While Super Smash Bros. is more famous for its overpowered and broken characters over the years, that doesn't mean there aren't characters which are criticized for their lack of any sort of meta potential, despite them being fun to play as.
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Series-Wide
- Donkey Kong has had quite an unfortunate run over the series. He's had a few bright moments, but it's mostly been mid-to-low-tier for the ape.
- In 64, he was a classic Mighty Glacier archetype, he has some decent attributes, such as an infinite grab-release combo and high endurance due to his weight. However, his moveset is slow, his dash attack has terrible range considering his size and is the worst in the game, as has set knockback that makes it completely unsafe on hit and has extreme ending lag, his large size and heavy weight ensure he gets comboed harder than anyone else, has horrendous vertical recovery, is slow in the air, and struggles against projectile characters who can camp him out.
- In Melee, Donkey Kong has become noticeably faster in both mobility and attacks, but his attacks also suffered a reduction in power and he remained in the lower half of the tier list due to his vulnerability to chaingrabbing, very predictable recovery, poor matchups against the game's top tiers (except Marth and Jigglypuff).
- Donkey Kong would see improvements in Brawl that led to him being a solid high-tier in the game's early lifespan, though his rank would slowly decline as many of his old weaknesses emerged. However, Donkey Kong does have notable strengths, the most significant of which is his near-unrivaled horizontal endurance, and his launch power getting buffed even further, along with the engine generally favoring a slower pace. Unfortunately, these strengths were not enough to compensate for Donkey Kong's weaknesses, and he remained in the middle of the tier list.
- In Smash 4, the elimination of chain-grabbing, while helpful, wasn't enough to get DK viewed as anything higher than low-mid tier. The 1.1.0 patch changed everything for him by reducing the knockback of his cargo up-throw, granting him an effective combo starter that allowed him to rack up damage frighteningly quick. The up-throw buff also granted DK a new and reliable kill confirm on the entire cast, Ding Dong (not unlike his nephew's infamous Hoo Hah). From there, Donkey Kong would garner respectable placings from many players throughout the remainder of Smash 4, his most notable achievement being a top 8 finish at 2GG: Civil War, regarded as the most difficult Smash 4 tournament. By the end of Smash 4, DK was viewed as a respectable high-tier character.
- In Ultimate, while DK did receive numerous buffs, the few nerfs he did receive dramatically offset what he had gained. His once-reliable cargo up-throw was stripped of most of its utility (Ding Dong in particular was hit hard), and his unsafe kit means that he will usually be punished for landing a move on an opponent. Because of his huge size and incredibly high weight, Donkey Kong is also extremely vulnerable to combos, which is also worsened by the fact that his defensive game is really bad, giving him one of the worst disadvantage states of the cast: his options to get out of combos, like his neutral aerial, are too slow to protect him properly, his frame 4 air dodge is one of the slowest in terms of startup, helping him less than other characters, he has a poor out-of-shield game due to slow out-of-shield options, he is even more vulnerable to spacing due to having a hurtbox on his tie (similiarly to the one on Yoshi's nose before Smash 4, but unlike this case, it was never removed), many of his moves are unsafe on hit at low percents, making him vulnerable to punishment if he uses the wrong move at the wrong time, and Spinning Kong gives him so little recovery distance that even Little Mac has a better vertical recovery move with his aerial Rising Uppercut, while also not covering the area above him. As a result, combos tear through him, and just one meteor smash or footstool and he's finished, even at 0%. Balance patches would provide small but helpful buffs, which somewhat improved his standing. While there have been some solid Donkey Kong placings in tournaments, his flaws are very exploitable, and he remains a character that can't rely on his overwhelming strength, which leaves him with little else. He's currently in the higher side of low tier.
- Link in every game up until Smash 4 was hit with this. He consistently had a terrible recovery, very sluggish mobility, subpar frame data on his moves and lackluster approach options. The result is a Mighty Glacier who wasn't that mighty, and thus consistently failed in competitive play. Link's counterparts (Young Link in Melee, Toon Link in Brawl and 4, both in Ultimate) are considerably better than Adult Link because they have better frame data, speed and approach, resulting in a low-tier character that was pitied more than hated. In the fourth game, he got some much-needed buffs; although they weren't quite enough to offset his mobility issues, at least he didn't outright suck anymore.
- Ultimate saw Link significantly improve to bring his best incarnation by building off and revamping his Smash 4 standing, or at least it was at first. He was given a quicker non-tether grab (since his Breath of the Wild counterpart lacks the hookshot) though by taking away one of his recovery options as a result, his range was increased and his base moves and projectiles received many buffs (such as the ability to actually fire his powerful series-staple Sword Beams as long as Link remains at 0% via his first forward smash, along with the ability to fire two arrows at the same time if he successfully picks up one). In particular, his bomb special was reworked to the remote bomb variant seen in Breath of the Wild, gaining tons of knockback, damage, stage control, combo potential, and recovery (by blowing himself up), while also improving his already awful base recovery further. This combined puts him in a much better position, and his tournament viability improved. However, over time, his flaws became more apparent, resulting in a more stagnant metagame of him. His poor frame data has become even worse, while the changes to his bombs make them harder to use for recovery and worse to get out of combos, and the removal of his Clawshot not only gives him one of the worst grab ranges, but also caused his recovery to become a lot less versatile, losing a grab aerial and an extra attack. All three Links find themselves in the higher tiers thanks to their own distinguishing traits, with Adult Link being noted for the aforementioned powerful moves and range, finally saving Link from the low-tier list for the time being. Though he's still generally seen as the worst of the 3 Links, though not by much as he's not far off from Toon Link on the first tier list (whom got nerfed in the transition to Ultimate to where Toon Link is now slotted in the mid-tiers ranks himself).
- Yoshi struggled in the meta in both Melee and Brawl. With Melee, the low tier placement is averted, but only in more recent times with a very complex story. He lacked a true recovery move, as Egg Throw doesn't give him vertical distance, his KO potential and combo game were decreased in power and his already poor out-of-shield game was worsened: while he no longer suffer from shieldstun and his egg shield cannot be shield stabbed, his shield drop was made longer compared to the rest of the cast and he lost the ability to jump out of shield, which is a big problem because he has a great air game. For most of the game's lifespan, Yoshi's exploitable recovery and bad out-of-shield options when combined with a very laggy grab that is outreached by other grabs (including Marth's grab, though this is more because Yoshi has a large hurtbox on his nose) and has a blindspot due to issues with the Z-axis, while his projectile in Egg Throw was considered a bad projectile because it wasn't developed in competitive play, and Yoshi was accused of having a poor punish game. This attributes combined gave him a negative reception in competitive play. He had fast mobility and solid approach options for a heavyweight, with a fast dashing speed, the second best air speed in the game, the highest double jump, low traction, a low short hop and a fast falling speed, giving him the one of the longest wavedashes in the game and a solid SHFFL (short hop fastfall L-cancel), but his metagame was severely underdeveloped and he had low representation, with one of his best players coming from Australia, an isolated and weak region, resulting in him falling down more and more with each tier list as the metagame shifted. By the time Brawl was released with the ninth tier list, Yoshi had fallen to the bottom 5 and his strongest players retired from Melee. He did receive some new players who developed his punish game and made more use of Egg Throw, with V3ctorman being his more well known back then with his Cyan Yoshi, but two years later, the cute dino was still a low tier, only rising one place, and even V3ctorman suffered from declining results as other players in the region knew the matchup, with only Leffen representing him at the top level of play with Blue his Yoshi, but only as a secondary in locals and then dropped him in favour of Fox with a Falco secondary, leaving him stuck in a stagnant metagame once again. 2013 changed everything, as it was then that Yoshi ended up in the hand of the person who would completely turn his metagame upside down: Japanese player aMSa and his Red Yoshi. After debuting with a top 8 placement, two top 4 placements and a second place placement in his first tournaments with solo Yoshi in four minor Japanese tournaments, he took everyone by surprise in July by winning a game against the player who was considered the best player in the world and finished with a very respectable 25th place, leading his main three spots up in the tier list, and thus in the lower side of the mid tier, two weeks later. Just shortly after, this result also brought aMSa in the top 100 rankings of all Melee players in 2014, at 77th place, and he would be the only Yoshi player on the list, just to show how much he surprised everyone Over time, aMSa improved more and more, showing an out-of-shield technique exclusive to Yoshi, the parry: when he activates his shield, he gains invincibility frames on startup and he can jump out of shield in this time-frame, showing that he has a better punish game than everyone thought, and also made used Egg Throw to his advantage. He also had another player who surprised the world, an European player that later also reached the top 100 at one point, but later dropped him in favour of Falco and then retired in 2022. Thanks to the strong placings in majors from his best player ever, Yoshi had the biggest rise in the twelfth tier list made in 2015, going up six places and reaching 12th place out of 26 characters, becoming a solid mid tier character. This also significantly affected his match-ups: for example, he's now considered to have a winning match-up with the Ice Climbers because he has plenty of options to separate them, like his down smash and his aerials, and the otherwise situational Egg Lay allows him to immobilize Nana and separate her from Popo, which severely weakens him, and his match-up with Marth, who rose even higher as the metagame went on, is now considered surprisingly even, as while he has better range, Marth seriously struggles to KO Yoshi because of his high weight, armor on his double jump and the tipper mechanic on his attacks. He has some punish options on Fox and Captain Falcon, who can punish him just as harshly in return, though he struggles more with floatier characters, with Peach being considered his worst match-up. And it doesn't stop here, as aMSa's performance in majors and supermajors kept improving, like with Axe and his main, Pikachu, who also suffered from an underveloped metagame for some time, and as of the most recent tier list made in 2021, Yoshi is now 10th out of 26 characters, in the B+ tier, and thus a solid high-mid tier character. After narrowly losing the grand finals in Double Down in July 2022 because of an unfortunate fall, aMSa reached his peak three months later, winning the supermajor The Big House 10, and then two other majors at the end of the year. Yoshi thus became the ninth character to win a Melee major or supermajor, three years after Axe's Pikachu, and one year later, this was followed up by Jmook's Sheik, and Sheik was consistently a top tier, but failed to win major for over 20 years of the game's lifespan. aMSa's results increased his standing in the rankings to the point of being considered the second best player in all Melee in the rankings at the end of the year, and he's still consistently in the top 10 for over 5 years, all this, still with solo Yoshi, a mid tier character, and he's still the only Yoshi on that list. Thanks to aMSa, Yoshi proved that he was viable in competitive play and had some good match-ups all-around.
