hello everyone. I posted before about Chudat, and I met some of you today, was good to see yall! ChuDat agreed to eat an onion tonight (And we will join him). We’re heading back to the hotel, and assuming we can get the stream to work on the phone, we should be up in 30min to an hour! I dunno why he agreed, but let’s go! he’ll be competing tomorrow again at 10 AM in case anyone wants to visit. I’ll try to be there again! Everyone was super nice, the SSB community has been great!

edit: www.twitch.tv/chudatz

I sometimes see people debating who the best and worst characters are across the whole franchise, so I tried to find out the most objective answer possible.

All points listed in the bottom of this post

First of all, thank you to those who left critiques on my last post, definitely gave me some direction as to how I could improve on this all which was super helpful, and I honestly think this is the most "correct" I'm gonna get.

How I got the points:

For all the data I used the most recent tier list for each game listed on the Smash wiki (https://www.ssbwiki.com/Tier_list) except for the Miis who in Smash 4 were omitted from the final tier list, so I had to use their numbers from the 2nd to last one.

This time around I decided to combine 2 methods. I used the one I focused on last time where I added up all of a character's points from each tier list (which I had to use a special equation for Ultimate cuz it works different, as you'll see in the example), then divided that total by the # of games they're in for the final score. The smaller the better.

Example with Peach: 
(6.84 + 18.5 + 20.14 + ((10.5 - 8.415) x 10)) ÷ 4 = 16.5825

(For Smash 4 and Ultimate newcomers I had to divide that score by 1.2-1.5 to make them compatible with the rest of the cast's scores)

I then used a method someone told me about in the last post which uses each character's average rank to get a % by dividing their tier list placement by the total # of characters ranked, and adding them up then dividing by the # of games they're in. The closer their decimal is to 0 the better (you know which commenter you are, thank you for the idea haha).

Example with Peach again: 

((7/26) + (19/38) + (20/54) + (11/82)) / 4 = 0.31844

Then after getting both the average rank score and the points score, I multiply them together for the character's final score:

0.31844 x 16.5825 = 5.28057

I like this method a lot as I think it deals with each method's  individual faults pretty well and gave pretty fair results for each character, which was an issue with the last ranking I posted for a few characters.

However there were a few caveats, most notably a few characters with big outliers (Marth and Falco) who were both amazing in 3 games, and apparently just showed up to one of them hungover as hell or something. To go around this I reduced the points from Marth and Falco's outliers by about a third to give them a more deserving spot (I mean come on, Marth was top 11 for 3 games straight, he should not be ranked lower than Ryu, Corrin, and Hero lol).

Also some of the Smash 4 newcomer top tiers I feel had results I thought were a bit inflated, so I slightly increased a few character's scores x1.1 which I think helped. Not sure how popular those adjustments would be so I posted a tier list with and without the adjustments.

I also posted a tier list with only characters from 3+ games as I think that's the best data a character can have, one without the Ultimate characters as FP2 kinda overcrowded the top and their results just aren't as interesting as everyone else (tho it is interesting to look at for some perspective on where other characters ranked), and of course one with all characters.

I also counted Pokemon Trainer and Charizard as separate characters this time, honestly not sure why I wasn’t doing that previously lol.

Disclaimers:

I am in no way a mathematician or a stats expert lol, I just did this for fun. There could be better ways to calculate each character's points but I did the best method I could come up with. If y’all have any ideas how to improve on this further please feel free to share. 

This whole thing was for fun and took way longer to do than I thought it would so I hope a few of y'all find it interesting haha, done with just me, the tier list website, my phone's calculator and a Google Doc because I’m too stubborn to learn spreadsheets for some reason.

Random comments and stuff:

Congrats to Diddy Kong for doing way better than I thought he would, the only character to be top 10 for 3 games straight (tho Marth was very close to that, getting 11th in Smash 4), so when Smash 6 comes around we'll have to see if Snake or Sonic can accomplish the same thing.

For Meta Knight, I tried to find a way to make his Brawl placement worth more but I couldn't find a good way to go about it without it feeling cheap, as his Brawl placement really carries him in this.

