Super Smash Bros. 4
Tournament

List of SSB4 tier lists

From SmashWiki, the Super Smash Bros. wiki
Jump to navigationJump to search

The Smash Back Room Super Smash Bros. 4 tier list was published just at the end of patch 1.1.3. All versions of the list are as follows. Characters with the same numerical value are listed alphabetically.

First tier list (February 1, 2016)

Super Smash Bros. 4 Tier List #1 [1.1.3]
S A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Sheik (SSB4) Zero Suit Samus (SSB4) Rosalina (SSB4) Ryu (SSB4) Pikachu (SSB4) Sonic (SSB4) Fox (SSB4) Mario (SSB4) Diddy Kong (SSB4) Meta Knight (SSB4) Villager (SSB4) Cloud (SSB4) Ness (SSB4) Captain Falcon (SSB4) Yoshi (SSB4)
20.00 19.46 18.77 17.95 17.86 17.83 17.52 17.51 17.43 17.12 16.52 16.50 16.39 15.16 15.15
D E
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Luigi (SSB4) Dark Pit (SSB4) Pit (SSB4) Peach (SSB4) R.O.B. (SSB4) Wario (SSB4) Toon Link (SSB4) Lucario (SSB4) Olimar (SSB4) Greninja (SSB4) Ike (SSB4) Donkey Kong (SSB4) Mega Man (SSB4) Pac-Man (SSB4) Bowser (SSB4) Robin (SSB4)
14.27 13.89 13.88 13.75 13.63 13.56 13.20 12.92 12.47 12.25 12.12 11.80 11.41 11.29 10.81 10.17
F G
32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43-44 45
Roy (SSB4) Kirby (SSB4) Bowser Jr. (SSB4) Mr. Game & Watch (SSB4) Lucas (SSB4) Mewtwo (SSB4) Falco (SSB4) Wii Fit Trainer (SSB4) Shulk (SSB4) Marth (SSB4) Link (SSB4) Duck Hunt (SSB4) Little Mac (SSB4) Dr. Mario (SSB4)
9.29 9.10 8.93 8.72 8.65 8.35 8.12 8.08 7.75 7.72 7.47 7.18 7.14
H I J Unreleased
46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
King Dedede (SSB4) Lucina (SSB4) Mii Brawler (SSB4) Charizard (SSB4) Palutena (SSB4) Samus (SSB4) Mii Gunner (SSB4) Mii Swordfighter (SSB4) Ganondorf (SSB4) Jigglypuff (SSB4) Zelda (SSB4) Corrin (SSB4) Bayonetta (SSB4)
6.04 5.59 5.01 4.79 4.78 4.12 3.60 3.32 3.23 2.79 1.96

This is the first tier list released by the Smash 4 Back Room.[1] It was based on votes from 53 high-level players, most of them Back Room members. In accordance with the most common tournament rulesets, custom special moves were not taken into account, with the Mii Fighters and Palutena assumed to be restricted to their default movesets. A follow-up article was released on February 16, 2016, offering further explanation on the voting process, as well as insight from the Back Room about specific characters.

The tiers in this list were split into groups: Top (S); High (A, B); Middle (C, D, E); Low (F, G), and Bottom (H, I, J).

Many members of the Smash 4 community thought that this tier list was created too early, as version 1.1.4 was only two days from release, which would add Bayonetta and Corrin as playable characters, as well as likely contain a variety of balance changes; ZeRo, considered the world's best Smash 4 player at the time, notably abstained from voting due to this. After the release of 1.1.4, two further balance patches were also released, leading to further dispute over the legitimacy of the tier list.