- Not so much with Brawl though. Yoshi was one of the characters that was hindered the most by its changes, like Mario: floatier movement, hitstun canceling and a slower-paced gameplay that put much more importance to defensive options and out-of-shield game, reducing shieldstun to the point that very few moves were safe on shield. When it comes to direct changes, being considered one of the worst characters in Melee at the time of the game's release, he was actually considered to be buffed at first, as his recovery has improved thanks to giving him a short jump when using Egg Throw, his already fast mobility has been improved and he has a much better grab game, with grab release follow-ups that include chaingrabs and a pivot grab that has a surprisingly fast startup and very low ending lag. Unfortunately for Yoshi, the nerfs outweigh the buffs, meaning that he was significantly nerfed overall. His already poor KO power for a heavyweight was reduced even further, similiarly to Mario and Samus, to the point that his down smash and Yoshi Bomb lost all their KO potential, forward smash and forward aerial were weakened, up smash became one of the weakest up smashes in the game and neutral aerial lost most of said KO power, to the point that his only reliable finishers were forward smash, neutral aerial and up aerial. Hitstun canceling and the removal of double jump-canceling destroyed his combo game, and Egg Roll, which already makes him helpless after canceling it, made him completely unable to move horizontally when using it in mid-air, losing all its forward momentum and its utility for recovering and only being useful for momentum canceling, while Egg Throw received nerfs that prevented him to throw the egg backwards (though he can now B-reverse the move) and limited its throwing angles. But the worst nerfs were to his out-of-shield game, which was already bad in Melee: his traction was greatly reduced, now having the fourth lowest traction out of 38 characters, which also doesn't help him anymore due to the removal of wavedashing, he lost all the exclusive advanced techniques he had with his shield, he now suffers from shieldstun, he still can't jump out of shield, can't throw items when rolling anymore, no longer allowing him to perform a glide toss, and his shield drop animation was only shortened by one frame instead of eight like everyone else, giving him a shield drop animation that is twice as long as everyone else, with a shield drop lag of 16 frames instead of 7 and the worst shield in the game. This is exhacerbated by his very low traction, his laggy rolls, Brawl's focus on defensive play and out-of-shield-game, causing Yoshi to have a bad punish game and the worst defensive game and out-of-shield game in all Brawl. As a result, he was considered a low tier for a while, and while he rose out of it, he is among the several characters that are not that viable in competitive play. He's ranked 27th out of 38 characters which is only in the lower side of the mid tier, but this is his worst placement in the series, mainly because Brawl dragged him down so much. Luckily for him, this was reversed in the next game, restoring his ability to jump out-of-shield from 64 and allowing him to throw items out of rolls again and speeding up his shield drop lag to match the rest of the cast, which improved his out-of-shield-game, even though it remains lackluster, while also increasing his KO power, restoring his combo game with the changes to hitstun canceling and removing the hurtbox on his nose so that he's much less vulnerable to spacing.
- While Samus is a mid-high-tier in Melee and a solid and respected high-tier in Ultimate, her Smash career has otherwise been marred by being a lackluster, poorly-designed Long-Range Fighter that isn't even good at long range combat. In these appearances, she has to deal with a lackluster melee game in order to encourage use of her projectiles, but her Missiles aren't anything to write home about in terms of versatility, and while her Charge Shot is strong, she can't always rely on it. Because of her floaty physics, lack of KO power for a heavywight and high ending lag in her attacks, this gives her a very limited combo game, some of the worst KOing ability in the series, and several easy ways to punish her; her Brawl and early Smash 4 incarnations are considered particularly horrid. To add insult to injury, up until Ultimate, Zero Suit Samus (her canonically-weaker unarmored form) has been a much more effective character than regular Samus.
- Her Smash 4 incarnation is a mixed bag in regards to this trope. She has been buffed from her lackluster Brawl version, with her players continuing to find new tricks and with her KO power being overall increased, like with her new neutral aerial and stronger fully charged Charge Shot. However, Samus is still considered a low-tier character, in contrast to her Zero Suit form being a top-tier. For the extra salt rubbing, Samus's jab fails to connect both its hits properly, which was seemingly an intentional design flaw, as an in-game tip states it happens and you should "run away" after connecting the first hit instead of following through with the second like any sensible player would. The backlash against Smash 4 Samus was additionally ignited by Masahiro Sakurai stating Samus was the best character in the game at the Super Smash Bros. Invitational in response to none of the participants picking her, which fans used to mock Samus further when it turned out she was far from the best character. This sentiment almost immediately disappeared after patch 1.1.5, in which Samus was one of the biggest beneficiaries of buffs that improved her mobility in the air and made her dash attack into an effective combo starter, removing the earlier blindspot at point-blank. Not soon after, Samus's started to make top finishes a lot more frequently.
- While it didn't seem like it at first, Samus' Ultimate incarnation (and by extension of her being her evil clone in Dark Samus) averts this as they both became respected characters in the meta. The changes to Samus' dash attack, with its more diagonal angle and increased ending lag were seen as very negative, as this was her best combo starter, with its increased knockback and restored KO potential from "Melee" being considered a worse exchange, while her really bad jab isn't that much more consistent, causing her to be considered one of the worst characters in the game once again, but over time, her perception improved as people realized how much she was buffed, with stronger KO potential, more fearsome projectiles and much better throws that have better edgeguarding and combo potential, and she has received a new up throw that is much stronger, giving her a new KO throw. Their Charge Shot is feared as one of the best projectiles in the game, since they can now jump-cancel it and charge it in the air. Not only that, its sheer utility allows them to create pressure, KO as in past iterations, and even lead into combos and KO setups. Missiles and Bombs increased in utility as well, being more effective at hitting the opponent and detonating on contact, respectively. The 7.0.0 patch saw both Samuses as recipients of major buffs, including their already-great Dash Attack being a better KO option (even better than in Melee), stronger Up/Down Smashes, a strong Z-Air that controls space to greater effect, and even a stronger KO up throw. Since the patch, both Samus and Dark Samus are seen as a solid contender for the higher tiers in the former's best tier position since Melee. In the first tier list, Samus and Dark Samus found themselves in upper high tier and, for the first time, actually ranked higher than Zero Suit Samus on an official tier list which ended the contested nature of Zero Suit Samus being better than her armoured counterpart for the time being. With Samus' increasingly high representation and strong results, this notion ranged even more true come the second tier list, with both Samuses jumping up 10 spots putting them near S tier while Zamus fell down a few spots.
- Kirby, despite his infamy in casual play thanks to his perceived "cheap" moves in this environment (Hammer Flip and Stone), has unfortunately struggled in more Smash games than not. He had a great showing in the first game, being the second best character only losing out to Pikachu, but for the rest...
