My Classic Mode Scores Tier List as of 7/3/20 upon completing Min Min's route (for the second time currently)
Hello, bloggers and Smash fans, this is NinTylo, and I've got something to post where I do my own analysis on a popular single player mode in Smash (particularly Ultimate's version, but still). I've been consistently replaying said game's Classic Mode based on how satisfying it is to score high at 9.9 difficulty and amazingly, I managed to reach the highest peak possible with each and EVERY character to this day, and I'll still be considering the remaining five DLC characters that Sakurai has yet to release during this year and next year. I'm going to talk about the highest possible score for those who want to score big in the most popular single player mode in Smash history and which characters are possible to make the highest, and those that sink at the bottom of the barrel in comparison. Whether it's their points they rack from the playable opponents, their amazing agility for the bonus game, or even the immense power they get out of their boss, these characters are you're best chance from what I can recommend at scoring big in Classic Mode.
Highest Possible Score: Yoshi
Anyone who knows me knows my main is Yoshi since Melee, much less 64 (since I didn't really have a main in the series' root year - 1999). Also the fact that more than any other character I try my hardest to seal Yoshi's spot as the highest caharacter to score with in Classic Mode. To begin with Yoshi's advantages of scoring high in CM, let's look at his remarkable capabilities. Recall his neutral special Egg Lay that he can trap his opponents in for a split second or so; it might seem useless in terms of fighting other players who can easily escape at low damage, but when given the opportunity, Yoshi can trap his enemies and attack them endlessly to rack up the points you get from dealing damage to your opponents, much less assist trophies activated by opponents, in Classic Mode. And I'm honestly SO close to getting Yoshi up to 2.3 Million, but I'm still falling JUST SHORT of that amount (and had I gotten a perfect on Rathalos with that score I nabbed, I would've surpassed that amount I'm aiming for with Yoshi). It's worth noting however that items can spawn within Yoshi's route while other characters have certain limits, such as Ryu and Little Mac - more on the former later. This means that if you're really lucky, you'll be able to throw dozens of bombs at Yoshi's opponents (which are comprised of reptiles - with the exceptions of Bowser Jr.'s default appearance and Squirtle), or the most useful weapons to rack up points being super scopes for Yoshi's default-sized opponents while the almighty Ore Clubs that rack up points by damaging his adversaries with multiple tornados, especially Yoshi's giant opponents, Ridley and Bowser who are basically tanks to launch off the screen when they are at low damage (mainly Bowser since he's the heaviest character in the game but still), and let's not forget that Nabbit is an extra albeit unnecessary opponent to kill to rack up bonus points in Yoshi's penultimate round with Giant Bowser.
For attacks that come from Yoshi by default, we all can guess by now his most damage-racking move, right? His flutter-kicking down aerial attack; this makes his attack 2nd place to Link's Down Thrust in terms of damage-racking in one use - whereas Link's Down Thrust with the Master Sword strangely enough does slightly more damage when hitting the enemy all three times than Yoshi's multiple flutter kicks. Either way, Link's down aerial that can attack not one, not two, but three times doesn't quite have as much of an opportunity for racking up points as Yoshi's ensnaring flutter-kicking, resulting in an instant KO from just one of three Down Thrust hits if Link's opponent has high enough damage.
Putting Yoshi's opponents and attacks aside, let's look at how well he can do with the bonus game and his boss Rathalos. The bonus game is more than a piece of cake for Yoshi to grab all 157,560 points in based on his amazing mobility via his remarkable attacks that do enough damage to the breakable blocks as quick as he can, his spot on running speed, and of course his air speed considering Yoshi's been the fastest character in the air (if not in air acceleration) in Smash history, albeit Melee whereas only Jigglypuff is slightly faster than him in said installment. And for his boss Rathalos, said boss is arguably the highest to score points with in the game no matter which character you fight him with, albeit Hero who unfortunately fights said wyvern before the second half of his route. Rathalos highest scoring power comes from fighting him at 9.5 difficulty or higher (where I can get that high difficulty even with Bowser who fights Rathalos in the penultimate round rather than the final round), whereas Hero's highest difficulty to fight Rathalos comes to... 7.8. (Meaning Hero's score is calculated as high only as 7.5 based on where Rathalos' round is placed in the former's route). To be fair, Duck Hunt's average 9.5 difficulty score to win on Rathalos falls just short of the rest who aren't Hero that face Rathalos, but I was once able to get Duck Hunt on par with Yoshi.