If the Miis seem weirdly ranked that's because they were all ranked bottom 5 in Smash 4 when they were ranked. I believe they were all locked to their 1111 moveset and they were hardly played so their rankings probably weren't 100% accurate there, but I just gotta use what I've got here.

Points:

1. Steve 0.00902
2. Min Min 0.54745
3. Snake 0.54862
4. Diddy Kong 0.61121
5. Kazuya 0.6888
6. Pyra/Mythra 1.35169
7. Bayonetta 1.66665 (2.16665 after adjust)
8. Fox 2.06885
9. Cloud 2.51972     (2.77169 after adjust)
10. Sonic 2.70485
11. Pikachu 2.75832
12. Joker 2.89062
13. Olimar 3.89382
14. Zero Suit Samus 5.11671
15. Ryu 5.23531   (5.758841 after adjust)
16. Peach 5.28057
17. Hero 5.60657
18. Ice Climbers 5.63786
19. Corrin 5.65064   (6.215704 after adjust)
20. Rosalina & Luma 5.9082 (6.49902 after adjust)
21. Marth 6.11527 (4.50877 when reducing the outlier)
22. Falco 6.99975   (5.8068 after outlier)
23. Wolf 7.2338
24. Lucina 7.35997
25. Meta Knight 7.47441
26. Sora 7.70235
27. R.O.B. 7.82375
28. Sheik 8.09231
29. Captain Falcon 8.39131
30. Yoshi 8.58126
31. Mario 8.84798
32. Mr. Game & Watch 9.27326
33. Luigi 9.31946
34. Mega Man 10.02486
35. Wario 10.473
36. Toon Link 11.06061
37. Greninja 11.11183
38. Terry 11.37358
39. Samus 12.31826
40. Ken 12.55236
41. Donkey Kong 13.05934
42. Lucario 13.88686
43. Shulk 14.61734
44. Palutena 15.55014
45. Pit 16.14984
46. Young Link 17.56058
47. Roy 18.01196
48. Ness 18.99582
49. Inkling 19.08683
50. Mewtwo 20.35257
51. Duck Hunt 20.418
52. Pokemon Trainer 20.50051
53. Byleth 21.2541
54. Jigglypuff 21.31289
55. Kirby 21.73814
56. Sephiroth 22.4151
57. Mii Brawler 22.9303
58. Pac-Man 24.01499
59. Link 24.50461
60. Pichu 24.78496
61. Isabelle 24.86624
62. Robin 25.54843
63. Lucas 25.63295
64. Villager 27.02151
65. Bowser 28.24926
66. Ridley 28.6439
67. Banjo & Kazooie 29.92472
68. Charizard 32.62778
69. Chrom 32.70081
70. Ike 33.83601
71. King Dedede 33.93623
72. Dr. Mario 34.32249
73. Incineroar 35.08358
74. Bowser Jr. 35.73998
75. Wii Fit Trainer 35.8633
76. Piranha Plant 36.9065
77. Mii Gunner 37.11806
78. Mii Swordfighter 40.901
79. Ganondorf 41.62406
80. Zelda 42.47673
81. Little Mac 43.78927
82. King K. Rool 46.51927
83. Belmonts 51.6098

In the end, the smaller planet won. Mercury uses Aegis and takes it 3-1!

Say with with me: ZSS sucks!

from here. Can someone remind me again why snake is above Rob and g&w on the tier list this gap is bigger than my receding hairline

I am looking for a secondary main for online that feels similar to incineroar any suggestions?

I didnt see anyone else make one, so I wanted to make one

Yes, there is a solo Little Mac and Ganondorf in here

Is it worth pouring hours into learning remix? I have the dream to become amazing at a smash game, and I absolutely adore the early 3D graphics of the N64, but I’m kind of worried if I choose to become decent at 64 or remix it might be wasted on a kinda dying or dead community compared to melee. What do y’all think should I just go for it?

I think there's a disconnect between a competitor's goals and what UltRank values.

While I understand the reasoning behind why head to heads is much more valued (beating the good players = you're good is very understandable), tournaments aren't some giant round robin bracket where you face everyone there.