- In Melee, Kirby was severely nerfed to the point of being nearly unusable. For example, his moves, especially his aerials, have become a lot slower and lost a lot of range. He has awful approach options, a lack of an effective projectile without copying one from Inhale, bad mobility, especially in the air, and generally being poor-to-mediocre in every relevant area aside from edgeguarding and a good ground game with his tilts and his crouch. Even his recovery, which supposed to be good due to its long range is pretty poor because of how easy it is to edgeguard. He also has some of the worst throws in Smash history, rendered completely useless by the simple fact that you can effortlessly escape them with a simple jump (even more hilarious is that his infamous Kirbycide can actually backfire on himself if the player is at low damage, making Kirby literally throw himself right off the stage, making for some rather hilarious moments), and both forward throw and up throw cause him to lose all his five mid-air jumps for some reason. This leads Kirby to have abysmal matchups against everyone (including the notorious Joke Character Pichu who is ranked higher than the pink puffball) except for Bowser (whom he actually competes with as the worst character in Melee with them occasionally swapping tier placements), and a complete lack of any tournament success. This video
by Smashtuber AsumSaus provides a good visual overview of Melee Kirby's significant flaws and goes into a bit more detail than what we've described here. - In Smash 4, after the large buffs from Brawl, which were expected, Kirby has received a mix of buffs and nerfs, but he was nerfed once again. He retains his strengths that benefited him greatly in Brawl, such as some fast and and powerful finishers in his back aerial and forward smash, a good edgeguarding game and being one of the few characters that could actually combo (he was at least mid-tier in Brawl), he benefits from the game's mechanics and he has received a much better ground speed, but he became smaller. This helps him dodge attacks, especially with his crouch, but because of this, his feet also became smaller, reducing the sizes of his hitboxes or removing some of them, which is a big problem because almost all his attacks use kicks. The nerfs also reduced the damage he could deal and further pronounced his weaknesses, even slowing down his already slow air speed and reducing his air acceleration a bit, while some moves received a mix of buffs and nerfs, though the nerfs reduce the utility of some attacks: while the changes to SDI mean that multihits are more reliable, dash attack deals less damage, has more ending lag and the last hit has significantly less range while still remaining risky and punishable, down aerial is better for combos and connects better, but its damage output has been significantly reduced without increasing the meteor smash's power or speeding up the move to compensate, back aerial is stronger but it has lost a significant amount of range and the late hit fails to fully cover Kirby's foot as a result, and forward aerial, while connecting a bit better and becoming a versatile aerial attack that is good for extending combos and edgeguarding, no longer autocancels in a short hop, making it worse as an approach option. Hammer Flip can be charged but has lost its utility in the air, since it's much slower, matching the grounded version, and no longer helps in his recovery (it now cancels Kirby's horizontal momentum instead of reducing his vertical momentum). Kirby's throws are better, with forward throw becoming a combo starter at low and mid percents, back throw has gained some KO potential and up throw is stronger, but his down throw is less effective in racking up damage, no longer being a combo starter due to its increased knockback and a diagonal angle that doesn't even help its increased KO potential compared to other similiar throws. Some of the nerfs from the previous games, such as a laggy neutral aerial, a lack of fast aerial options outside of back aerial and a slow and weak down aerial that is outclassed in edgeguarding, were not addressed, while the nerfs he got gave him new weaknesses and worsened his existing ones: difficulties in escaping pressure and dealing with projectiles, a linear recovery, a poor approach in mid-air and most aerials getting outclassed by his back aerial, while also gaining a new weakness in his poor range. Game updates did buff Kirby, but none of them were enough to improve his standing and he suffered from low representation and sparse results outside of locals. Outside of glimpses of success, Kirby is widely considered to be low tier, although not to the degree of Melee.
- In Ultimate, Kirby was noticeably buffed, but it wasn't enough. His attacks became faster and stronger, like his old dash attack from "Melee" that has received a huge boost in power, some have more range and his aerials have been improved overall, but his forward throw now has him jump higher when he lets go of the opponent, which causes him to land on platforms and messes up his combos on some stages. He struggles with the neutral game, something that a character that has poor range has to work extremely hard to get in, something that only got worse as more characters with long range were introduced. The game's engine also exacerbated his poor aerial physics, with his long-distanced recovery being overshadowed by his slow air speed, which was not increased enough as some other character to compensate, Final Cutter coming out too slowly and lacking coverage in some areas, Hammer Flip and aerial Stone are still too slow to use properly and his down aerial has its old issues: it has way too much startup lag for how weak the meteor smash is and considering that it's his weakest aerial both damage-wise and knock-back wise (it comes out on frame 18, being one of the slowest in the entire game, something that was present since Melee, and even Ganondorf, who is supposed to have slow attacks, has lower start-up on his down aerial than Kirby's). The damage was improved from 7% to 8.5%, not counting the landing hit, but knockback-wise, it's still his only aerial that doesn't KO at reasonable percent, with the final hit failing to KO until about 200%, and since the final hit is too weak in both damage and knockback, it's not safe on shield despite its low ending lag, while also having a landing hitbox that causes it to have noticeably more landing lag than the others makes it not only outclassed by his other aerials, especially in edgeguarding, but also his worst aerial for shield pressure, since his other aerials have at least higher power and very low landing lag that make them safer on shield. The slow startup on his down aerial is also a problem when getting juggled, and with his floaty physics and slow air speed, he needs to rely on his double jumps, the protection from his neutral aerial or try to transform via Stone to get out of pressure, but the latter has high start-up in the air and the transformations take a noticeable amount of time for Kirby to act out of them and cancel them, which is risky. His smash attacks are strong finishers, but none of them is safe on shield either, even up smash, which has the least ending lag but also a sourspot on the tip of his foot like forward tilt, and they have late hits that are too weak to KO at reasonable percents. Lastly, while Kirby has a good combo game, he has few reliable ways to start combos outside of his up tilt, which has little range in front of him, as his forward throw is useful and can combo in his aerials well, but it doesn't lead to combos beyond mid percents, and up aerial can also lead to combos but only at low or mid percents because it launches too high afterwards, while his down tilt can set-up KOs since it can cause opponents to trip, but those aren't guaranteed and its combo potential is limited, since an horizontal angle isn't optimal for combos. Kirby's range, while improved a bit, as seen with his aerials, is still poor relative to the cast, and his difficulties in dealing with camping and projectiles were worsened by the introduction of even more projectile-based characters that have a lot of range and can wall him out. This culminated into a character that struggled a lot in the game's fast-paced nature and had moves that were outclassed. Fortunately, Kirby has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of Ultimate's updates (receiving changes in 2.0.0, 3.0.0, 6.0.0 and 8.0.0), helping him finally regain much-needed reward and cohesiveness in his kit, with faster start-up on some attacks, including the chance of hitting some characters with up or neutral aerial on platforms after forward throw, and even more KO power with his improved aerial attacks, like having one of the strongest neutral aerials in the game and his forward and up aerials regaining the KO potential that they had lost in Brawl, making his already useful aerial moveset even better. This also improved his out-of-shield game, as neutral aerial's power makes it a powerful out-of-shield option, and up and forward aerial can be used for this, with the latter being more useful if the opponent is pushed too far to connect with neutral or up aerial, while the very low landing lag in Kirby's aerials also help him in pressuring shields. While he is considered to be much better, Kirby still remains in the lower parts of the tier list and because his buffs didn't address some of his greatest weaknesses: poor approach options, especially in the air, bad disadvantage state with few options to escape pressure, a lack of reliable projectiles without copying someone's special move and mediocre range. His placement on the first tier list is 76th out of 82 characters in the D+ tier, about on par with last game, but also in the middle of the low tier instead of being the second lowest low-tier character and barely above the bottom tier, but with his improved results over time, some players think that he's underrated and that he should be higher. While he's no longer a candidate for the worst character in the game, he could still use some help in some areas. In the second tier list, his placement didn't change much, as he rose just one spot in the D- tier.
