Most Nerfed Characters of Super Smash Bros.

Here are the characters who were nerfed a lot in between each Smash sequel (Smash 64 to Melee, Melee to Brawl, Brawl to Smash 4, Smash 4 to Ultimate).
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gnar
Jose Rosario
Trix
Laserman2
Joe McCully
Alex Vickrey
Bavilla Merritt Jr.
JesCurious
Fleur
Noah
MonteRicard
SuperSonicBros
IPhone Animtion

[@SonicTheCutehog]

All of the Kirby characters get nerfed hard. Sakurai just trying to avoid looking biased yet over 90% of the Kirby representation in Smash is from the few Kirby games he directed.

[@Mepphy99]

Ganondorf : literally Sakurai hating him

[@dragonstar9125]

Random fact: somewhere on the internet you can find footage of a japanese Brawl local Sakurai went to and played in. You know what character he played? Ganon. Literally just rubbing it in that he butchered the character.

[@Mepphy99]

@@dragonstar9125 i knew i "mained Ganondorf" but he went to a local too? wow

[@Pro-KevinAfghani]

If you’re thinking of also eventually talking about the most BUFFED characters during transitions over the series, I believe that you’ll talk about Mario from Brawl to Smash 4. From F tier in Brawl to A tier (and top 9) is a HUGE improvement.

[@SoshiTheYoshi]

As well as Pac-Man from Smash 4 to ultimate

[@paulakroy2635]

@@SoshiTheYoshipac-man grab in smash 4 is so atrocious

[@thebigdug]

Luigi going from 64 to Melee was also very nice

[@Pro-KevinAfghani]

@dwigt.smorin8855 The day Luigi wins his first supermajor will be a day to celebrate!

[@ZachHonest]

I'll probably do a sequel video in the future, so expect that.

[@tacticaljunk1608]

Brawl Falcon is just downright depressing.

[@PramudiaGuy]

didn't realize lucario got nerfed lol

[@untitled_lucario]

you know what they say... it's nerf or nothing

[@jmurray1110]

Yeah the primary issue is the weight decrease A character who reiies on survivablity dies faster

[@dragonstar9125]

Brawl Dedede felt like somewhat of an amalgamation of good Melee characters' moves being transferred onto a slow heavy in the hopes that it would balance out. Down throw has the same exact properties as Shine, for instance, B-air is obviously like Puff's, and Side-B is pretty similar to Peach turnips or Falco lasers (remember, Yoshi wasn't considered good yet.) For the record, Falcon wasn't actually nerfed as hard as the tier list alone would make you think, he just translated poorly into Brawl since combos were impossible and nothing killed until like 200%. The same could be argued for Kirby, too, since even though his speed was nerfed from 64-Melee, he already wasn't the fastest, so further nerfs just kind of sealed his fate. It's also important to remember that the SSB team nerfed characters transitioning to the next game by referencing community opinion at the time. Characters like Mario and Ganon being nerfed make slightly more sense when you remember that people sucked in early Melee, leading HAL to nerf them coming into Brawl. What that doesn't explain is why they nerfed Puff, since the community still thought Puff sucked (It would take until ~09 for Mango's dominance with puff to be acknowledged completely, I believe).

[@Rougealienpirate]

Puff is same with falcon in the sense that the physics change harmed puffed the most with rest and bair nerfs being just salt to the wound. Another thing is brawl saw a general increase of power with characters like meta knight and snake clearly having more tuned kits than past characters

[@DragonSoulMusic]

On top of everything else, Melee Kirby also loses all of his jumps after using up-throw...

[@theabsolutetrashman3708]

Lucario's viability in Smash 4 was fully realized at the very end of the game's life spam, and you could technically make an argument that he could still be viable on Ultimate... Except when characters like Terry or Kazuya exists... *It is what it is*

[@Valid644]

Surprised nobody mentioned Bayonetta’s horrendous nerfs from sm4sh to ult. At least when the game first came out, since she got beneficial buffs later on. While she was broken in sm4sh no argument on that but she definitely is nowhere near as good as she was in the previous smash game. Going from best character in the game to below mid tier on release in the new game is crazy…. On the topic of that though, wonder what will happen to Steve and Kazuya in the next smash game…..

