee even stronger than in sm4sh. His running speed is also a big deal in this game. And now DARK SAMUS. She is by far the character I'm hyped for the most. Let's focus on what she has different than sm4sh and ultimate Samus: first of all the roll: while Samus' roll is slightly better in ultimate than in smash 4, Dark Samus' roll is not the fastest in the game because it has a bit of end lag but HEY IT IS NORMAL and is not bad either, having a good hurtbox shifting. Also, Darky has electric attacks and this means one frame more of hitstun. Not much maybe, but it surely helps in combos like... the ones of the trailer, or maybe Fair into stuff. Most of her throws have electrical properties, for instance. Also, all of the hits of screw attack have electricity (not just the last like Samus) and this means that they connect more reliably thanks to longer freeze frames, even if SDI might not be a thing. Grab and Zair seem to have faster startup, as shown in the vs Chrom footage, altough it has the same FAF of Samus. Breaking news, the dash attack starts combos more reliably. It has the same angle of Samus which is not so good but a lower base kb meaning it will surely link into Upair or Fair as the opponent wants to DI upwards to avoid getting grabbed, as opposed to sm4sh and most importantly ultimate Samus. The dash attack pushes Dark Samus further, helping her with the combos. It's not all: Missiles got buffed as they don't influence aerial horizontal momentum anymore and Dark Samus is now able to drift in any way while using them. It's a so good character and maybe it will be even higher with an incredible recovery, good neutral game, awesome dash and probably sick combos. Her only problem is the floatiness, and for this reason I didn't put her in A-Tier, as she suffers some matchups like Bayonetta, Pikachu and all those flashy characters who can exploit her aerial low speed. So much to talk about for an echo fighter actually. Lucina is instead much more simple: everyone knows who is she and how she plays: the reason she is not lower is that Lucina is probably as solid as Marth, everything told about hims is worth for her too. However, the different playstyle is less based on spacing and dash tecniques than Marth and for this reason she is a bit more simple and straightforward: very good, but not incredible. And now Snake. Please don't tell me he is too low. He is an amazing character with insane kill potential incredible aerials and, well... everything he did in Brawl, but better as (quoting Esam) chaingrabs are gone, Pikachu has a new Nair, Meta Knight is worse and Dedede is not a character. However, the faster overall game as well as a more exploitable recover (cypher is now brakeable) and mostly a metagame with less space for fancy granade camping stop him from being a very high tier character in my opinion. Ridley. Oh, Ridley... his weaknesses are pretty simple to notice: huge body (2big4sm4sh), exploitable recovery, useless down special (ok it's cool but you'll never land it in a high-level match exept for shieldbreak punishing)  and slow air speed. And now, all he has: one of the best Nair of the entire game, a combo throw and a semi-combo throw in upair that has followups at low%, amazing tilts, good kill options in upair, backair, sideB, Upsmash and maybe even throws, with Nair sourspot, dashing uptilt or Neutral B to confirm into them. An incredible mobility, even better than many lightweights, an amazing edgeguarding moveset in Dair, Neutral B, trump to Bair, landing Nair and so on. You can hit him hard if he commits mistakes, but once he gets the floor he shines until the opponent is dead. Recovery is not so bad either, with 2 jumps side B and an airdodge he will be even able to not use upB so often. Finally we have Peach/Daisy, don't know who is better but they both are good. Still a bit too floaty, but not as much as Dark Samus and their instant fastfall tricks are just amazing. Watch Samsora or Captainzack (yes, he does not only play Bayo) playing peach to understand why she has so high potential. Also, the new airdodge helps her in setting frame traps, ledgeguard and everything players will come out with when game releases. A last thing, I'm pretty curious to see the effect of that sort of "boomerang kockback" her smash attacks have.

 

C-Tier (Above avarage)

 

R.O.B.