- In Melee, Kirby was severely nerfed to the point of being nearly unusable. For example, his moves, especially his aerials, have become a lot slower and lost a lot of range. He has awful approach options, a lack of an effective projectile without copying one from Inhale, bad mobility, especially in the air, and generally being poor-to-mediocre in every relevant area aside from edgeguarding and a good ground game with his tilts and his crouch. Even his recovery, which supposed to be good due to its long range is pretty poor because of how easy it is to edgeguard. He also has some of the worst throws in Smash history, rendered completely useless by the simple fact that you can effortlessly escape them with a simple jump (even more hilarious is that his infamous Kirbycide can actually backfire on himself if the player is at low damage, making Kirby literally throw himself right off the stage, making for some rather hilarious moments), and both forward throw and up throw cause him to lose all his five mid-air jumps for some reason. This leads Kirby to have abysmal matchups against everyone (including the notorious Joke Character Pichu who is ranked higher than the pink puffball) except for Bowser (whom he actually competes with as the worst character in Melee with them occasionally swapping tier placements), and a complete lack of any tournament success. This video
- Ness is infamous as both a low tier and a high tier that is especially hated in casual play. This is because he's either good or extremely bad; nothing in-between. However, he is most infamously bad in the earlier games.
- In the early days of Smash 64, he was thought to have a combo game that approached Game-Breaker levels and strong KO power. As the metagame advanced, players learned to really take advantage of Ness' easily exploited recovery, and their superior spacing made Ness' lack of reach on his attacks much more apparent. The result is plummeting in the tier list from the third-highest to the third-lowest over the course of the game's lifespan.
- Ness' worst tier ranking came in Melee, where he was hit with some major nerfs, most notably with his down-air becoming much slower and the distance of his recovery being drastically reduced, and his lack of range was still as exploitable as ever despite receiving more disjoints with his PSI, while his KO power has drastically reduced, as seen with his up and down smashes, which have lost all of their KO potential on their strongest hitboxes and the other ones don't even KO beyond Sudden Death percents. Outside of occasional use as a sandbagging or desperate secondary character by Melee god "Hungrybox", he's never seen play at Melee's highest levels, and Ness is ranked fourth-lowest in that game's tier list.
- Jigglypuff was once seen as the most detested character in Melee's day as a high-tier. Since then, however, it has struggled to recover from some brutal nerfs.
- In Brawl, Jigglypuff was transitioned from high-tier to low-tier with some of the heaviest nerfs in the game (most notably to Rest, which KOs about 50% later and is much more difficult to land, and its back aerial, whose disjointed has been significantly toned down). Jigglypuff has been ranked a bottom-tier character since the game's release, with perhaps the smallest playerbase of any character in Brawl. There were even some players who thought it was the actual worst character in the game instead of Ganondorf, particularly on Japanese tier lists.
- 3DS/Wii U became Jigglypuff's worst tier ranking to date. It got some helpful buffs in the transition, like a larger and stronger hitbox on Rest, but the problems against Puff simply stacked as the meta developed, like the rage mechanic, landing it in the bottom tier once again. It has one of the worst set of ground moves in the game, with barely any reach on almost all of them. Its aerial attacks aren't that great, with their reach not being much better than its ground attacks. Its grab game is additionally terrible, possessing the second-shortest grabbing reach in the game and weak throws all-around. And while Rest is a viable trump card again with its buffs, it still has little setups into it. The worst part about the character, however, is that it has received no direct changes within the many patches, leaving it in the dust as the power of other lower tier characters creeped up while Puff remained where it was. It's thus ranked as the worst character on the tier list.
- Bowser was initially the series' staple lumbering Mighty Glacier, and was initially treated/mocked as such. While later installments improved him significantly, he definitely had a tough go at first.
- Melee didn't give him much speed to go with his huge size, heavy weight, and extreme power. Since the metagame would evolve, his terrible frame data, lackluster speed, high weight, and notably massive size compared to the rest of the roster would become more noticeable, making him pure combo bait in a game all about speed and combos. Although Bowser does have a few advantages, including the absolute best ledge getup attack in the game, they didn't compensate at all for how noticeable his weaknesses are. The result was a character considered low-tier since release where he would be ranked dead-last as of the current tier list, even worse than the infamous Joke Character Pichu and Kirby (the latter who's competes with Bowser as the worst character in Melee). Here's another video overview by AsumSaus, in case you wanted a more detailed look into Melee Bowser's flaws.
- Brawl improved Bowser by giving him significantly greater mobility and faster attacks with greater reach in exchange for slightly less power. He also got an improved recovery, and the slower pace of the engine was more favorable for Bowser. However, after the first year of the game's life, he plummeted through the tier lists to being right back in low tier for many of the same reasons as in Melee, and his vulnerability to the game's many powerful chain throws have ensured he won't be going up again anytime soon.
- Melee didn't give him much speed to go with his huge size, heavy weight, and extreme power. Since the metagame would evolve, his terrible frame data, lackluster speed, high weight, and notably massive size compared to the rest of the roster would become more noticeable, making him pure combo bait in a game all about speed and combos. Although Bowser does have a few advantages, including the absolute best ledge getup attack in the game, they didn't compensate at all for how noticeable his weaknesses are. The result was a character considered low-tier since release where he would be ranked dead-last as of the current tier list, even worse than the infamous Joke Character Pichu and Kirby (the latter who's competes with Bowser as the worst character in Melee). Here's another video overview
- Zelda is considered bottom tier across almost all the Smash games she's been in for having poor mobility, lackluster endurance, hit-or-miss aerials, situational specials, and a slow grab. A common joke about Zelda is, prior to the release of Smash 4, that her best attack is her down special to transform into Sheik. Not helping matters is the fact Smash 4 got rid of her ability to transform into Sheik, which has solidified her status as a Memetic Loser and Butt-Monkey with the fandom. Phantom Slash, her new down special, was considered pretty useful and supported her edgeguarding capabilities, but she can't always rely on it either.
- Zelda's Ultimate incarnation got some much-needed buffs and changes in her moves, and she's earned decently strong regional results in Ultimate tournaments. Despite having not made much impact on the competitive metagame, Zelda's zoning tools and strengths were seen as an upgrade from her prior iterations. The 7.0 patch cemented her identity as a unique-style of Glass Cannon zoner. While light and slow, her moves either have great range or pack a serious punch, while also possessing surprisingly fast start-up lag in her attacks considering that she has KO power similar to that of a super-heavyweight. Most notably, every Special in her arsenal is lethal and allows her to be a threat at a distance, supporting her fantastic out-of-shield game and solid edgeguarding game. Nayru's Love has 10 intangibility frames that allow her to combo break, Din's Fire's explosion is large and lingers with a powerful sweetspot in the inner part of it, Farore's Wind doubles as a great recovery move that can be angled and as a KO option and one of the strongest out-of-shield options, and Phantom has been altered, becoming a versatile tool that wards off or sets up against the opponent in any way she so desires. While her flaws are still as exploitable as ever, Zelda at least isn't as big of a joke in Ultimate and is no longer in the bottom 5, despite still being placed in the low-tiers (though in the higher end rather than outright bottom) though only time will tell if the happy-go-lucky Princess of Hyrule is capable of rising out of the lower tiers or ending up back in the bottom tiers. As of the second tier list, the adorable Princess of Hyrule has risen (though now in the D- ranking rather than the 75th place spot she was at in the first tier list), though again time will tell if she'll continue to rise as the meta evolves or fall back into bottom. She then rose two spots higher in the second tier list, now on the verge of getting out of the bottom 10 as well.
- Dr. Mario was very viable back in Melee, being superior to his progenitor in nearly all aspects. However, after his return to the series in Smash 4, the good doctor has consistently ranked within the lowest tiers if not outright bottom.
- Unlike in Melee, where the developers apparently forgot to make Doc slower than Mario (which was the main reason the good doctor was so viable in Melee as he shared normal Mario's fast frame data in that game and his same speed), they actually went through with it in Smash 4, resulting in a character that was painfully sluggish. The theory is that Doc moves a bit slower while hitting a bit harder, but the power multiplier increase isn't as proportional to the mobility reduction. Doc's KO moves are additionally considered worse than Mario's for being harder to land while being inconsequentially stronger, his down aerial is worse and lacks versatility and Doc has a recovery that is in the running for worst in the game. Finally, Doc gets launched just as far as Mario, but can't recover with the same consistency. While some argue for his viability after patching increased his power, Doc's flaws are simply too great for him to be worth the effort.