[@keeshuunedited5678]

Lucario is the character I've put the most time into in Smash 4 and Ultimate. I really felt the nerfs super hard so it feels really nice to see a video talking about it. I've actually seen some pros place him in bottom tier. There's characters that do what he wants but better since it can be troublesome for him to make it past 100%. I've heard some people make funny comments about in Ultimate, he's essentially like trying to play a weird worse version of Sheik. I do love the range and speed increases (and counter reliably connecting so he doesn't get punished for countering), but it feels as if they tried to force a power character into a character based around speed without thinking about what purpose each move serves. Competitively I just don't see him me ever using him, not even as a counterpick. Snake basically replaced all the matchups I wanted to swap to Lucario for, even against the best player who mained Pikachu because Lucario does oddly well against Pikachu because Lucario will actually get high aura in that matchup quite often, and T-jolt can be countered safely. Snake just counters Pikachu much much harder (and I play chess as my other go-to competitive game, and Snake really is "chess in smash"). Still playing him for this month, because this year I've been dedicating 1 month per character to finally decide who my main will be so I never stop thinking in circles about who could be a possible main. At this point I feel like I'll keep him as a pocket for countering people's mindsets/playstyles. Other people may hate him, but to me high aura Lucario is the hypest thing in smash because he's just the most intense form of adrenaline (Pichu does similarly, but it's constant with Pichu, so it's not quite as effective at getting the blood pumping). Other characters everything feels the same throughout the match, but Lucario the low stakes of early %s, and high stakes of high% just feels so good, and there's so many different strategies based around the aura, and his move set feels good outside of aura as well. Whatever the case, I will still love playing Lucario casually and I hope in a future smash game he gets Zeraora (or some other pokemon) as an echo as a non-aura alternative so people won't turn their nose up at his moveset because he's really fun. Though a re-work would be nice, so it's not just "Goku in smash". Aura in smash doesn't even work that way in Pokemon!

[@CarbonMalite]

I think DK in Ult was nerfed pretty bad if not the worst. They shrank his arms, they nerfed his grab, and the speed of the game makes heavies worse. They even nerfed his UpB's aerial hitbox and damage too so you rarely use it outside of recovering (which was also nerfed)

[@zerorose4011]

Captain falcon: you ever been punched in the ankle? Mewtwo: you ever been punched in the tail? Donkey Kong: You guys ever been punched in the Tie???

[@TheGameMan76]

Litteraly just got on break and I get honest content. Thank you for the gift.

[@tygon9619]

same lol

[@ZachHonest]

No problem 😊

[@MarioLuigi25]

Even as someone who doesn't play Smash Bros competitively, seeing how hard they nerfed Kirby in Melee makes me sad. He's one of my favorite Nintendo characters and I use him in the other Smash Bros games he's in. But it is extremely hard to win matches with him in Melee. Even in Free For All mode. Melee is the only Smash Bros game that I have trouble using Kirby in

[@GODDAMNLETMEJOIN]

It takes some time and practice to realize how good the good characters are, but Kirby just feels like crap instantly.

[@N.G.H.]

Kirby was so broke on the N64 that his forward smash can be spammed at 0% to low percentage and... that's the whole combo. Depending on the stage, if you're on a really long area like Hyrule castle or Fox's ship Kirby's forward smash can be spammed till you reach a ledge.

[@N.G.H.]

You can do this on Dreamland and Peach's castle on the upper deck too. Lots of fun.

[@user-The_Pow_Guy]

The Nerf of Kirby it's because the character's Code and attacks are incomplete and not finished completely in Melee and the other Smash games.