Second tier list (August 22, 2016)

Super Smash Bros. 4 Tier List #2 [1.1.6]
S A
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Diddy Kong (SSB4) Cloud (SSB4) Sheik (SSB4) Rosalina (SSB4) Mario (SSB4) Sonic (SSB4) Fox (SSB4) Zero Suit Samus (SSB4) Ryu (SSB4) Mewtwo (SSB4) Bayonetta (SSB4)
1.32 2.18 2.66 3.39 4.88 5.39 5.88 7.09 8.41 8.46 8.93
B C
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
Pikachu (SSB4) Meta Knight (SSB4) Villager (SSB4) Mega Man (SSB4) Ness (SSB4) Toon Link (SSB4) Corrin (SSB4) Marth (SSB4) Captain Falcon (SSB4) Greninja (SSB4) Lucario (SSB4)
13.88 14.54 15.07 15.93 16.39 16.64 17.85 19.36 20.95 21.11 21.52
D E
23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
Yoshi (SSB4) Pit (SSB4) Donkey Kong (SSB4) Peach (SSB4) Dark Pit (SSB4) R.O.B. (SSB4) Luigi (SSB4) Olimar (SSB4) Robin (SSB4) Bowser (SSB4) Lucas (SSB4) Wario (SSB4) Ike (SSB4) Lucina (SSB4)
23.64 23.73 24.41 24.52 24.89 25.64 27.34 30.93 30.98 31.55 32.18 32.61 32.68 34.52
F G
37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46-47 48 49 50
Mr. Game & Watch (SSB4) Pac-Man (SSB4) Little Mac (SSB4) Palutena (SSB4) Kirby (SSB4) Duck Hunt (SSB4) Link (SSB4) Shulk (SSB4) Samus (SSB4) Wii Fit Trainer (SSB4) Bowser Jr. (SSB4) Dr. Mario (SSB4) Falco (SSB4) Roy (SSB4)
37.80 38.73 38.80 38.91 39.27 40.00 40.64 41.77 42.66 43.18 45.16 45.75 46.02
H
51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58
Charizard (SSB4) King Dedede (SSB4) Mii Gunner (SSB4) Mii Brawler (SSB4) Zelda (SSB4) Ganondorf (SSB4) Mii Swordfighter (SSB4) Jigglypuff (SSB4)
48.27 49.02 51.26 51.89 52.07 52.66 53.85 53.98

This is the second tier list released by the Smash 4 Back Room.[2] This list sees drastic shifts as a result of the three balance patches and two new characters that released between the first list and this one. Diddy Kong's consistently high placings and popularity around the world have led to him securing the top spot--this is the fastest in Smash history that a top character, in this case Sheik, has been replaced. The most outstanding improvement is Mewtwo's unprecedented 27-spot rise thanks to its buffed speed, strength, and hitboxes, leading to high tournament placings thanks to players such as Abadango. Marth also saw a great jump, courtesy of buffs to his speed and hitboxes as well as the work of mains such as Leo, Mr.E, and Pugwest. The character with the biggest drop is Roy, who, despite being technically buffed from Melee and receiving some slight lag reductions in 1.1.4, has had very limited tournament representation due to his glaring flaws: limited approach options, laggy attacks, high vulnerability to combos, and poor recovery. Bowser Jr. also saw a noticeable drop due to Tweek switching to Cloud and therefore having almost no high-level tournament representation. Jigglypuff is now dead last due to its almost nonexistent representation, attributed to its abysmal survivability, range, and combo ability.

As with the first tier list, a follow-up article was released.

As before, the tiers are split into groups: Top (S & A), High (B & C), Mid (D & E), Low (F & G), and Bottom (H).

Third tier list (March 1, 2017)