- In Ultimate, Dr. Mario has been buffed, but he is once more in this spot, for more or less the same reasons as in 3DS/Wii U, if not outright a bit worse than before. He fights like a Mighty Glacier with Mario's fast frame data, but he lacked the power that heavyweights have despite his good KO potential, and while his Megavitamins were improved and received some combo potential that makes them a decently useful projectile, his new down aerial is more versatile than his old one and can autocancel in a short hop, his new back throw is better than Mario's and his traction is now a bit higher than his, giving him a a better punish game out of shield when combined with his higher power, he still lacks something for the leap forward, as his recovery was improved a bit thanks to the improvements to Dr. Tornado, but it's still short-distanced and vulnerable. Dr. Mario's jump doesn't use a negative multiplier anymore, so he jumps higher, though still noticeably lower than Mario's, but his double jump is lower and his short hop isn't as high (though he can use landing aerials more effectively with the lower landing lag now), and as he's one of the slowest characters in the game, including a ground speed and initial dash that is increased less compared to the other veterans, an air speed that has been marginally slowed down even more instead of increased, he doesn't have a neutral game as good as Mario's and his approach is much worse, while also sharing his nerf to his up tilt that worsens the move's range in front of him. The consensus is that he's still vastly outclassed by regular Mario in competitive play, even after patching increased Doc's power to be more in line. The good doctor thus finds himself again ranked as a low-tier, this time in the bottom 5, with the release of the final patch meaning that he would need some help to rise out of it. However, he is in a similar situation to Kirby, as thanks to the buffs that he has received in balance patches, he is getting some surprisingly good results in competitive play, even in majors. Like Kirby, he only rose one spot, but he at least for now is ranked higher than Little Mac and....
- Ganondorf is one of the most extreme examples of the series. While decently viable in Melee (which remains his highest ranked in the series to date), every game afterwards has him consistently ranked within the lowest tiers if not outright the worst of the worst. However, there's actually a fair bit of sympathy towards him. Players seem to genuinely want Ganondorf to be good, but other than a brief moment in the sun during Melee, he never is.
- In Brawl, he's the game's worst character by a long shot, at one point even being ranked at his own "trash tier" below everyone else. While he has above-average power, he's way too slow (he's actually the slowest moving character on the ground in Smash history, with only Smash Wii-U 3DS Robin and Ultimate Incineroar being slightly faster), while being especially vulnerable to Brawl's exploits (despite having a humorous gimmicky exploit of his own in the Flight of Ganon technique, but only on specific stages such as Hyrule Temple and Final Destination) and also having awful hitboxes. Unlike most low-tier letdowns, Ganon's perception is a bit more favorable, as many players find him fun to watch. Still, his low-tier status added to the demand to change him from a Moveset Clone of Captain Falcon to a more canon-adhering kit.
- 3DS/Wii U made him a bit more mobile and even stronger, though he's still considered bottom-tier as he retains all of his weaknesses from Brawl. Despite this, he's looked upon more even more favorably than in Brawl thanks to his buffs; unlike other low tiers, Ganondorf is a crowd-pleaser when successful in higher-level matches. However, as a result of this, Ganondorf has the added reputation of being the character of choice for a lot of scrubs; the stereotype of the "For Glory Ganondorf" is a player who goes in expecting to kick ass, then gets punted around like a football and ragequits making for rather humourous Memetic Mutation. As such, Ganondorf is fun to watch succeed in tournaments much like he was in Brawl, but only because it doesn't happen very often.
- Ultimate heavily buffed him closer to what he was supposed to be in Melee (even reverting him back to his much more popular Ocarina of Time look), but looks aren't everything and he nonetheless stayed at the bottom and becoming the worst character in Ultimate yet again if not the absolute worst placing of the character to date. Ganondorf is a severe case of a Skill Gate Character; and by far the worst of the bunch at it, he hits harder than several other characters to the point his new forward Smash can easily One-Hit Kill lighter characters (providing that they're actually baited into it), and has a couple of pretty fast attacks (while his infamous hard-to-land Volcano Kick was given a huge speed buff, it's still far too slow to make good use of), including a surprisingly good neutral-air (which is the only legitimate combo Ganondorf can actually pull off with relative ease). However, his awful speed, terrible recovery, plus large frame and high weight still render him vulnerable to being combo'd to death and getting gimped while offstage which again carries over from Brawl, and the nerfs worsened his already glaring weaknesses: bad hitbox placements and blindspots in his attacks that make small characters a chore for him to hit, a terrible frame data that makes his finishers unreliable and makes it even harder for him to hit his opponents, very bad defensive options, high vulnerability to combos like Bowser and Ridley, since he's very tall, large and falls quickly, and one of the worst recoveries in the game. He was also barely changed by balance patches. As a result, he's now back to be the worst character in the game in both tier lists and with a large margin even compared to Little Mac, to the point that he even has his own tier in the second tier list, the E- tier. Although his moveset still has plenty of detractors, the sheer amount of aesthetic and mechanical improvements that Ganondorf got makes him yet again a sympathetic low-tier letdown than a hated one.
- Mewtwo is an extremely light Glass Cannon with a tall frame and large hurtbox - a tried-and-true recipe for an undesired low-tier character.
- In the first tier list of Melee, Mewtwo was at the bottom. Not only was it super light and easy to hit, but it also lacked severely in reliable KO moves outside of its grab game. This conundrum, combined with the sheer irony of Pokémon's most famous legendary being so bad, ensured a lot of mockery, especially from within the Pokémon fandom. Despite its bottom-tier position, its dedicated playerbase found that Mewtwo was actually more effective than many thought it to be, having by far the third longest wavedash in the game (which improves it's awful dashing speed and approach options), disjointed hitboxes in the air, and its practically ungimpable recovery and powerful throws and a chain grab. It's still not a competitive threat, but at least it did gain relatively more respect than its early days.
- While the fandom rejoiced when Mewtwo came back in Smash 4, it was hit with this again despite its fairly significant buffs. For one, Mewtwo got even lighter, and is the second-lightest character behind Jigglypuff. Over time, Mewtwo's viability skyrocketed with multiple patches addressing its "more glass than cannon" attributes and its dysfunctional hitboxes. After the 1.1.3 and 1.1.5 patches, Mewtwo now has very functional and powerful aerials, a drastic speed buff, with the 5th fastest running speed in the game (befitting it's overall BST in it's home series where he had a base Speed of 110) that allows it to keep up with Sheik, and a slight weight increase that now makes it a very dangerous glass cannon that can seal stocks fast with its high range and high damage output, finally putting Mewtwo in top-tier, fitting for a legendary.
- In Ultimate, Mewtwo didn't fare quite as well as Smash 4, and after the drastic buffs in updates from the previous game, it has been significantly nerfed. Its most notable and oft-mocked flaw is that it gained another hurtbox on its tail, making it easier to hit, much like in Melee. As many of its attacks use its tail, Mewtwo has become much more vulnerable to spacing. Additionally, its neutral game was toned down, and its air dodge suffered significantly from the universal changes in Ultimate, as it's no longer the fastest in the game and can no longer be used more than once in mid-air, worsening its already bad disadvantage state. Neutral aerial and up smash are more punishable due to their significantly higher ending lag, with the latter's first hit also connecting less reliably with the looping hits, forward aerial is slower, down tilt has more ending lag and Shadow Ball's shield damage have been significantly toned down, which was a universal change for projectiles but affected this move more than most other projectile moves. This, combined with the universal changes to knockback, no longer allows its forward aerial to combo into itself at low percents and reduces down tilt's combo potential. While Mewtwo has become heavier to compensate, the hurtboxes on its tail, combined with the awkward combination of being a tall and floaty lightweight gives it one of the worst disadvantage states out of everyone, as it is vulnerable to juggles, has few reliable options to escape combos, loses stocks early and is vulnerable to pressure. Its has been noticeably buffed, receiving better [KO] power, but it didn't change. As a result, there has been significant debate on its viability, though consensus is that it resides in mid-tier (though it ends up ranked at 63 on the first official tier list, one spot above fellow Pokémon rep Incineroar, placing the Legendary in the upper end of the low-mid-tiers), with its standing having been helped by the multitude of buffs it received through patches. A few people also theorize that, if Mewtwo got buffs in the areas that deserve to be fixed (such as the tail hurtbox being removed), Mewtwo could have been a high tier, if not closer to it's Smash 4 placing. But with the release of the final patch, players are just left wondering what might have been. Mewtwo would later suffer due to its lack of representation in tournaments, including one of its best players dropping it in favour of Joker and then retiring in the early metagame, and another one who co-mained it with R.O.B became inactive after accusations of sexual misconduct. As a result of this and its terrible disadvantage, Mewtwo would drop three places lower on the second tier list to being the top D+ ranked character on the second tier list, and it's the veteran with the worst drop from the previous game.
