Brawl - More balanced than Melee? Lie or truth?

Eggm said:

There were way more techniques and options available to every character than in brawl. Lets look solely at wavedash for now. You could for one be better at WD outta shield against laggy attacks to grab. Or just movement, you could be better at faking your opponent into thinking your approaching using a combination of perfect Dash dancing/wding then when they react to you like side dodge or something you can get in and punish. Or be good at edge guarding using the WD past the ledge to instnat ariels. Theres tons of options that aren't in brawl that are useful for all characters, I could spend the whole day here explaining because melee is infinitively deeper than brawl right now. I hope new stuff is found in brawl tho
...
Another reason is because most of the techniques getting found are character specific rather than the whole cast specific. With the exception of that shield grab cancel thing. ... I think some characters will fine techniques like that and just will annihilate the rest of the cast once it develops further.

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Thank you first for elaborating, its not that I couldn't guess or assume this was what you were talking about, but having it out there makes discussion easier without losing anyone or there being miscommunication.

I agree with you Wavedashing Dashdancing and the many other techniques we picked up along the way create options in Melee. Yes it is indeed somewhat obvious even, I would expect a non smash player even to notice this, and therefore certainly expect (most of) the posters here could. However where I disagree is in my opinion that the game is therefore less deep. It is true the developers decided to make the changes intentionally taking these things out, I don't believe they were neither unaware of them or it was accidental. However few fighting games are played precisely the way they are created once the game is adopted. You recognize this and even hope that techniques are developed for Brawl. I have little evidence or proof, and therefore cannot fight with much weight here other than history, which has no real claim over the future, leaving me only to say the game is still new. I agree with many of the arguments against this point of view, that we are much better at finding techniques, and have better communication to explore possible techniques, but I would maintain that there will still be many more techniques which will shape brawl the way SSBM was shaped over time. Perfect shielding is just step one, and an option much more accessible than it was previously, opening new doors. I don't doubt there will be other new doors opened, not by the same techniques as before, but comparable to those which provided SSBM with extra options.

Very astutely you also mention your concern about the individual techs developing rather than global techniques. I believe this was intentional by the development team. True deep knowledge of your own character first, and then your opponents character second, has been stressed repeatedly through the pre release of brawl. I feel extra emphasis was certainly made on insuring distinct, different feels and play styles of each character on the roster. This leads me to somewhat share your concern, but more optimistically. Of all the character specific techs developed, none have truly impressed any of us, or else there would be a much larger outcry/discussion than there is. The strongest character specific useful tech I've seen so far is the samus air grapple beam cancel named zair. It at first glance certainly seems a dominating technique, but I feel it would be near impossible for everyone working on brawl to have overlooked something as simple as landing while a move is in progress. We have the auto cancel aerials, with specifically programmed frames in which landing results in a different animation/lag. So why would they leave this aerial the way it is if it seems so strong? I have to point back to my point about the developers knowing the game very well, certainly compared to us at its release. They would not ship a game where zair could so easily control half the space available on most maps. For this reason I feel we are still in the discovery stages of techs already known about by those who made the game. If someone was to find a devastating technique today for only one character, I promise you that alternate techniques would be found to deal with and counter this in other characters. Therefore I agree the character specialization is frightening, because a character specific oversight can destroy a game much more than a global oversight. However I do not expect that tech will be found today, tomorrow, or for a good many days to come if it even exists. We have many more intended character techs to find prior to that point, and with these specifically improved characters I don't know if we could even consider the same idea of a "god tech" developing, as play will not be easily comparable to what we have now.

This is not a stable supported argument, I can't know what the developers know about, nor can I know if any other techs will be found in brawl, but its for the reasons above I am optimistic, and its the years of smash I enjoyed which gave me the blind confidence to buy a wii just for this game as well as put my hopes for the game where they are. For today, thats all I can provide you for your concerns, we shall wait and see half scared, half hopeful, as its the best we can do.


