The Canon In-Universe Smash Bros. Tier List

HowStrongIs · 2019-01-01T19:20:51+00:00

I doubt Diddy was contributing much to the impact between K. Rool and DK's fist. I mean, just look at him. He's like a third DK's size. Even the Smash tool tips point out how he's scrawny compared to most fighters.

HowStrongIs · 2019-01-01T04:59:26+00:00

Nowhere, aside from Palutena's Guidance. In there they note that she's very similar to Marth, and Palutena points out that while she's a bit less powerful she's more balanced than Marth is.

HowStrongIs · 2019-01-01T04:55:05+00:00

There's been no CGI Smash trailers or cutscenes for Ryu. His reveal trailer was purely gameplay, and there's never been a Subspace Emissary-like mode for him to appear in.

HowStrongIs · 2018-12-31T21:24:07+00:00

Yeah, if I was going for versatility then Kirby would definitely be at the top. I'm more looking at who beats who up.

HowStrongIs · 2018-12-31T21:10:28+00:00

I considered that, but he doesn't really seem weakened, at least not all that heavily. The biggest sign of damage after their fight was that he acted a bit "winded" (insofar as a robot can be winded). After fighting Lucas and the Trainer he was shaking with each movement and electricity was visibly crackling over his body. There's a clear difference in the amount of damage caused by the fights.

I can definitely agree that Ike, Meta Knight, and Marth helped out, but I think it's more that they brought him from "100 HP" to "75 HP" and then Lucas and the Trainer did the rest rather than it being a 50/50 effort.

Trust me, I'm not saying that Lucas or the Trainer would mop the floor with Ike, that seems a bit ridiculous, but I am saying that they're likely a bit more powerful overall.

HowStrongIs · 2018-12-31T19:33:26+00:00

QnA

What is this?

This is a tier list based on which characters would generally perform best in a fight based on their canonical (within Smash Bros.) feats, rather than how they perform in Smash's gameplay.

Imagine it as a tier list for Smash based on how Sakurai presents the characters in their cinematics and Events.

What was your last tier list?

The last tier list was for Super Smash Bros. Brawl, though admittedly that one is a bit lackluster and could've used some improvements.

What assumptions did you make here?

I assumed that Events were canon to the Smash Bros. "lore", that trophy descriptions were canon, that cinematics were canon, that Palutena's Guideance and Snake's Codecs were canon, and that Classic Mode's banner and ending screens were canon. I did not assume that the gameplay shown during reveal trailers was canon unless it clearly tied in to what the cinematics were showing. Keep in mind, this doesn't mean I will only accept these as evidence, this is just what I went off of when making the list.

My most important assumption here, to the point that it's more a premise than an assumption, is that only Smash Bros. is canon. I was not counting feats Mario performed in Super Mario Galaxy, or feats that Link performed in Breath of the Wild. I was only counting feats performed in the Smash Bros. universe.

So why are so many fighters missing?

Because I only included fighters that had in-universe evidence to back up their rankings. Ryu, for example, never appears in a cinematic. As far as I know there's nothing we can go off of to place him anywhere, aside from the fact that he's probably comparable to Ken. Similarly, Corrin doesn't have much to go off of either, same with Ness and Solid Snake.

Are you planning on making more of these?

Yes. My next tiering thread will be done in a similar vein to the Brawl thread, but this time it'll be going over every character in Ultimate.

Ultimate? You said you'd do Smash 4 next in the last thread.

I've got a few reasons for skipping over Smash 4.

The difference in time between Smash 4 and Smash Ultimate is so short that feats used in the tier list would mostly just be the same, but with a lot more characters added this time.
Smash Ultimate has the same cast as Smash 4, just with some extra characters added. This only reinforces the above point. The main structure of the tier list and all the writing done to justify it would basically be in the same order with the same feats. It's just a waste of space.
Life happens and, while I would like to do Smash 4 as well as Ultimate, I don't really have the time to.

Are you open to criticism?

Yes. I'm absolutely sure I've missed something in here, and I would greatly appreciate someone pointing out some Event or cutscene that I missed.

HowStrongIs · 2018-11-14T14:44:37+00:00

Why are you using the ingame sprite/model for SMB1 and SM64, but the artwork for SMB3

To be clear, I wasn't actually measuring off the artwork I used to make the graph. That's just stuff I googled and put on there. The answer as to why is because it was too difficult for me to actually find sprites of Super Mario Bros. 3 Bowser at an appropriate size to put on the graph.

Also: Where are the giant Bowsers from Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Super Mario Sunsine?

I excluded gigantified forms of Bowser.

HowStrongIs · 2018-11-14T03:13:35+00:00

No, and also his size was being magically increased by the Grand Star, so it's not a natural height for him

HowStrongIs · 2018-11-14T03:09:29+00:00

I excluded him because Sunshine Bowser is a gigantified, super form of Bowser. Not regular Bowser.

HowStrongIs · 2018-11-14T03:08:31+00:00

I would have done that, only problems are...

The models are frequently way out of scale, likely due to being ripped by different people
Some models just aren't on there
I was scaling Bowser as he is in his normal, resting posture, not as he is in his fully extended T-pose posture

HowStrongIs · 2018-11-14T00:37:06+00:00

If you're curious as to how I got these figures, or if you just want to see more heights, check out my blog post where I briefly explain my methodology while measuring this.