- The Pokémon Trainer, while seen as a strong character now thanks to Ultimate where they're now ranked in the 23rd on the first official tier list, definitely stumbled out of the gate at first, and their ace Charizard's one-game stint as a standalone character didn't help its case much either:
- In Brawl, the Trainer is the most convoluted and demanding character — mastering one character is hard enough, but having to master three was very rough. The "unique" mechanics outright worked against him, due to his Mons having type weaknesses and a "stamina" meter that made them worse the longer they were out without switching. Ivysaur is particularly notorious for its awful design (poor special moves, slow attacks and a disproportionate weakness to fire) and many theorized it would be even worse than Ganondorf if it was a solo character. The Pokémon Trainer concept was completely scrapped in Smash 4, with only Charizard returning as a solo character. Since the Trainer was a low-tier mess of a character that few played and even fewer liked, most players didn't mourn his loss.
- In 3DS/Wii U, Charizard came back by itself, but it didn't turn out too well. It retained its old moveset that was clearly designed with a team dynamic in mind. Charizard had a poor combo game, and generally possessed slow and punishable attacks. Balance Buffs greatly improved Charizard, and it was found to be quite good with recovery and edgeguarding. Zard would become the Jack of All Stats super heavyweight, and while its tier standing was very slow to improve, it eventually made its out of the bottom tier and continued to climb from there to at least a low-mid-tier ranking.
- King Dedede started off strong in Brawl, but changes to the games' engines would cause him to plummet through the tier list.
- In Smash 4, King Dedede was largely nerfed and became one of the worst characters in the game. With his old back aerial replaced with a new much slower and less effective one alongside a nerfed grab range (formerly two of his greatest assets), the loss of chain grabbing (formerly one of his greatest strengths and weaknesses), and his very bad frame data, Dedede is left as a sluggish, underpowered character with the worst neutral game in SSB4 and a limited number of reliable KO options. This is made even worse by the fact that his Gordos are notoriously easy to knock against him. This left him as possibly the worst heavyweight in the game; while he was ranked better in Japan, it wasn't that much better.
- His Ultimate appearance was buffed, allowing King Dedede to play to his strengths better. His Inhale also became an Attack Reflector (on top of still being a Grapple Move). However, he still retains most of his core weaknesses from the previous game, making his reputation diminish as the meta has progressed. After a good start, the early updates reduced the size of the hitboxes on Gordos and reduced their shield damage and made so that his forward smash no longer hits shield twice, which is a big hit to his ability to pressure shields, while the buffs that he later received didn't fully compensate for it, which also hurt his metagame, and some of his best players dropped him or relegated him to a secondary in favour of other characters like Sonic or the Ice Climbers, leaving him with poor representation, and even his remaining best players agree that he's very difficult to use. The first Ultimate tier list places him all the way at 3rd worst above only the notoriously terrible Little Mac and Ganondorf, and he only rose one spot in the second tier list. At the very least, Dedede remains a popular choice across all levels of play, making him more of a sympathetic low-tier character.
- Out of the three Mii Fighters — Brawler, Gunner, and Swordfighter — it's the Mii Swordfighter that's considered the worst of the three.
- Early in Smash 4, the Swordfighter was in the running for the worst character, with some early tier-lists placing the Swordfighter at the very bottom. Problems include generally poor mobility, weak offense, and a lot of lag in its attacks. Mii Swordfighter was one of the biggest recipients of buffs, and while the previous stigma still remains, many players begun to see the Mii Swordfighter as a competent fighter.
- In Ultimate, people were hoping that the quality of life improvements which Brawler and Gunner got would also extend to the Swordfighter, but no dice. Players did find a useful kill confirm, but it didn't help much. The Swordfighter's zoning and projectiles have subpar frame data and easy counterplay. And for a swordsman, its range is pretty bad. Coupled with the Swordfighter's sluggish movement, poor frame data, and lack of reliable combos, it frequently places low on most tier lists. There are a few Swordfighter users who think that it can rise up, but the Swordfighter is fighting an uphill battle.
- Bowser Jr. is best described as a Long-Range Fighter who is bad at long range.
- With his introduction in Smash 4, he had some decent attributes: solid smash attacks and aerials, a good recovery move with his Clown Kart Dash, his Mechakoopas for a decent stage control option, and his rapid jab being very good at kill confirms. That said, Junior's weaknesses are glaring. His Clown Cannon is the worst charge shot in the game as it can't be stored (which fits its Mario lore), can only have one shot at a time, and the shot is slow, predictable, and punishable. His Mechakoopa has a long start up time and can be used against him. He can easily get gimped off-stage because he can't use his recovery again until he lands or grabs a ledge. Lastly, his throws have no inherent combo or KO potential, making them among the game's worst. Several of his attacks also have punishable ending lag. The few people who used Bowser Jr. dropped him quickly in favour of characters like Cloud, leaving him to languish among the low tiers as a result.
- In Ultimate, even though many moves of Jr.'s did get buffed, it wasn't enough. He's now able to have two cannonballs in play at once and they deal far more shield damage, and his recovery gained more uses, but both are still very predictable and easy to punish. And the nerfs he got were glaring: his Mechakoopa now deactivates when it hits a shield, he can't air dodge out of Clown Kart Dash and can only do so once after using Abandon Ship! (hurting his decently good recovery), and his forward tilt is weaker and has been given a sourspot. The end result was a character perceived as even worse than his already-bad Smash 4 iteration. Also, while the changes to his hurtboxes help him, this also means that Bowser Jr. now takes more damage when he gets hit and not his Junior Clown Car, making him more vulnerable to aerial approches and especially when he's using Abandon Ship!. As a result, he still keeps the weaknesses he had in the previous game: he's stuck with a dependance on his projectiles, high ending lag on several moves, a vulnerable recovery, few reliable finishers, poor range despite having disjointed attacks, a vulnerability to throws and a lack of good moves on shield. He got some substantial buffs in patch 3.1.0, but they weren't enough to significantly improve his standing. While Bowser Jr. is no longer considered a contender for worst fighter in the game, he's still seen as deserving of his spot near the bottom, though he wasn't quite ranked there on the first tier list, being just at the bottom of the low-mid tier, at 72st place in the C- tier. He dropped to the top of the D- tier, though he rose two spots up.
Super Smash Bros.
- Luigi is the worst character in the original game. His combo ability is varied and versatile, he boasts a devastating finisher in his Super Jump Punch, and he has a long distanced recovery. But all of this is offset by a slew of overwhelming weaknesses; his mobility is painfully slow, especially in the air, his melee range is short, and his projectile in Fireball is very easy to circumvent. Additionally, while being a Moveset Clone of Mario in terms of attacks, some of them are weaker and his dash attack doesn't have a proper final hit. And finally, although his recovery is long-distanced, it's also easy to edgeguard because of his low air speed. Likely as a result of his poor balance, Melee buffed Luigi exceptionally, gaining devastating aerials and better special moves.
Super Smash Bros. Melee
- In Melee, Pichu is the game's resident Joke Character as a Fragile Speedster to its most logical extreme. It's fast but also lightest character, and nearly half of its attacks hurt itself, even its recovery move (which is literally the polar opposite of Pikachu's). Pichu is additionally nearly completely inferior clone to Pikachu, exemplifying its ineffectiveness even more. This is not only lampshaded on its trophy descriptions, but it was actually confirmed by Word of God, so Pichu being a low-tier letdown is actually enforced, even though it's ranked higher than Kirby and Bowser.
- Mr. Game & Watch is an odd case of a character who felt unfinished in ways that were blatantly unfavorable to him. While he has a slew of powerful moves that can easily KO opponents, he has one of the worst approaches in the game due to his slow overall speed, and is the only character who cannot L-cancel all of his aerials. Despite his light weight, Mr. Game & Watch is shockingly easy to combo, juggle, and KO due to a poor combination of said weight, low falling speed, and high hitstun. Furthermore, Mr. Game & Watch has the single worst shield in the game, as it fails to completely cover his body even at full health, making it easy to poke him.
- Roy is almost at the bottom of the game's tier list. He is a clone of Marth with an inverse design; instead of having the need to space attacks on the tip of his sword, the sweetspot is at the base of his sword. However, Roy's design is abysmal on execution, as he has laggy attacks with weak sourspots, few KO moves, atrocious aerials, limited combos, poor hitboxes, significant punish for missing, and terrible recovery. Those last two points combined with low weight and high-falling speed give him possibly the worst survivability in Melee. This is also made worse by the fact that Melee had a rushed development, and Roy's animations are almost all the same as Marth's, but his attacks have more start-up, a shorter duration and more ending lag, leading to really bad hitboxes, like his dash attack, which has a hitbox before he actually swings the sword but it disappears halfway through, creating a glaring blindspot. This alone would get him heavy derided by the competitive playerbase, but casual sentiment is especially favorable to him because of his few KO moves like forward and down smashes being easily spammed in casual play, which led to further dislike of Roy among competitive players. In fact, the great disparity between competitive and casual perception made Marth vs. Roy one of the most heated tier arguments in early Melee, and Roy ended up a bit of symbol for "anti-tierists".