Rathalos' average score as a boss to earn at 9.5 difficulty or slightly higher is up to at least 300,000 points, and while every character but Hero gets a top notch score, Marth could score slightly higher than Yoshi, but only if the former uses his counterattack on Rathalos when said wyvern charges violently into the screen given how Rathalos cannot be defeated in that frame even at zero health when he isn't facing the player in the usual 2D perspective. I've even scored slightly higher than Yoshi with Bowser on the highest scoring difficulty possible and again, Rathalos is Bowser's penultimate round before the bonus game and his final showdown with Mario (and then Metal Mario upon default Mario's defeat). But the highest I got was with the only other character (and so far the only other DLC character) who faces Rathalos as a boss who can score just as much as any character who could score 100,000 points for six rounds in a row before the bonus game (and boss) known as Piranha Plant. Speaking of...
Contenders/Candidates
Piranha Plant
Both Yoshi and Piranha Plant have incredibly remarkable end result scores, but only one stocks up more than enough before both the bonus game and boss. Although it's true that Piranha Plant could potentially attack opponents with its poison breath whenever they're either trapped or paralyzed in some fashion, the only reason it ever does as amazing as it can is because its poisonous breath that can produce 60% damage total racks up points mostly from adversaries that hold still. Great for scoring high with its boss Rathalos, only okay against its playable opponents beforehand. So basically, Piranha Plant's highest score from its opponents can only slightly surpass Mario's at over 450,000 before the bonus game, giving Yoshi a much bigger advantage at scoring high than Piranha Plant ever could even with a lower score from the same boss. And as we all know, even with all the items it can remarkably cheat with, there's only so much you can do for a short while (especially within five minutes in each round) and you're eventually gonna have to wrap things up if you wanna progress further.
Piranha Plant's failure of surpassing Yoshi mainly comes from these small factors:
- A) Not having a multi-hit attack (neutral or special) that seizes an opponent for a split second or so.
- B) Being slightly outnumbered by up to two opponents per round (albeit the very first round with all eight of the Inklings) where Piranha Plant is in faster need to finish all of its rounds than Yoshi before being outclassed even with items that can help it cheat its way to a lot of points as I said.
- C) Piranha Plant's opponents in Round 4 (King K. Rool and Chrom) and Round 6 (Incineroar and Ken) each are enlisted as free-for-all rounds where both of them are the difference between you dealing damage to them and killing off one opponent before the other does.
And Piranha Plant's scoring capabilities with a team like the Inklings are just as short-limited to rack up points as Yoshi and the other two characters (Mario and Peach each) against the Koopalings. So while Piranha Plant can score a MONSTROUS 600,000 POINTS from Rathalos using its poison breath, while at the same time scoring a perfect, the limited amount Piranha Plant could score against everyone else unfortunately holds it slightly back from being par with Yoshi.