Mewtwo

Ike

Toon Link

Donkey Kong

Corrin

Link

Zelda

Ness

Wolf
Mario
Ganondorf

Little Mac

Diddy Kong

 

R.O.B. is an incredible character in ultimate. I personally think that he was underrated in sm4sh, while of course having his flaws, but here he is way better. He still has his Gyro, as well as the awesome spacing tool in neutral B, while now he has a new clear objective in his neutral: getting a downthrow. As shown in the trailer, the throw buries opponents and that's crazy. In doubles he might be seriously broken, but also in singles he has so many followups, like gyro Z-drop into upsmash, upsmash charge, downtilt when buried into gyro into aerial, or maybe even some kind of setups with gyro to get a regrab. Additionally, running downtilt helps much R.O.B. in getting the initial grab. His grab range is also enormous when pivot grabbing, not like Bowser or King K. Rool but good as the same. He is not higher because of the heavy weight, big body, slow air speed, useless side special and very exploitable recovery (even more in ultimate than in smash 4). Mewtwo is a character that most of you would expect to see higher in the list, but new airdodge mechanics hurt him much as well as the general speeding up of the game that hinders more defensive playstyles in general. Additionally, shadow ball and downtilt received minor nerfs. He is still sm4sh Mewtwo, but in a wrong environment. Not much to tell about Ike: his buffs and the new upair are great, altough he is still the same archetype as smash 4, the big powerhouse a bit unsafe. This means that while he is getting better moves and agility, other characters can punish him well for mistakes, especially the ones he doesn't outrange as Marth, Cloud, Simon or Dark Samus. We now very little about Toon Link, he sadly still has a tether grab but his tilts are good as in smash 4 or even better. However, like for mewtwo campy playstyles pay off way less in smash ultimate but Toon Link is also very fast and can react better to an opposing approach with Zair, Fair, Nair or Boomerang even if he didn't have the space to set up a bomb or get good ground positioning to stop opponents with shield or ftilt. Donkey Kong is a hugely buffed character. He lost the ding dong and that's pretty bad but cargo throws now kill and as Backair kills on the top it's possible to mixup the direction DK is facing to make the enemy DI bad and die very soon. Also, Hand Slap has no lag when landing making it an incredibly safe approaching tool and even kill confirm. Tweek told about it in a video and there are a few videos with this very solid trick in action. His weaknesses are a bit the same as ROB. Corrin dropped so much from smash 4 for many factors. New airdodges help many characters to avoid his old combos and frame traps, and while new mechanics help Corrin in using well his side B he just... does not have the tools to have a good matchup with the characters above, he has no exeptional tools as he didn't get buffed in any significant way. His playstyle will be probably focused on dragon lunge spacing and mindgames, but it requires continuous prediction and is not anymore easy to play, especially at a high level. Link, finally in he's best shape. With normal grab, new bombs, more overall agility and a better ability to create space in the field je is really good. However, his recover is way worse than in smash 4 and Link is still a quite slow character, struggling with the faster ones who can quickly get through bombs, Boomerangs and Nairs to get a grab on him abusing his slow short ranged options and lack of a Zair. Jab is his best option to counter this kind of aggressive style, but characters as Inkling, Pikachu, Squirtle and most importantly Zero Suit Samus can quickly trouble him while still having ranged options to not be too afraid of his long-ranged game (as Little Mac or Captain Falcon). And now Zelda, another incredibly buffed character. Many players spent time to explain her changes, you know them. Thanks to the new downB, better specials in general, new jab and faster moves she will be able to rise from being a very bottom tier character to a C-Tier, slightly above the avarage and in top30. Really, she gained so much. However, her floatiness is still here as well as some smash 4 weaknesses like having a hard time in the neutral aganist some faster characters, or lacking real confirms into kill moves (her aerials are hard to confirm into) and for this reasons she can't be so much higher in the list. Ness has dropped a bit from smash 4, we see. It's not for the Upair, I like the new one, but I feel that he has less space to play well with PK Thunder and Fire as in sm4sh (most notably pk thunder) and he is also damaged by the single airdodge mechanic as well from the overall faster game. He will still be good with his low% Fair combos, but many characters are better at this job as Falcon, Luigi or Dark Samus and while he should be unique thanks to his floatiness and specials he struggles finding his spot in smash ultimate. His smashes are better, but there are no real confirm into them as far as we know and his main kill option will surely be the backthrow, with Backair to put on some pressure. And here we have Wolf, the first character out of the top 30. His placement here is REALLY just a guessing game as it's the character we know the least (after young link, really). For what we have seen, he is a bit slow, more than he was in Brawl, but he has and amazing new Nair and its sourspot will surely confirm into a grab and the upthrow probably has decent followup potential. So, he has decent combos and a very solid neutral played about staying in his place while dash dancing, shooting blaster if the enemy is far (most effective if playing on FD) and using Nairs to avoid too aggressive approaches. He is good, but his slow frame data makes him struggle with those characters who can get past him and make him combo food. Smash Ultimate mechanics help him, like, ledgehogging is no more a thing, neither is chaingrabbing, and this greatly improves his performances in certain matchups as Sheik, Bayonetta, Snake, and obviously Ice Climbers. However, he still has a very negative matchup with some faster aggressive characters like Inkling, Zero Suit Samus, Lucina or even Peach/Daisy I think, who can create really good combos with backair, throws, Dair and new smashes while approaching well by gliding and fastfalling, especially on FD. Nevertheless, he is still a solid character and I think it's still possible to solomain it unlike some other characters even higher in the tier list who instead require counterpick for certain situations. Probably, now you are thinking that Mario is too low. Look at him, he lost almost all of his combo tools. In sm4sh they were almost broken, but now he does not anymore have a downthrow, a downtilt, and even his legendary uptilt is not anymore a solid combo starter. His upair is still the same, while dealing slightly less damage, but there are way less moves to confirm into it as upthrow into upair is usually not a true combo. What Mario instead still has is his amazing neutral game, consisting of fireball, backair, neutral air and the constant fear of an upsmash. He plays really like smash 4, just without the lethal combo game that gifted him the awesome placing he had in the tier list. Surprise of surprises, Ganondorf. It's hard to tell who got more buffed between him and Zelda. Everyone knows what changed, new smashes, more speed overall, bla bla bla, but what does it mean exactly? Here's the deal: new dashing mechanics as well as more overall speed compense Ganondorf's slow running speed and with his faster aerials, especially Nair and Upair (but all of them), he can juggle an opponent and keep stage control pretty decently. He is now a character like all the others, and not something like "hey I am Ganondorf and this means that I need to outplay you sooo much because you are using Rosalina or Bayonetta and I really suck but I can always try to get the Ganoncide" as in smash 4. I'm pretty hyped to see if he can get good tournament results, I doubt as he struggles a bit with Bayonetta, Zero Suit Samus, Pokemon Trainer or Rosalina & Luma but still a solid character overall. Little Mac? Same thing of Ganondorf, but opposite: he only had the speed, he finally got everything else. He still has almost no aerials, but with his greatly improved specials he will finally be decent aganist some harder matchups as Ivysaur, Snake, Rosalina, Dark Samus, Ridley. Last character is diddy king. Same thing of many others: in this game he wont set up his banana peel so easily, especially in some matchups as Little Mac or Bayonetta and while he can still use them to edgeguard he struggles to get real combos as the downthrow angle seems weird and I don't know if the upthrow is stiil good in ultimate. With his good mobility he will never be bad as a character, but others are better. I mean... his best quality is edgeguarding and also slower characters as Zelda or Snake do it buch better than him. I bet my money that the edgeguarding monster ZeRo will use Snake a bit (but he will of course use Sheik for more serious games)