[@yveshku5583]

Lucario is among my favourite Pokémon, and while I never played Brawl in its prime, I was incredibly excited seeing him in Smash 4 and he was by far my most used character, even being one of maybe three characters outside of the Miis I made multiple custom sets for because that was a thing in that game for some modes. Playing him in Smash Ultimate, while I did still enjoy and he still takes my most used character there, felt noticeably different and the gap between him and Marth as my second or the rest of the cast isn't nearly as large.

[@FloridusMan]

King Dedede really deserved better

[@lifehurts1183]

Now do the opposite of characters who were buffed inbetween Smash games

[@plabcentral630]

My guy ddd got bodied hard. TWICE

[@andresugalde916]

At least he's somewhat functional in ultimate

[@plabcentral630]

@@andresugalde916 he go lucky with the engine. I always play him but man it was bad in smash 4. I miss brawl

[@andresugalde916]

@@plabcentral630 wish they gave us his old moveset back, minus waddle dee toss, gordos are way better honestly

[@VinnytotheK]

Awesome video as always! I think the music could've been turned down though, makes some of it feel very noise-populated, especially with sound effects on top of it.

[@BradleyKirby-ze9eh]

But I love kirby 😢

[@iamthetie]

I do have to credit the original smash bros. for my love of Kirby. His games were fun, but I loved the contrast between his games and how hard he played in the original smash. I miss him being viable, but it’s still fun to surprise unsuspecting players with a decent Kirby

[@agentblackbird9435]

Never forget the Smash 4 Dedede video that won against that really good Cloud player

[@SonicTheCutehog]

Pretty much all of the Original 12 were nerfed in the transition to Brawl

[@JustinMAuraWielder]

Definitely not Fox.

[@SonicTheCutehog]

@@JustinMAuraWielder Fox was nerfed.

[@soulrebellion]

Brawl's most nerfed is really Jigglypuff yeah

[@yan_dj]

This has the quality of a video from a 500k+ subscriber channel 🔥

[@TheReZisTLust]

Sonic got hit the worst man its so sad. Brawl to 4 nerfed his emotions so heavily the world still hasn't healed

[@albertwesker4729]

appearance and taunts were nerfs, but top tier in smash 4 and ultimate

[@TheReZisTLust]

@@albertwesker4729 nah the people playing just sucked

[@Goofzillers]

@@TheReZisTLust he's broken in S4 and invalidated half of the cast, still top tier in Ult but a bit overrated because of Sonix carrying in results

[@domdollahyt]

Another Honest Content W keep up the great work!

[@SiMgUrL1721]

Wow. Nobody has talked about how even Mario himself was severely nerfed from "Melee" to "Brawl" to the point where he became a Low Tier character for the first time in Smash history. Especially since his KO Power and Recovery were the worst that they have ever have been in the Smash series. I also even heard that Mario couldn't even combo opponents very well in "Brawl's" engine due to the limited amount of Hit-Stun that "Brawl" has as well. Since Mario's combo abilities were probably his biggest strength that he's had in "Smash 64" and "Melee" back then. After what happened to Mario in "Brawl", you would just outright think that Sakurai should have just let someone else balance Mario out in future Smash titles who's definitely much more loyal to the character than Sakurai was in "Melee" and "Brawl" back then. I couldn't talk about Luigi since he was never severely nerfed like his brother Mario was in both "Melee" and "Brawl" back then. The reason why Mario was also heavily nerfed from "Smash 64" to "Melee" is because that he lost most of the KO Power and Recovery that he once had in "Smash 64" back then as well.

[@melee9183]

This was a very truthful video. Honest content if you will

[@dandreincredible7596]

5:00 Jigglypuff becoming bottom 3? I think you mean bottom 1

[@Flare8295]

Lucario doesn't have bad out of shield options

[@superjustinebros3504]

I really wish that Lucario was now becoming a better Smash character in a next Smash game so that everyone will keep enjoying play as him once again just if he is buffed than nerfed, I hope.