Wolf
So far, I've scored more with Wolf than Yoshi before the last quarter involving the bonus game and boss (in most cases) at a whooping total of 700,000 and with the help of that cave that blocks the launching top of the stage, I have mainly the fifth round against Ivysaur and Wolf's spam-worthy neutral special (Blaster) to thank for that. And Wolf was as remarkable with the bonus game as the only two who triumph over him on my tier of Classic Mode scores thanks to his air speed and great mobility, but in terms of boss battles, Yoshi was assigned to defeat Rathalos, which is way more point-racking than destroying a sluggish robot (a.k.a. Galleom). By examining the highest score possible against Galleom, I've estimated that with around 210,000 points by damage and a perfect for the boss's defeat, I think at most 373,000 is the highest score possible to earn against Galleom all together albeit Mega Man who faces him in the penultimate round rather than the final round even IF I got the difficulty up to 9.5 or slightly higher; I won't deny and say I'm not yet too sure about Dark Pit's highest possible score against Galleom given how he has his parent fighter (a.k.a. his original counterpart Pit) teamed up alongside him to defeat said boss. But as I mentioned, Yoshi and Piranha Plant especially scored much more with Rathalos, and putting Yoshi's highest score together with a perfect, I'd say all together that would make around 440,000 points at most (despite Piranha Plant scoring much higher of up to 600,000 with LOTS of skill and strategy) - pretty much up 70,000 points more than Galleom's highest possible score to rack up for all the characters who fight him at the highest possible difficulty to score with against a boss (albeit Hero much less Duck Hunt).
So Yoshi definitely had what it took to surpuss Wolf's combined scores of the first six rounds all together, and the bonus game (when counting it alongside the other rounds before the boss).
All Stamina Routes (Ryu/Hero/Terry/Byleth)
I've decided to discuss stamina routes based on how adding all the damage you deal to your opponents at a limit rather than launching them off the screen is much easier to keep track of in these routes, so these are the theories on how stamina (despite how much I hate it being included as an element for Classic Mode) can be greatly on par with the two highest I've scored with if you're able to master them.
Ryu
As much as characters who originated from other fighting game franchises have understandable stamina routes, considering stamina's been a staple of most other fighting games other than Smash, they still aren't some of my favorites based on how I'm FAR more used to percentage in Nintendo's most popular crossover series rather. I've come close to reaching the 2.15 Million range, but even with all the skill even the most masterful players of Ryu can make, Ryu really just can't hold a candle to my two highest of Classic Mode.
Granted, Ryu could reach something like the 2.2 Million rate with lots of skill and strategy. If you've seen how many other characters who have teammates in the boss rounds, the price that comes of those matches is that you're weaker than the amount of damage you can normally deal to opponents AND bosses, and calculating Ryu's potential scoring of getting perfects in every round to make it all the way up to 9.9 difficulty what with all the possible difficulties the other fighters can be fought at, it's most likely around 2.25 Million or slightly less, which would make his range within the same tier placing if not necessarily close to being as identical as Piranha Plant nor Yoshi's scoring capabilities (especially once Yoshi can reach that 2.3 Million range as I said). However, as we all know, every other character who aren't these four I'm discussing obviously can be deal ENDLESS damage while Ryu could only go as far as his most powerful one-hit attack when any of his opponents are at 0.1 HP at the lowest - not to mention, aside from having no items to cheat his way to a high score in any of his playable opponent rounds, his bosses Master Hand & Crazy Hand also are included within his stamina range meaning he was given an unfortunately short and risky stamina limit at only 150HP like the rest of his rounds compared to any other character with percentage instead of stamina - every other route of which has no such limit.
But even still, Ryu could have the potential to reach higher than any other character, but no matter how hard anyone tries, he would still completely pale in comparison to Piranha Plant and Yoshi no doubt.
Hero
Largely based on RPGs being centered around stamina, most of the time in turn-based battles as the words "role-playing game" put together imply, Hero's route is horrendously unjustifiable (unlike Ryu and Terry's each to a degree), but point-scoring advantages DO come out of stamina-based rounds in Classic Mode if you consider draining their health instead of instantly launching them off the screen. Unlike Ryu, Hero's route rounds aren't exactly the same as Ω-form stages for the most part, and while the latter does have better luck at a higher score than the rest based on potential items popping up at random, the fact that his boss Rathalos is placed in Round 4 just before the second half is his main setback from being just as on par with Piranha Plant and Yoshi. This is based solely on how the lower the difficulty is against ANY opponent (boss or playable opponent) the lower the scoring system is against them. And by the highest difficulty I could increase from the first three rounds, the highest difficulty you'd be able to fight Rathalos at with Hero is 7.8. Even still as with any other character, Yoshi and Piranha Plant can easily edge up Hero in more ways than one.