Super Smash Bros. 4 Tier List #4 [1.1.7]
S A
1 2-3 4 5 6 7-8 9 10 11-12
Bayonetta (SSB4) Cloud (SSB4) Diddy Kong (SSB4) Sheik (SSB4) Rosalina (SSB4) Zero Suit Samus (SSB4) Fox (SSB4) Sonic (SSB4) Mario (SSB4) Mewtwo (SSB4) Marth (SSB4) Ryu (SSB4)
1.19 2.49 2.51 4.68 5.99 6.46 6.56 6.60 9.81 10.38 11.54 11.61
B C
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28-29
Corrin (SSB4) Lucina (SSB4) Pikachu (SSB4) Meta Knight (SSB4) Lucario (SSB4) Luigi (SSB4) Captain Falcon (SSB4) Peach (SSB4) Olimar (SSB4) Donkey Kong (SSB4) Toon Link (SSB4) Bowser (SSB4) Villager (SSB4) Greninja (SSB4) Mega Man (SSB4) Ness (SSB4) Lucas (SSB4)
13.29 14.39 17.37 17.97 18.41 19.07 19.25 20.14 20.68 20.82 23.31 23.73 24.85 24.96 25.89 28.62 28.64
D E
30 31 32 33 34 35 36-37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44
Duck Hunt (SSB4) Link (SSB4) Pit (SSB4) Dark Pit (SSB4) Yoshi (SSB4) Shulk (SSB4) R.O.B. (SSB4) Robin (SSB4) Samus (SSB4) Mr. Game & Watch (SSB4) Ike (SSB4) Wario (SSB4) Roy (SSB4) Charizard (SSB4) Little Mac (SSB4) Palutena (SSB4)
31.59 32.11 32.27 32.96 33.21 34.59 35.11 35.13 37.95 38.58 39.12 39.66 41.95 43.43 43.96
F G Unranked
45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52-53 54
Pac-Man (SSB4) Falco (SSB4) Bowser Jr. (SSB4) Dr. Mario (SSB4) Kirby (SSB4) Wii Fit Trainer (SSB4) King Dedede (SSB4) Ganondorf (SSB4) Zelda (SSB4) Jigglypuff (SSB4) Mii Brawler (SSB4) Mii Swordfighter (SSB4) Mii Gunner (SSB4)
45.43 45.65 47.01 47.64 48.86 49.32 49.59 51.21 51.22 53.47

This is the third tier list released by the Backroom.[3]

As with the previous lists, the tiers in this list were split into groups: Top (S & A), High (B), Mid (C & D), and Low (E & F). Unlike other tier lists, there is no "Bottom" group.

The distribution of top tiers changed drastically in the transition. Bayonetta rose 10 places to claim the top spot over Diddy Kong, the second time in a row that the top character has been replaced and causing her own growth over the game's lifespan to reflect Diddy's (as both characters gained a reputation for being "overpowered", were eventually nerfed and ranked in the lower part of high tier, and claimed the top spot on the following tier list). However, the S tier shrunk to only include four characters - Bayonetta, Diddy, Cloud and Sheik. Due to their below-average playerbase and dearth in results compared to other top tiers, Rosalina & Luma notably fell from S to A tier for the first time. However, Marth's results continued to improve drastically, causing him to rise into the top tiers at 9th place, finally continuing the trend that he set in Melee and Brawl, and giving him the highest cumulative tier rise over all three tier lists.

Many character placements are similar to how they were in the second tier list; however, results for many low- and bottom-tier characters have improved drastically, causing a reduction in the number of tier groups and the abolishment of the "Bottom" ranking. The greatest improvement was Lucina by 18 places, placing her in high tier and showing almost the same degree of improvement as her template Marth. Bowser and Charizard also saw significant improvement, with Nairo using Bowser to cause some major upsets and Charizard's results gradually but notably outpacing those for other bottom-tiers, causing super-heavyweight characters in general to be more evenly distributed across the tiers. Many other low-tier characters rose in the rankings as well, with some (such as Link and Duck Hunt) ascending to mid tier.

Tier drops were not as notable as rises, with the most drastic being Ness by 8 places, causing him to drop into mid tier.

An icon for denoting incomplete things.

Tier list chart

This table shows the ranks of each character through all of the tier lists, as well as a numbered description of their change in rank each time. "Change" lists how much a character's position changed between the two tier lists it is in between. "Highest" represents a character's highest position, "Lowest" represents their lowest position, and "Difference" lists the difference between the highest and lowest position. "Overall change" represents a character's change between the first tier list and the current tier list.

* = tie

See also

References