[@reddevn]

I joined smash at around brawl so here are characters i was sad about getting nerfed in smash 4 -Falco (Horrid neutral game with harshly nerfed moves that were good in brawl) -Wario (Wack range, and lotsa laggy moves now) -Puff (Was bad in brawl, but was comepletely killed in smash 4) -Mr G&W (Cant kill and wack range) Hope these list of characters help some others understand that Sakurai hates competitive smash

[@DaisyDuke8383]

Next: Top 5 Characters That Got Last Place: 64: Luigi Melee: Bowser Brawl: Ganondorf SM4SH: Jigglypuff Ultimate: Also Ganondorf

[@dhans9662]

Lil mac is worse than ultimate ganon tho

[@DaisyDuke8383]

@@dhans9662 Ultimate Ganon Is Even Worse Than Ultimate Little Mac Tho

[@wackywakko6694]

Tbf smash 64 is the only game most people can say any of those low tiers can be the worst character in the game Those low tiers suffer alot Link: his frame data is bad and his recovery is abysmal Luigi: bad mobility and traction holds him back Dk: he's combo food and can lose to everyone due to how busted hitstun was in 64 also he's slow Ness: bad range,awful vertical movement and mediocre recovery Samus: non existence grab mediocre combo game and one of her moves don't work These characters are all bad there bad qualities are so bad any of them can be crowned the worst one

[@dhans9662]

@@DaisyDuke8383 At least ganon can somewhat recover and doesnt get launched easily due to being a heavyweight, plus doriyah

[@DaisyDuke8383]

@@dhans9662 Terry Has The Worst Recovery Like Little Mac

[@shiralee3254]

Well at least I now know that ddd rocked the c+. In his debut in smash.

[@pabzplayz2330]

1:02 made me realise you have smash remix cuz you can't play on First Destination in Smash 64

[@sethswoodruff]

making a character that has the best move included from every game

[@FMT_Player]

I heard Nineball Island in this video and became very happy.

[@JoeDude1901]

Same here, Endless Ocean: Blue World was my childhood man.

[@jamese5204]

Can u do a video about mr game and watch in ultimate compared to his past iterations

[@thepooroldsoul8179]

Kazuya (in my opinion) flat out invalidates Lucario across the board. That being said, I would've included Marth for characters that were nerfed the hardest in Ultimate.

[@GianfrancoLaRotta]

Cool 0:06

[@Monhamd1000]

It's more like the Smash team doesn't know how to nerf probably.

[@restless276]

just gonna try predict the reverse "most buffed characters" list 64 to Melee - Luigi? went from worst character in the game to a B- tier in Melee, no big stand out shift for this game but he's who I'd have to go with if picking anyone Melee to Brawl - Really tough to decide, basically every character from Melee is either in the same tier or worse, I would have to go with Game and Watch being in the same tier as Fox which is in part due to the nerfs to him and he didn't really jump a massive tier or anything but he's one of the only improved characters relative to Melee where almost everyone drops off a cliff. Brawl to 4 - Easily Mario, from a bottom 8 F tier character to top 9 overall couldn't be a bigger jump so that's the most obvious best pick to me 4 to Ultimate - Pac-Man or Palutena, I would say Pac-Man purely cause he's ranked lower than her in 4 and top 15 in Ultimate, higher than Palutena in Smash as well as them fixing stuff like his awful grab in 4 stand out. While a slightly lower tier jump than Pac, Palutena definitely jumped representation wise as a generally easy to use top tier, despite being worse I'm pretty sure Smash 4 Pac-Man still had way more representation due to the fact he was Pac-Man so people wanted to use him compared to Palutena who's not even comparably popular of a character

[@dragonstar9125]

Yeah Melee-Brawl has three contenders for most improved: -Kirby is no longer bottom 2 and has legitimate use as a CP against a select few higher tier characters -ICs were very notably NOT a top 2 character in Melee, and they were really oppressive against just about every other character in Brawl's roster. They may not have moved up more than a couple spots on the tier list, but remember that Brawl's top tier was also a ton more oppressive than Melee's -G&W being in the same tier as Fox, though I see this as more of Fox being really nerfed because G&W is just barely not mid tier in Melee so it isn't _that_ crazy to see him in low mid.