With perfects being taken into account for Hero's route, while his random down special has some nice touches to it, the fact that they're all random can only really mean you've gotta master him as any other player would do with their own main to have your best chance at perfects for most if not THE ENTIRE route. I've been able to get every point in the bonus game with Hero, and surprisingly, I didn't really need to cheat with any of his down special ability enhancements, much like how I was able to get every point with Shulk by default. But looking at his rounds, I really wouldn't count on a perfect for the last round with Robin and Giant Charizard. Much like Ryu though, Hero could also reach a killer score towards Yoshi and Piranha Plant's Classic Mode score tier range. Since only his very last round for some odd reason is percentage and not stamina, that's honestly his biggest advantage despite not having items that popped up by chance in every other round albeit the 4th round with Rathalos. So while Hero can finish off his opponents much quicker than the other stamina route fighters before the final round if given say an Ore Club to start each round off, there's only one in a BILLION chances he could ever reach Piranha Plant and Yoshi's tier range, much less be on par with either one of them.
Terry
Terry's route as we all know is another one after Ryu's that pays homage to his own respective fighting game series (Fatal Fury/King of Fighters) based on stamina. And while that certainly is the case, stamina as I said puts a limit on how much you could score that sets Terry back just as much. In fact, when getting perfects on EVERY round, Terry could very well be THE lowest of the four to score high. This is in large part due to a boss being absent in his route, just like those of Jigglypuff and Bayonetta. Assuming I got perfects on those I'd count on most, which I could potentially do so with all but the 5th and final rounds each, the best scoring capabilities within Terry would be at max up in the 2 Million or maybe even the 2.05 Million placing.
And I know you might be thinking: Terry's opponents all together in each individual round are twice the amount Hero and Ryu's opponents each have at 300HP (100HP per opponent). He can score more than they can, right? Not usually. Technically Terry's route is much different from Ryu's when examining only those routes that pay homage to other fighting game franchises that we shouldn't really scale them to the rest of the non-stamina routes besides Piranha Plant's and Yoshi's - but for the benefit of the doubt, let's do it anyways.
I'll start with my highest score I've recently set with Terry where I was only lucky enough to score myself TWO perfects if not at least four that I originally intended to nab; by examining all the points mashed together in each round when doing 300HP x 7 = 2,100HP total when the difficulty got higher and higher with each round, fighting three playable opponents in the final round instead of a boss (like Master Hand and/or Crazy Hand) from what I could get at best comes out to... 1.94 Million points. Not even close to Yoshi's 2.3 Million (let's just assume for the moment that I CAN indeed score that high with my main). If perfects were scored in every round of Terry's, including all 157,560 possible points in the bonus game no less, he could potentially score higher than what I've scored with Ryu so far, but given his obvious limit and lack of a boss as I said, he'd still only score within the 2.15 Million range at most. In short, while perfects on each round along with DEPLETING health and not KOing opponents offscreen the easy way would result in a super strong score, I don't think Terry could get as high as 2.2 Million if he tried.
Byleth
And here we come to arguably THE worst Classic Mode route of the bunch - worse than even Toon Link's. Byleth's route has rounds that, if you're a true expert, can be done faster than the other stamina route characters (most of the time). The perfects I'd count on most for this route are the first three routes against Marth, Roy, and two Ikes individually, and while you have a half and half chance at a perfect for the fourth round, the 5th and penultimate rounds with two Corrins and three Byleths respectively are the ones that the definition of a one-in-a-million chance at perfects as those rounds are absolute TORTURE! As for Byleth's scoring range of the bonus game? At most, Byleth's scoring capabilities in the bonus game are as weak as King Dedede given their weak speeds (air AND ground) and jumps. You might have teammates for the boss round with the hands, but the final boss round just puts the nail in the coffin to those bonus points you'd normally earn for defeating a boss without getting KO'd once even if you got to 9.9 and are able use a ticket to stay at that range when you continually resurrect yourself.
