Smash Bros 4 and Smash Bros melee are the two most played smash games in the competitive scene. While it may seem odd to the casual, the competitive player is well acquainted with the severe unbalance of Brawl, the smash game on the Wii. While Smash Bros 4 may be the most balanced smash game, it has it’s fair share of unbalance among the roster (namely the “burn the witch” movement against Bayonetta) while I won't go into the roster of top tiers, I will be detailing what makes a character good.
A Niche
A niche is a special mechanic a character has in smash such as Lucario’s aura or Little Mac's KO punch. Niche’s are fairly rare and most of the time don't make a character broken (other than lucario killing with a forward smash uncharged at the ledge at around 15% with Max aura and rage) however with enough they can. Such as Bayonetta having bullet arts and bat within.
A Good Neutral Game
While it is not mandatory for a player to have every one of these attributes, it does pave the way to have some of them. However a neutral is nearly mandatory for most characters to be good, in order to be good you must first be able to turn the game in your favor.
Combos
Working in tandem with a good neutral, a good combo game is mandatory to be good. Most, if not every character that is good has some good reliable combos (cloud is an exception to and extent).
KO Options
The biggest hurdle for many characters that have an amazing combo game is killing, for while their fast and weak attacks are amazing for low and mid percents, if they can't kill it may require an amazing extensive amount of skill in order to win.
Movement Speed
Smash is a game centered around movement, therein those who can move faster tend to be better, and those who are slower and/or heavier are not. Being heavy leads to combos that may even work at high percentage, while being slow and lead to a bad neutral, low combos, and losing stage control.
A Good Recovery
As is seen by little mac, who exceeds in combos(to an extent), kill power, and movement speed, he is held back by his terrible recovery. A good and reliable recovery can make a character amazing by giving it a means of coming back to the stage.
Disjoints
Disjoint is a term to describe a move with a hit box but not a hurtbox. IE: a character attacking with a sword won't be hurt if it's sword is hit in said attack. While it is not as mandatory to have to be good, characters such as Kirby and jigglypuff are held back by a multitude of things but also their lack of disjoints, leaving it overwhelmed by other characters.
While there are other attributes such as moves with low end lag, it is better to leave the list as it is as other attributes could be classified under the previously mentioned ones. As Smash Bros is a very technical game, it makes sense to see so many attributes make up a good character.
Article written by Ashkid848