 

And with this, I've covered the top 35 characters and I'm quite tired to be hones so I'll continue another time. Tell me what you think of it right now! I'll continue the tier list soon, with the D-tier featuring the slightly below avarage characters (but still viable) as Duck Hunt and Lucario, which are very good, but they struggle with the new game's environment. Almost 50 days to Smash Ultimate!

Edited October 17, 2018 by Lorisaur

[CrossImpact]

make Kirby great again please
please

[Lorisaur]

51 minutes ago, CrossImpact said:

make Kirby great again please
please

Sadly, Kirby is mostly considered as a low tier or a middle-low once again. However, it received many important buffs in this game and while he will never be a top tier, he will be better than he was in smash 4. However, his poor range gives him many problems in a game like smash ultimate entirely based on dashing, outranging the opponent and find a spot to hit him. Supergirlkels will probably main him as sm4sh Sonic is gone and Kirby is probably going to be decent. A thing I've seen in this game is that while a few characters are really going to outclass others, everyone is decent or at least has his possibilities to be so. Man, they made Ganondorf good. This probably happened because for the first time we have a perfectly exprerienced team of developers who take care of game's balance as never before and they want everyone to be competitively viable. It's not easy task, Ice Climbers lost chaingrabs and if players wont find soon some fancy desync trick the character will be so bad. Same for the puff, he's god a sort of backair again but he needs mobility, confirms into a melee rest and maybe less trash moves. Pichu is even worse and harder to make good, while Samus dropped so much cause of the dash attack. Yes, I'm not sure everyone will be so good... but at least the team put so much effort in it. And again, Samus is going to be the worst Samus character in smash

[ShadeStrider]

I'm actually praying for better SDI, the kind that exists in Brawl, and one of the main reasons that I wasn't really troubled by Meta Knight.