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
- Mario was nerfed and hurt by Brawl's engine. His combo ability from previous games was gone due to Brawl's floatiness and anti-combo engine. With many of the newcomers being highly effective and many characters from Melee being buffed, Mario turned from a Jack of All Stats in the previous two games that was really good to a Master of None that was seen as one of the worst characters in the game, with a hard time racking up damage, an even harder time scoring KOs due to a lack of a reliable finisher outside of his forward and up smashes (he already had low KO power in Melee, but his remaining KO moves had become even weaker), a poor recovery, since Super Jump Punch's recovery distance is not good and he has lost Mario Tornado, which is now his down aerial instead of his down special and F.L.U.D.D is less versatile, and his range and speed are unimpressive considering the game's patient nature. All of this amounted to him being considered a low tier character, languishing there for the game's lifespan. It wouldn't be until the follow-up games when Mario's reputation turned completely around.
- Captain Falcon became this in Brawl. Whereas Falcon's 64 and Melee incarnations were beloved high-tier characters (especially in the latter), Falcon got some fairly significant nerfs in Brawl. His Knee Smash forward-air became much harder to sweetspot, and the new hitstun cancelling mechanic along with the floaty defensive nature of Brawl utterly ruined the good Captain, as the opponent being able to act out of hitstun near-instantaneously destroyed his combo game. And since combos were one of Falcon's premier attributes, this took away what made him shine. Falcon ended up being ridiculously ineffectual, to the point of being considered the game's worst character in its first year. While his perception and tier placement improved a bit throughout Brawl's lifespan, he was mostly treated as a Joke Character which few people played and even fewer played competitively. However, he rose back to the high tiers in Smash 4 and Ultimate, making this a one-time thing for him.
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U/3DS
- The moveset of Palutena is one of the laggiest in the game, and the way her custom moves were balanced around her was disastrous. To boot, her default special moveset was considered very incohesive, featuring not only very laggy moves, but also limited utility across all of them, with both her reflector and counter unanimously considered the worst of their kind. Her entire grounded moveset was also a contender for being the worst in the game, notorious for being incredibly sluggish and lacking in strength and utility. All of this meant that even a minimal slip-up from her could be very costly. Finally, while she could still be significantly improved with her custom moves, the disdain for the community about custom moves in general was so strong, they were dropped off soon after; combined with the already high limitations to character customization in the game's modes, this ended up leaving Palutena in limbo. Game updates brought a few buffs to her, but while her results as a vanilla character improved quite a good amount, they were not enough to fix her immense design flaws. Thus, to the end of the game's lifespan, Palutena was widely considered as not only an awkward low tier character and the butt of much derogation among the community, but also one of the most abysmally designed characters in any Smash game. At the end of the game's lifespan, she was at the bottom of the mid tier, but that's it.
- Pac-Man had a similar trajectory to Bowser Jr., being a character who fell through the floor as soon as their best player dropped him. In fairness, he has some solid zoning with his Bonus Fruit, a great stage control tool and landing mix-up option with Fire Hydrant, and can deal decent damage. His weaknesses are that both of his projectile moves can easily be turned against him, and his lackluster mobility and few kill moves outside of his slow/laggy smash attacks make it hard to score kills. His most infamous weakness is his grab, which is the worst in the game due to having glaring blindspots halfway through it and abysmal frame data and lag if it missed, largely leaving him without a grab game. Despite the best efforts of more loyal Pac-Man mains, Pac-Man was generally seen as a character who was very difficult and unrewarding to play.
- Robin has the slowest movement speed on the ground note , projectiles that take far too long to charge for how little damage they do, a vulnerable recovery (made even worse if his Elwind has no energy to boost the recovery), one of the shortest-ranged grabs in the game on top of a below-average set of throws, and a limited amount of times they can use their smash attacks and their special attacks before being rendered practically helpless. The 1.1.0 and 1.1.1 patches buffed them by giving them a combo throw and allowing them to deal more shield pressure, but it wasn't able to help Robin bring the thunder. All of the resource management that went into the character simply wasn't worth it, and they found themselves as a source of mockery among the playerbase, especially the subset of the Smash fandom that thought Fire Emblem was getting too much representation. Robin is a mid-tier character in this game and not low tier, but considering the issues with losing the Levin Sword or your tomes for their special attacks, you would expect something more to compensate outside of just having the Nosferatu heal effect.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
While the meta took its time to develop thanks to the multiple patches and DLC adding buffs/nerfs alongside new characters it eventually managed to stabilize and create an overall perception of the roster. From this, many characters that people have been keeping their eye on turned out to be terrible at the competitive scene.
- Lucario had initially found himself in the low tiers in Ultimate for the first time in the series, after a decently-strong showing in 3DS/Wii U and a far cry from his powerful showing in Brawl. His aura gimmick got nerfed pretty hard despite regaining a couple of his old Brawl-base combos (such as his jab-cancel of his first two-hits of his neutral jab which can be linked into all of his tilts and his Force Palm special, though neither are likely to land due to the faster pace engine), and with many characters getting quality-of-life buffs, there's a good chance Lucario can't capitalize on aura anyways. But what really throws him in low tier is his poor frame data and neutral game note , which amounts to throwing out aerial attacks and hoping they aren't punished. Lucario often finds himself getting zoned out or rushed down by most of the cast (despite getting a buff in dashing speed), and he has a difficult time trying to get momentum on his side. The aura mechanic also penalizes him in a way: if he has too little Aura, he lacks KO power and has a bad recovery and a terrible damage output outside of his combo game, and if he has too much, he won't be able to combo well and Extreme Speed becomes overly difficult to control. Other than a few Lucario diehards, most players have left the character behind. This was shown in his first tier placement where he's ranked 71st on the first tier list, the second lowest placement of the low-mid-tiers behind Bowser Jr., with many professionals expecting Lucario to fall further as the meta evolves, possibly to near bottom tier. This wasn't the case as much like his initial appearance in Smash 4, as due to very strong showings in recent tournaments and said Lucario diehards finding him to be far better than he was initially perceived at first as of the release of the second tier list, he has risen up 14 spots to the C+ tier, putting him back at upper half of the lower mid-tier, ending the low tier debate of him for the time being.