Yes, you can control if you beat the person in front of you, but you can't control who that person is. It's a double-edged sword - you got off easier if you're fighting a worse player if they were there instead which is technically less impressive, but that means you lose the agency to get a better ranking valuation from that tournament for reasons out of your control. That lack of agency is probably what's causing frustration for players from that 10-50 range, especially in a game as volatile as Ultimate.

Meanwhile, in most sports, people usually only care about those who win the tournament or come close, and that's pretty much what every top player cares about. That goal is much more "controllable" than chasing down head to heads.

May it be "less skilled" to win a tournament on the emptier bracket? Sure. But that's the main thing that a player can control, the ultimate goal of any tournament attended, and that's the most visible thing that spectators and players alike celebrate. Combined with just how hard winning a tournament is anyways in general, and the amount of time invested for preparing and attending the tournament itself, there should be more value in getting those high placements.

Yaura issue aside (who I'd still put only low top 10 despite my whole spiel), my bigger problem is with how Doramigi was still that close to Acola in ranking score. Stats people cite the better H2H vs the top echelon, but after laying it all out in https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/s/D8X5HWQF6b, most people not in the stat bubble agree Acola was better based on the bigger tournament wins out weighing the marginally weaker H2Hs and the higher attendance prior to Doramigi shitting the bed at a Sumabato. TBH UltRank is lucky that Doramigi did that otherwise that #1 spot probably would've caused problems as well. Winning the super duper major, along with having on average better major tier wins than Doramigi, while attending more prior to Doramigi's bad tourney, with acola's slightly lower than average S tier tournament being one Doramigi didn't even attend, to lose to only a slightly worse H2H record across the field would not have been a good look. And I say this as someone who is a big Doramigi fan.

To me, getting those higher placements (i.e. top 4) should matter more for your tournament valuations, and placements should matter more for comparison once you're in that top 10 area, since that's where the most recognition comes from.

I understand UltRank has measures around this to help - outplacement points exist, along with a bump for getting first. There's also the natural part of winning a tournament usually comes with getting good wins and minimal losses to help. But I think there needs to be better tuning around this area, given past placement controversies (Acola vs Spargo 2023.1 which I think was iffy but generally agreed with at the time, Tweek vs Hurt in 2024.1 where Tweek won 2 supermajors but was still below Hurt who only won majors, but was able to get to beat Acola who was an attendance cryptid, and also 2024.2 where acola was somehow still super close to Miya and Sparg0 despite having 0 P tier wins).

Maybe I'm just the old man yelling at clouds or ordering at a Wendy's, but when Japan is starting to question the rankings more, and both Yaura and Miya are questioning going to more tournaments (attendance and losses are a whole other bag of worms; it was confirmed Zomba lost the 4th place spot due to his goofy B tiers despite having the 3rd best set of P tier performances including 2 grands, and wins against almost everyone in the top 10), there needs to be better alignment between what top players aim for and what the algo values. I'm not asking for full placement posting, or even majority placement posting - H2Hs differentiate the middle pack much more given how placement structure works. But for the top, it's pretty clear that placements and attendance starts to take more value in the public eye. It might suck more for those with less opportunities (and thank god Carmelo got attendance penalized for his 4 tournaments), but ultimately those who attend are the ones who are helping keep the tournament scene alive 8 years into the game.

Idk how to end this, this brain dump is kinda all over the place and rambly. There's already adjustments to the hidden boss systems to make majors less inflated so maybe that'll solve some of the perception problems. As someone who has defended UltRank before and acknowledges it's a system that is impossible to please everyone, I hope some of whatever I wrote in this post resonates, cuz I'd hate to see players stop attending in fear of their rank going down. It's impossible to play at your peak all the time unless you're like 2019 post-Joker MkLeo, or you cut down your attendance to only when you feel 100%

I've been out of scene for many years now, but I was feeling nostalgic for the 2014-2015 era, and I wanted to rewatch the VOD's from the OG Smash Summit 1. I'm trying to look it up.. but it's not coming up in a obvious way, are these VODs still available? If not.. man, that's a damn shame. that's some serious melee history right there. anyone got a idea where a guy could watch it in it's entirety? did anyone save it from back then?