 

If Smash 4 had better SDI, Bayonetta might not have been so broken.

[Lorisaur]

1 minute ago, ShadeStrider said:

I'm actually praying for better SDI, the kind that exists in Brawl, and one of the main reasons that I wasn't really troubled by Meta Knight.

 

If Smash 4 had better SDI, Bayonetta might not have been so broken.

Brawl without SDI would have been horrific. Mach tornado would have been even more broken. However, smash 4 had good SDI but not good enough for Bayo. I hope they will add SDI, with it she will probably not be S-Tier. Pretty hyped to see ZSS with a regular grab instead. I have faith in it

[CrossImpact]

1 hour ago, Lorisaur said:

Sadly, Kirby is mostly considered as a low tier or a middle-low once again. However, it received many important buffs in this game and while he will never be a top tier, he will be better than he was in smash 4. However, his poor range gives him many problems in a game like smash ultimate entirely based on dashing, outranging the opponent and find a spot to hit him. Supergirlkels will probably main him as sm4sh Sonic is gone and Kirby is probably going to be decent. A thing I've seen in this game is that while a few characters are really going to outclass others, everyone is decent or at least has his possibilities to be so. Man, they made Ganondorf good. This probably happened because for the first time we have a perfectly exprerienced team of developers who take care of game's balance as never before and they want everyone to be competitively viable. It's not easy task, Ice Climbers lost chaingrabs and if players wont find soon some fancy desync trick the character will be so bad. Same for the puff, he's god a sort of backair again but he needs mobility, confirms into a melee rest and maybe less trash moves. Pichu is even worse and harder to make good, while Samus dropped so much cause of the dash attack. Yes, I'm not sure everyone will be so good... but at least the team put so much effort in it. And again, Samus is going to be the worst Samus character in smash

mmm, admittedly I don't -really- even play Smash, just every few months with a friend and on a level at which nobody knows what they are doing
most terminology about the game is a complete mystery to me

but I had a lot of fun with Kirby in the N64 Smash and the next Smash I ever played even a little was Smash 4
....everything felt super fast in comparison ; the character pool became so big that I have no idea who can do what, and not being familiar with new controls... man, Kirby felt clunky and I was very sad. :c

[Lorisaur]

28 minutes ago, CrossImpact said:

mmm, admittedly I don't -really- even play Smash, just every few months with a friend and on a level at which nobody knows what they are doing
most terminology about the game is a complete mystery to me

but I had a lot of fun with Kirby in the N64 Smash and the next Smash I ever played even a little was Smash 4
....everything felt super fast in comparison ; the character pool became so big that I have no idea who can do what, and not being familiar with new controls... man, Kirby felt clunky and I was very sad. :c

I know how it feels to play at that level. I've played Brawl only once and it was like 6 months ago in free for all with friends. Well, I was like "hey I'm gonna just stand in the corner and spam stuff because I am Samus and I can do that" triggering the rage of the meta knight guy who instead was pressing random buttons aganist his boyfriend with Ike/Bowser. To explain Kirby in a more simple way: Kirby is slow and little, he is good but most others are just better.

[Lorisaur]

Wow, another bit and the main post will use all the page ahahah but I feel like this might come true, or almost

[Godot]

I feel like Ganon won’t be much better then his 4 appearance.

 

also I HATED Brawl’s DI.  It made the game horrible in higher levels of play.

 

also in one of the Dark Samus footage things, someone DI’s her screw attack and gets out of it early.  And Vanilla Samus’s doesn’t do that.

 

and Donkey Kong can indeed Ding Dong.  Or as DK mains call it DKO.  DK is also stronger because he has new landing options and 3 frame jump squats.

 

i can also see Mewtwo getting better due to directional air dodges.  He turns invisible when he air dodges.  That’s crazy.

 

also idk about Inkling being amazing yet. Inkling is like Cloud, Lucario, or Little Mac but backwards.  They get weaker as they keep fighting. And in all high level Inkling play I have seen, they struggle when they run out of ink and never have the time to refill.  Splat Bomb set ups are sick though.  They also struggle with killing.

 

i also plan to lab the hell out of Ridley.  He is a character none of us truely understand yet.  Goes for K Rool.  Wtf are they supposed to be besides heavyweights?  I also think it’s silly to place him over DK.