Looking past how awful the route is, and Byleth's awful mobility for the bonus game, he STILL has an advantage for the boss even if the hands are next to impossible to master (no pun intended). Has anyone ever watched YouTuber Beta Brawler's take on Byleth's route reaching the 9.9 difficulty range at the end; the last round where Byleth takes on the hands as a team with most of the other Fire Emblem characters (albeit Marth and Roy's echoes each)? A point range of up to 270,000 when fighting the hands all alone once Crazy Hand insta-killed the AI allies with a spiking spasm attack trap? That's (from what I calculated) mainly identical to Link and Young Link's highest scoring takes (each) on their boss Ganon. So theoretically, as with Ryu and Hero each, if not Terry, Byleth could be capable of the 2.25 range when getting perfects on all of his rounds including the hands; again, THEORETICALLY! But unlike the other three who have 150HP, Byleth unfortunately is left only 100HP per round (and don't get me started on the Corrins and Byleth team in the 5th and 6th rounds respectively), and thus has a smaller advantage at defeating his opponents than the rest. But by calculation, putting all of his opponents' HP together from every other round that isn't the boss, Byleth's damage dealing capabilities are as identical as Ryu's, but slightly less than Hero's (who has 10HP more against all of his stamina opponents combined). So worse than even Ryu (when it comes to Master Hand & Crazy Hand that is), Byleth also has literally NO potential whatsoever for a perfect on his boss fight with the hands without his teammates backing him up no thanks to his unfairly short, brutal, and perilous stamina limit of only 100, in comparison to any percentage route as I said eariler, besides (AGAIN) Yoshi and Piranha Plant - which have no such limit.
And for another theory, Byleth's better chance at a more fair 9.9 boss fight against the hands would've been more merciful had they given him a COUNTERATTACK SPECIAL like every other Fire Emblem character except Robin, and thus both Byleth and Robin would likely have a somewhat stronger chance at a potential perfect on the hands, as with pretty much any other standalone fighter WITH a counterattack who fights the hands. (With the exceptions of Marth and King K. Rool each)
Lowest Scores: Jigglypuff/Mario
Everyone has a shot at a big score for anything they're enlisted for or even the things they participate in. But they can't all be winners. In Jigglypuff and especially Mario's case however, their best capabilities from how well (and mainly how lucky I was that) they could score only as high as the 1.85 Million range. If I did a comparison with Smash Ultimate's Classic Mode scoring system to the Grade Point Average system for schools, then gaming's main icon and the most popular balloon Pokemon each would be stuck in Special Ed in order to keep up with their graduation class - meaning for how lucky I was to get this high with them they would only recieve a 4.0 GPA score with the help of Special Ed that those below-average students would be enlisted with before graduating - unlike the likes of Byleth and Mario's own brother Luigi who could get a 4.0 WITHOUT Special Ed.
Mario
Mario certainly had the most opponents in general despite not having as many distinct opponents as Terry what with Bowser Jr. and the Koopalings, but on the other hand, Yoshi has more advantage to take of his opponents considering he faces only one fighter per round, with the exception of the fourth given how he fights the same team as Mario albeit Bowser Jr.'s default appearance. Cause it's not all about KOing your opponents, it's mostly about racking up damage for the point chart, which means Yoshi's flutter-kicking is a much bigger advantage to take of opponents than Mario's tornado spinning Down Aerial (barring Yoshi's obvious Neutral Egg Lay Special attack).