-True

i have watch around 300 videos of brawl and not one char. seems to stand out to be the best every match that i have watched seems to be close... and i have watched every char. play just about every other char. the game as of RIGHT NOW... seems to be more balanced... my thoughts as well as the people i play with is that ANY char. can be good as long as u play with them enough and learn their ins and outs...
-john-

I personally think that people are underestimating how people "feel" about the game, or are not seeing the underlying message of what this word being thrown around, feeling. I have had only limited play time with Brawl, so I cannot make any definite judgments, but what I'm talking about is based primarily on observation of others.

If you look more closely at people's comments, casual and competitive, you see people saying not only that the game feels more balanced, but that for one reason or another, a character FEELS good. Now what does that mean, when a character FEELS good? It's saying that the specific properties of a character or characters clicks with an individual player, allowing him to win more often, try to learn how to win more often, or even just have fun (with winning a nice, but secondary prize). But it speaks to the individuality of each character, and I believe that with so few people playing the game right now, the game is not reaching every single type of person who may actually be able to prefer a certain neglected character and taken to the next level of competitive play (or any other indicator of skill).

When you look at who's popular now, it's easy to tell that the mindset is still not that far removed from Melee. Why? Because people complain when characters don't have combos. Combos are such a big deal right now, and why people are in love with Toon Link. People complain when old combos no longer work. But who said that combos are still such a deciding factor, that they are such a vital crux of strength?

Using Donkey Kong as an example, the Dojo lists a combo of Headbutt into Giant Punch. Let's just assume that it is a viable combo for the sake of argument. However, DK's Giant Punch also has another important property: Armor frames once fully charged. So this isn't a combo at all. It's DK baiting an opponent into attacking and then unleashing one, SINGLE attack.

Now, I'm not saying that Melee skills don't transfer over to Brawl at all, but to think that you can't get TOO used to a game or TOO specialized is also faulty thinking, and I think for people who play Melee endlessly, the adjustment may be in some ways more difficult than someone who has less experience with it.

Don't believe me? Try this: Go turn on your N64 and play the original Super Smash Bros. Now see how often you try to air dodge only for it to fail because that technique isn't in the game. It could be mental, it could just be muscle memory, but it has what we can call a negative effect on one's gameplay.

Personally it's very amusing seeing the arguments for balance because it feels like someone new is crying wolf every week. Remember when we found out Tether Recoveries didn't work if someone was already hogging the edge? And there were cries of how Olimar is now low tier? Now people are declaring him to be overpowered! This, more than anything, speaks to the potential of Brawl's balance, the way the general opinion of characters shifts so frequently.

WDing out of shield in terms of punishing laggy hits on shield has been replaced by drop shield buffer to dash. It works pretty much the same, cept you're in an initial dash instead of a "special land animation." Melee definitely had more techniques relative to Brawl, but more techniques doesn't make a game more balanced. I've posted this several times in this thread already, after getting lots of and lots of play time in, the best characters don't seem nearly so overwhelmingly good that the lower characters can't put up a fight. At the very least there is no way that Brawl is LESS balanced than melee. It just isn't possible w/ the physics of the game + the way the hitstun works + the way the throws + grabs are. Melee was definitely about tricking your opponent, but that is going to be something you HAVE to do in Brawl. In Melee if you knew a matchup well enough and could execute the strategy well enough, you could make it near impossible for certain characters to win vs their counters. I don't see this happening in Brawl. Certain characters will have advantages over others, but the gap is less, imo, at least. Brawl is fun! If you haven't played it yet, you should be excited. Don't let the wet blankets try to discourage you. This is coming from someone who thinks Melee is the best game ever made btw. Hard to say if Brawl will top it, but Brawl is already great in my eyes.

I've had the game for 3 weeks, if your referring to me, I also nearly beat azen at chu's biweekly last weekend arguably the best player at the game right now. I am good I know the ins and outs, I just feel in the future when the top tiers are decided they will be even more broken than in melee, it just seems that way.

im talking mostly about yuna. my WDing thing was directed to you tho.

I have not even played the game yet but just judging by videos I've watched it seems like there will be more viable characters for tournaments than there were in melee. Although I still think it's a bit early to tell I have high hopes that characters like yoshi, kirby, Ice Climbers etc. will have a better chance at competing at a higher level if for no other reason than nerfs to characters like Sheik and Fox. But who knows, in a few months something might be discovered to screw that theory over. Either way atleast we always have melee to come back to.