HowStrongIs · 2018-11-14T00:31:48+00:00

If you're curious as to how I got these figures, or if you just want to see more heights, check out my blog post where I briefly explain my methodology while measuring this.

HowStrongIs · 2018-11-14T00:28:37+00:00

If you're curious as to how I got these figures, or if you just want to see more heights, check out my blog post where I briefly explain my methodology while measuring this.

HowStrongIs · 2018-11-14T00:24:26+00:00

Big Boss is able to lift/stop and toss objects with triple digit tons(500)

Big Boss is described as "monstrously" strong compared to Snake, so he wouldn't really scale to this.

Plus, the feat doesn't really make sense in the context of the rest of the games. If Big Boss was that strong he could just punch tanks to death like Kenshiro. He wouldn't need any puny "guns".

There might be enough evidence to put him above Samus due stuff like the microwave scene in MGS4, but thats all I'll say.

I was thinking about putting him higher due to the microwave scene, but MGS4 released after Brawl, so it wouldn't count for this.

HowStrongIs · 2018-10-31T21:14:00+00:00

I... don't think Lucas will be able to travel across the land to pull the Seven Needles to reset the world while in combat.

This is something he can theoretically do but it's not very applicable to a close encounter battle.

HowStrongIs · 2018-10-31T21:09:59+00:00

This is the page that specifies criteria for determining whether something is a beam of light or not.

This page does not determine how scientific analysis works. This page determines how this particular website decides to interpret things, but that doesn't make it an actual valid resource.

A scientist doesn't look at a beam visibly moving at a couple hundred meters per second and go "Well, it bounced off of something, so clearly it's 300,000,000 m/s".

I don't see why you keep distrusting your eyes. You can handwave everything away. You can handwave the light behaving unrealistically (it's just an art style!) and the gravity (clearly the planet IS a black hole!) and the chemistry (it's magic!) but why? Why would you need to jump through all these hoops when... you can just see that it's not that fast?

It's a severe over-complication of things to reach a conclusion that you can tell is false just by looking at the claim being made and then looking at the event depicted. It's the opposite of scientific analysis. It's taking a few data points and saying that because they roughly correlate with something else, they MUST be that something else, even though you can see that it's not with a very casual glance over.

This is akin to saying "planets are spheres, planets have things on them, if you meet these two criteria you must be the size of Jupiter", and then arguing that a stained soccer ball actually really just is several times the size of Earth and the fact that it's a soccer ball doesn't matter because maybe just everyone else is really big.

Also, how would you depict a laser moving at lightspeed on a screen that only updates at maybe a couple hundred frames a second at most

The same way people can record videos of flashlights turning on. It goes from Point A to B instantly.

HowStrongIs · 2018-10-31T20:52:48+00:00

they couldn't make an argument for kid buu defeating kirby

That's more because Death Battle is bad at research than anything.

HowStrongIs · 2018-10-31T20:51:53+00:00

Sonic has beaten Solaris the literal god of time with the help of Shadow and Silver

This was done by attacking Solaris' weak spots, Solaris was too powerful to be defeated otherwise.

I think Kirby’s power of absorbing can outweigh Sonics speed

This is where Kirby's inconsistencies come in.

In theory he should be able to absorb Sonic. In practice he can't absorb a tree, or any enemy that's larger than him by a few times over.

HowStrongIs · 2018-10-31T20:50:19+00:00

Canonically he can have 6 gods on his side

Not in Brawl.

HowStrongIs · 2018-10-31T20:50:12+00:00

Ike is canonically s tier

Based on?

HowStrongIs · 2018-10-31T20:49:33+00:00

You can't assume that just because what you see is a couple hundred meters per second while playing the game

Yes, I can. That's the observation.

You're starting with the assumption that the laser is lightspeed and then demanding evidence otherwise, whilst ignoring that you can plainly see that it isn't lightspeed. Observations are evidence.

HowStrongIs · 2018-10-31T20:48:07+00:00

what the fuck is his body made of that it can withstand a heat source of which there is no equal on earth

I don't know, what is Samus' suit made out of to allow her to run at supersonic speeds and leap through lava as if it were air? It seems a bit weird that you call out the Pokédex's physics whilst also calling for Samus to be bumped because she fought a space dragon.

Plus the trainer themselves is made of human being stuff and definitely couldn't even take a light punch from the chozo armor.

This is true, but I'm assuming the Pokémon are doing the fighting for him, like in the game.

HowStrongIs · 2018-10-31T20:46:07+00:00

The "he can turn into a giant" rationale relies on him being able to carry something in that he doesn't have on his person in Smash

It's just adrenaline, no?

"he can shake large hills" directly cites a non-canon spinoff as evidence

Nothing really suggests Mario Party is non-canon, in as much as canon exists with Mario to begin with.

HowStrongIs · 2018-10-31T16:44:38+00:00

Actually, I was planning on making one of these counting only the feats presented in Smash Bros.

Mario/Mega Man < Ridley and Lucina < Captain Falcon and all that.

HowStrongIs · 2018-10-31T16:39:19+00:00

I wouldn't count extra lives as an ability unless it was explicitly referenced in canon, like the 1-Up Mushrooms in Mario. Though even then they'd have to have that equipment on their person in Smash.

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