[@derrickdavis3888]

Luigi got nerfed for his down special and no longer has a recovery!

[@SonicTheCutehog]

Roy from 4 to Ultimate is also a contender

[@restless276]

@@derrickdavis3888 in what?

[@derrickdavis3888]

@@restless276 In Ultimate! They nerfed him because due to his windbox can pull the the opponent when times that they get gimmick from his attack! Even worse his Green Missile makes him traveling less horizontal distance and has end leg to it from the previous!

[@Hipnoballs-leon]

As a kirby fan who loves penguins, sad to see dedede being bad ( also kirby) so i think heres how to buff dedede Down special is gordo cuz side special he will spin with his hammer as a kill move AND when the move is done he will throw the hammer Brawl grab range Gordo dont get reflected by one move

[@fartemis]

high quality video but you failed to mention melee kirby's sad excuse for a suicide kill, his back thro

[@ZachHonest]

bro I show it literally in the video LOL

[@riotmaster1455]

I don’t like Kirby’s melee lips. They make me uncomfortable…

[@nolife6013]

So what's the deal with the footage at 7:13 and why didn't you credit the original source of the person who uploaded this clip or better yet record new footage to demonstrate King Dedede's chain grab? Seeing the footage go from pretty good to 2008 footage with a low quality camera filming a standard definition tv is very jarring.

[@CrossoverFan4life]

I feel Falco should have been the Smash Wii U one when it came to the nerf from Brawl to 4

[@GamingTopTen]

7:34 Zelda was lower than Ganondorf? Wow, it's a good thing I didn't play Smash competitively or I would have been angry at this.

[@Pro-KevinAfghani]

Wasn’t Mewtwo nerfed pretty hard from Smash 4 to Smash Ultimate as well?

[@untitled_lucario]

@@roobyrne3075 "not as hard Lucario"

[@mrbigotes9974]

The thing is, Lucario went from a viable, tournament menace that you had to learn how to fight to a rage dependant character in a game where you die at 80. M2 was crippled, but he's still M2, he can still cook stuff. the best description I've seen of Lucario in Ultimate is that he barely becomes a character at 60, and then a solid high mid tier in 120%. Ultimate is powercreeped hard. M2 problem is that he's glasscanon aggro Samus, in a game where Samus's whole strenght is her defensive and spacing tools

[@Pro-KevinAfghani]

@mrbigotes9974 I did play some Mewtwo back in Smash 4, but I don’t remember playing Lucario in that game. However, this video made me convinced that the Lucario nerfs into Ultimate were slower of a burn especially when the rage mechanic got weakened.

[@MeesterTweester]

Yeah, percentage-wise he dropped the most

[@mohsenmejri3416]

I'm confused. How is melee captain falcon more nerfed than melee jigglypuff?

[@jamainegardner4193]

What about Meta Knight?

[@Mr.D0rAdE]

Brawl Falco to Smash 4

[@jameslisterthemarthplayer8322]

The waddle dees were honestly better projectiles than the gordos. Sure they didn’t do a lot of damage, but you couldn’t just fling them back at King Dedede and they were honestly better for spacing.

[@ZachHonest]

I agree, plus you got more control over where the waddle dees go, the gordos were a little too predicitable.