Rapid damage-racking attacks aside, let's compare Mario's designated boss with Yoshi's. At most, Mario's often scored close to 250,000 points in the final round at the highest difficulty rate from what both I and other people I've seen on YouTube have scored with both Bowser AND at the same time his Giga form. When I calculated Mario's highest scoring rate against Bowser's transformation, the highest score of Bowser's Smash Bros. form (meaning Giga Bowser was originally of SSB and not the Mario universe at most) comes close to an entire 100,000 points. But Yoshi's obviously got a bigger edge over that and to be honest, I could score as much (or maybe even more) against Yoshi's penultimate round against a giant Bowser than Mario could against Bowser and his Giga form in said plumber's final round. Bringing Rathalos up yet again, said wyvern boss is a big score for every character facing him OTHER than Hero, but mostly Piranha Plant. Examining the average 9.5 difficulty score against Rathalos, again, comes out to 300,000 points at max - way more than Mario striking down his arch-nemesis' Giga form. (Three times more specifically)
Yoshi's neutral special as I said also proves he can take even more advantage when he gets the chance at trapping his opponents. But even if he could score as incredibly high as Yoshi or even Wolf, Mario had no way of racking up more than enough against Bowser and the latter's boss form even if the former got an obvious perfect bonus.
Jigglypuff
Along with Bayonetta and Terry, Jigglypuff is a character who lacks a boss and instead faces a character who is otherwise playable in the final round, that being a Giant Donkey Kong based on his stats as a mini-boss from 64's original 1P Game, so of course its going to lack the potential to score anything as high as 2 Million. Similar capabilities Jigglypuff possesses for attacks like Yoshi is how it can trap its own enemies in its lullaby up special that on the downside does not serve as any form of stage recovery, and its down aerial that serves as brief multi-hit attack similar to Yoshi's flutter-kicking air attack.
And you might be thinking "Its corkscrew-like down aerial traps opponents for a split second or two just like Yoshi's flutter-kicking, and it can paralyze its opponents with its lullaby up special to put them to sleep so you can attack them briefly. So shouldn't Jiggs be just as on par with Yoshi for those two small factors?" In a few smaller circumstances, sure. Using those moves over and over, Jigglypuff would certainly score big enough to surpass 1.9 Million to be WAY more powerful for scoring than people might think (cause to be fair, Jigglypuff has a higher chance of having an average CM score than Mario does unfortunately), much like movies that look way ahead of their time (i.e. 2001: A Space Odyssey). BUT, when considering Yoshi's more advanced ground level mobility in comparison to Jigglypuff's (like running/dashing speed), the latter unfortunately has the setback of not being able to spam with its attacks as much as the former can. Not to mention, Yoshi's ability to trap his opponents in Yoshi Eggs makes them virtually indestructible unless they are attacked at just enough damage with a Death Scythe weapon. And sealing opponents within eggs for a brief time frame was a much bigger advantage at scoring points with massive damage than putting them to sleep just to do one brief attack or two to KO them quickly, or even a few smaller points if they aren't at high enough damage to be launched offscreen - much like the Deku Nut item.
So while Jigglypuff might have a couple similar capabilities to Yoshi for a moveset, the fact that it lacks a boss and half decent ground speeds hold it far behind from coming anywhere close to Yoshi; and besides, Yoshi could score higher against Giant Bowser than Jigglypuff can against Giant Donkey Kong given how said Jigglypuff's opponent is in the last round on an Ω-form version of 64's Kongo Jungle... without items to cheat with (much less an extra stage enemy that interferes with the fight) - unlike Yoshi.
Final Statements
So this is my entire theory on the most average way to sum Ultimate's Classic Mode in a nutshell. I have commented with one YouTube user before who stated that he got characters like Wario and Mega Man up to the 2.2 Million range, and even Daisy within 2.1 Million, but I'll have to build my way up to that myself someday. If you have any other thoughts on this mode, feel free to comment below, and if you have greater scores I've mentioned among my tier list photo (at the very top), feel free to share...