- Little Mac competes with Ganondorf and Dr. Mario for the title of the worst character in Ultimate (though the Doctor would ultimately claim victory of the best of the worst between the three, as he's ranked higher than them, as well as King Dedede and now King K. Rool). His niche as a neutral-focused, grounded fighter is not only done better by other characters, but his neutral is lackluster compared to much of the cast, being too linear and predictable, which doesn't help him despite his amazing speed. Even with his survivability buffs with improvements his side special, better air speed and a higher weight, he's still got a very poor recovery that is further nerfed by the air dodge mechanics, which can help him, but his directional air dodge are the worst in the game and his air dodge is no longer one of the fastest in the roster, and to make matters worse, while Jolt Haymaker doesn't leave him helpless anymore in Ultimate and gives him a better distance, someone decided that he can only use it once before landing, and getting hit won't reset it, making him even more vulnerable to aggressive edgeguarding. His throws have something, like forward throw for tech-chasing and setting up edge-guards, a back throw with OK power that can KO at his percents and a down throw for combos, but the collateral hitboxes are mostly a hindrance considering that he has zero aerial combat, meaning that his throws aren't good enough to compensate for those aerial flaws, which also don't help his combo game because his aerials don't have enough power and damage to be useful outside of a couple of niche uses, including a neutral aerial that is the fastest in the game and would be useful for combos and to drag down opponents, but he can't use it properly because the hitbox on his fist has very low set knockback, while the hitbox that doesn't have set knockback is on his chest. All these stats lead Mac to be a character whose polarizing ground-based nature works against him, causing most the most well-known of Little Mac mains from the previous game to outright abandon him, while another one retired from competitive play a little more than a year after Ultimate's release. Some of his nerfs also affected him hard: he can't benefit from perfect pivoting anymore, and his combo potential is worse: up tilt deals less damage and is unsafe on hit at low percents, while down tilt received 4 additional frames of ending lag, limiting his KO setups, while down throw combos for longer but is less consistent, and none of his other throws were changed, with all of them except for back throw only being interruptible after the animation ends, while their collateral hitboxes are more of an hindrance, as up throw is useless and back throw could be used as a KO throw, but the throws aren't rewarding enough and remain unchanged, even though Little Mac's grabs were buffed with a noticeable increase in range that removes the glaring blindspot on his hands. His aerials were generally unchanged apart from a noticeable reduction to landing lag, but the universal reduction of landing lag hinders him more than it helps him, and as he falls faster, forward and back aerial no longer autocancel in a short hop, worsening both his combo potential again and reducing the niche utility of the former, making it only useful to leave the opponent in an edgeguarding situation to connect with a Jolt Haymaker. Mac was already unpopular in the previous game because of the super armor in his smash attacks and his fast yet powerful attacks that make him hated in casual play, while in competitive, he became a laughing-stock for his overwhelmingly weak aerials and lack of a recovery, especially in the previous game, where he later ended up as a lower mid-tier, somehow, and even now, he's very disliked by the community so far and considered the worst character ever designed in the series. He would even stay firmly at the bottom in spite of a couple balance patches that helped him, but those were too little to help him, and other balance patches ignored him completely. Mac's core concept of being dominant on the ground but useless in the air will probably doom him to low-tier status forever alongside Ganondorf; it's very easy to bait him into doing something unsafe, get him offstage, and either let him fall to his death (the more sensible method) or if you're really into it and pull a Sephiroth, outright curbstomp him into permanent despair while he's offstage. Even then, he doesn't even have the best grounded moveset of the cast, and one of his biggest flaws is that his moves, outside of his down-angled forward smash and the sweetspot on his up smash, which only lasts for one frame, lack shield damage, generally have poor shieldstun and don't have much hitlag to compensate, as even up tilt and dash attack, which don't have much ending lag by themselves, are unsafe on shield, and while his neutral game isn't bad per se, it's linear, predictable and risky. His rolls also aren't as useful as they should, as while they're among the longest in the game and his defensive options are fast, his rolls have low intangibility, which is especially problematic because he has a lot of momentum at the beginning and at the end, meaning that he's only intangible halfway through and in only a small portion of the distance he travels in the process, and this doesn't work for his rolls, while also being problematic because he tends to rely a lot on using his defensive options to turn things around. He's not considered the worst character in the game, according to the tier list, but with such an imbalance between ground and air game and recovery, you'd expect him to have some advanced techniques, stronger throws or something else to compensate. Unfortunately for Little Mac, unless he isn't streamlined with a more balanced fighting ability in the air, he is stuck as this. The few players that use him in competitive play were still able to give him some decent results even in nationals or in majors, like other low tiers, and buffs did help him out a bit, like a down tilt that has surprisingly good range, 2 additional frames of hitstun to his up tilt, increasing its combo potential and making it safer, his down-angled forward smash becoming better for breaking shield, and his special moves receiving more power, but this isn't enough to improve his perception that much, and his lack of representation doesn't give him a lot of results. He's unchanged in between the two tier lists, being the second worst character in the game according to both, but now went from D- to the bottom of the E+ tier, though there is a large gap between him and Ganondorf because he has at least way better speed and frame data than him.
- Corrin was considered as a low-tier fighter in Ultimate due to very harsh nerfs. Predictably, their Dragon Lunge and Counter Surge were nerfed, like more ending lag and less range on the kicks, with changes that worsen their safety and made them easier to punish. Unpredictably, their other special moves were heavily nerfed as well. As a result, despite their useful buffs, Corrin's neutral game and punishment options all became worse, forcing them to contest with the rest of the cast, who had significantly improved in comparison to them, and with their very low representation, their metagame became stagnant for some time. While their status was slightly controversial in Smash 4, most players agree the nerfs were way too much. Several game updates have not undone the heavy downgrade their moveset's synergy previously had, and general consensus nowadays is divisive between high-tier and mid-tier. Corrin would jump up 15 spots in the second official tier list putting them at the A tier, due to a strong presence at tournaments, ending the debate.
- When Ultimate was announced, everyone expected Bayonetta to be nerfed in the transition. And indeed she was, but the consensus is the nerfs went way too far, much like what happened to Corrine (see above). She expectedly lost her ladder combo with a heavy increase on ending lag on her forward aerial, a more unsafe Heel Slide and After Burner Kick that stop if they hit a shield, and a slower and shorter-distanced Witch Twist with less range and that takes much longer to grab the ledge, but even her basic combos got nerfed by having the startup lag and endlag of her moves increased, thus reducing the efficacy of her combos quite a bit. Her landing lag also became the longest in the game due to how her special moves work, making her much more vulnerable. Witch Time was now properly programmed and nerfed in both duration and chance. The fact she has a hard time scoring KOs is only adding insult to injury; she often has to rely on her Smashes, which are difficult to land without Witch Time and leave her vulnerable if she whiffs, since they have a glaring blind-spot at close range, such as forward smash. All of this adds up to a combo-based character that gets creative and flashy combos, but can't get KOs consistently. Bayonetta did receive some much needed buffs in updates, but even after that, there's no real consensus on how good Bayonetta is — she's been called everything from a mid-tier to a low-tier (she was ultimately confirmed to be a mid-tier as she's ranked 45th on the first tier list). She's still very annoying to fight against (though nowhere near Smash 4 levels at least), and her buffs haven't returned her to the witch's reign of terror in Smash 4, but she's nonetheless had a huge fall from grace. Though due to still being a very popular choice at tournaments and with players finding her to be nowhere near as bad as the nerfs implied has caused Bayonetta to soar a record 19 spots from her initial mid-tier placement to the A- tier on the second tier list, putting the Witch right back into the high tiers once again, though a more respectable one than a hated one.
- King K. Rool was originally promising at launch, with two useful projectiles, a counter in Gut Check that can also reflect projectiles and a long-distanced recovery that is difficult to edgeguard due to the protection from above that he receives. His down throw was also infamous in casual for burying opponents and leaving them exposed for a KO, and it was nerfed in an update so that it doesn't bury as long below 125%. Later on, however, the evolving metagame highlighted his flaws: he's the second heaviest character in the game, only lighter than Bowser, and his extreme weight, slow speed, large size and subpar frame data make him vulnerable to combos and give him a poor approach. His attacks have a lot of ending lag, none of his aerials autocancels in a short hop and up aerial leaves him in ending lag for over 50 frames as he laughs during the animation, up smash also leaves him vulnerable for an entire second with very weak hitboxes at the start, his aerials in general have high ending lag and back aerial is very slow and has a sourspot on his arm that doesn't KO at reasonable percents. His out-of-shield options are poor, with the only safe one that he has, neutral aerial, having poor range and being unsafe on hit at low percents, his Crownnerang can be used against him, preventing him from using it if he doesn't get his crown back, and his Propellerpack is linear, cannot be canceled and doesn't protect him from the sides. K. Rool also has an exclusive mechanic tied to the armor on his stomach, the Belly Armor, which can absorb half of the damage he takes if he gets hit when using some moves. However, if the Belly Armor takes too much damage, it will break and leave him stunned as if his shield was broken. Gut Check is also flawed for a counter, as it only covers his belly, leaving his upper body and face exposed when the intangibility ends, having one of the highest ending lags of any counter and producing a shockwave that is much weaker. His representation is also nearly non-existent, and his reception is very negative in America and especially in Japan, being considered one of the worst characters in the game. In the first tier list, he was ranked 74th out of 82 characters at the D+ tier, next to the top of the low tier, but in the second one, he dropped six places because of his lack of representations, lack of non-commital options, exploitable flaws and overly inconsistent results, falling down in the E+ tier and into the bottom 3.
- Isabelle has been consistently ranked poorly ever since launch. The first problem is being a semi-clone of Villager, who is noticeably worse off from the previous title due to a combination of lower weight and few other changes, while their exceptional recovery isn't so exceptional anymore. As for Isabelle, while she does possess an above-average ledge-trapping ability and a surprisingly good jab via her squeaky hammer that leads into said ledge trapping capabilities called the Wobblebell, almost everything that differentiates her from Villager is to her detriment, outside of having a faster ground speed. She's even lighter than Villager. Her smash attacks are faster, but much less powerful than theirs and have a significant lack of horizontal range. Her Fishing Rod has some solid KO power and trap potential, but is useless on shield and very punishable if she misses. Her Lloid Trap, a mine that provides stage control, can be effortlessly destroyed or even reflected, is slow to use and the explosion damages her, and her up and down aerials only use two turnips, while Villager at least can have a chance to use three. All in all, she’s far from useless, but the consensus remains that there is very little reason to play Isabelle over Villager, making her a rarity in competitive play which is reflected by the poor secretary pup being placed in the higher end of low tiers on the first official tier list. She ended up swapping places with Villager in the second tier list, while Villager dropped three spots.