[@ZeoLightning]

King dedede is the hardest character to kill vertically. his combination of weight, fall speed and gravity make so that he lives longer than most other characters launched upwards. I'd def say Jigglypuff had a much larger, WORSE drop off than falcon ever did. and for brawl king dedede, while not that great in 4, wasnt the worst. Falco had a worse drop off in smash 4. they gutted his lasers and kill power. the removal of chain grabs also effected him but much harsher than dedede cause falco is easier to kill and didnt gain any good advantages over brawl. lucario is a good pick for ult, my second one would be shiek

[@dustymcwari4468]

Don't forget Dedede continued to get nerfs throughout Smash 4's lifespan, it was as if the devs really hated him or thought he was top tier xd

[@Jonathan-A.C.]

That’s pretty awful that apparently the best game in the series still has atrocious competitive viability for many characters, outright making some just purely better than other characters. Makes competition really just….non existent. Sad

[@henriksjogren9727]

Kirby is the greatest! *Melee Kirby: I beg your pardon*

[@Dakpo]

Honestly my vote from smash 4-> Ultimate would be marth

[@samuellohoues9930]

what is the name of this music? 9:10

[@JoeDude1901]

Nineball Island (Day) - Endless Ocean: Blue World

[@samuellohoues9930]

@@JoeDude1901 Thank you very much. This music is good.

[@lightkuma9166]

Literally all that was needed to nerf lucario and still make home good was to nerf rage that’s it. The weight nerf was not needed at all

[@wackywakko6694]

Oh no their was more nerfs to lucario in Ultimate Not only they nerfed his Weight & recovery and other moves and losing Rage from 4 But the biggest blow to lucario in Ultimate was the nerf to Aura because in Ultimate they change how aura works instead of getting powered up the higher percents you get instead your power of aura is based on stocks so basically if you have 1 stock less than an opponent aura will be fully powered but if your tied in stocks or higher your aura damage is significantly nerfed they gutted him hard

[@RedFoxLevel101]

Holy falcon propaganda

[@PN-Mickey]

I know they did Falcon Dirty bro 😢

[@awesomeone2779]

These mfers at Nintendo basically said "Hey, this character seems to be really going is doing well with the community and on tierlists. Let's make 'em absolute dogshit the next game."

[@ZachHonest]

lmao

[@TramiNguyen-oi3kp]

Kirby is my favorite Super Smash Brothers character!

[@666blaziken]

I will argue that brawl Falco to sm4sh falco is worse since he was top 6 in brawl

[@StarForceBelmont321]

Im surprised you never considered how bad they nerfed Dr Mario since he was top of mid tier

[@ZachHonest]

I actually have a different idea for talking about characters like Dr. Mario, but I don't wanna spoil that lol

[@StarForceBelmont321]

@@ZachHonest BTW Zach Goemon is doing great in the competitive scene so far Makes me happy. Btw called His PIPE a Staff on stream It's actually a Giant Smoking Pipe made of gold XD

[@glauciarochelle]

Sakurai nerfed our son

[@DavidDumbedDown]

This video was uploaded at 12:00 o clock

[@DavidDumbedDown]

12:57

[@slimdemon-616]

Marth in Melee>>>> Marth in Ultimate

[@TheDemonChara]

That is a 3 game jump you're making

[@OkairMcLaren]

He said cloud and bayo are still viable. Only cloud is def not bayo, cloud not numerous game chaning buffs will bayo simple got some touch ups.

[@Hinoka5251]

People really think there’s stats and shit in this game

[@RealBroccoliHour]

You gotta blow your nose dog

[@ZachHonest]

BRO

[@TheReZisTLust]

​@@ZachHonestIt's ok bro, my Elementary teacher told me to sniffle and not use napkins too 🥺

[@tuverytary]

kirby

[@superjustinebros3504]

Anti-Lucario Propagandist sucks it's so childish and amateur since I got more attention on that Aura Doggo in Pokemon Journey.

[@colinjackson-xn9ro]

Nah jigglypuff was the most nerfed in brawl.

[@BradleyKirby-ze9eh]

😢😢😢😢😢😢

[@ethanmacdonald3013]

lucario is pretty good

[@simanolastname2399]

C'mon bro you chose one of the lamest combos in melee to call hype