I don't have the game yet, so I'm not really in a position to answer, but I've seen vids of people using supposedly bad characters such as Link in tournaments against Diddy or Pit and doing fairly well.

True seems to have a lot more faith in the gaming competence of the makers of Brawl than I, for one, do based on my (admittedly limited) Melee experience.

K I'm not sure if it has been posted before but there's too much posts to read:

As of now I think this game is more balanced cause of the following:
Each character seems more unique in comparison to melee. What I mean with this is that each characters requires a different style of play that is effective for that character. It is noticable in their attacks and lag times so on.
In melee chars were varied but if you knew 1 style of play most of the time you could get away with using it with most other chars ( not all I know ). Not saying that would be the most effective but in brawl chars have more unique characteristics to them.

Like diddy for example has moves that are suitable for following up setups. However since he has bananas he doesn't have a lot of moves that work well to approach. So you have to setup using banana's, fake out people to create openings. After he has a opening he can get quite some comboes going but diddy can't use his arials for a lot of shield pressuring ( although bair might be usefull). His approaching attacks have a pretty low priority and knockback so most chars can counter diddy if he attacks straight on. This is different in comparison with sonic for example who is more attack head on oriented and has the moves to suit this ( and can use his upb to get fast kills from juggles).
Slower chars in exchange have moves that are really suitable for punishing ( Mis a attack vs ike and you can expect one hell of a blow) or countering attacks but most of them have 1 fast move for approaching as well so they aren't out of options when there opponent starts shielding. Also if they hit a shield with a strong attack the shielder slided too far back to shieldgrab(unless perfect shielded or they spaced it really badly)

Also since shield pressuring isn't as reliable as it is in melee it doesn't give slow chars a huge disadvantage.

So yeah cause each char requires a more unique playing style I can't spot one best char as of now which makes the game more balanced in my opinion. The more chars play similiar to each other the sooner you find one of the 2 chars which is just better then the other but I don't see that with this game.

Now if certain techniques or strategies are found that start breaking this uniqeness and decrease the disadvantages of chars certain chars might appear to suck again but right now I hardly see chars that are useless.

I feel that Brawl is more balanced.

Mikezor said:

I feel that Brawl is more balanced.

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By good golly gee, sir, you've convinced me. Forget the other, five-paragraph arguments posted on this thread; you obviously know your stuff. You know it so well you don't even have to post it! Amazing. Just amazing.

Yuna I am waiting for you to get back here and get me a whopper refute my argument!

-Ciao

Now I don't have brawl, so don't take anything I say as final judgement. (I guess I undermined my whole argument right there)

I think that brawl is more balanced because of each characters unique playstyles as stated above. Take sonic for example, he can combo, can't seem to get a KO in, and lacks priority moves. So instead of trying to outpower the opponent, you outmanuver and pester has his damage percent.

Ike, on the otherhand has great power, thus instead of trying to outmanuver, try to punish and wait for your opponent to slip up.

Now with melee, basically, if you could SHFFL,you could play almost any character well.

And secondly, I think people are complaining about brawl being less balanced becuase they are still used to melee.

BananaNut said:

Now I don't have brawl, so don't take anything I say as final judgement. (I guess I undermined my whole argument right there)

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No problem, I'd like to hear your points anyhow. I don't have much Brawl experience on my belt, either.

BananaNut said:

I think that brawl is more balanced because of each characters unique playstyles as stated above. Take sonic for example, he can combo, can't seem to get a KO in, and lacks priority moves. So instead of trying to outpower the opponent, you outmanuver and pester has his damage percent.

Ike, on the otherhand has great power, thus instead of trying to outmanuver, try to punish and wait for your opponent to slip up.

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I'd bet to differ on this point. I'd say that the unique play styles actually unbalances the metagame. The more complex differences between characters you have, the more you'll find that it is harder to balance. For an example, if Super Smash Bros 64 only had Mario as a playable character, you could say that there is perfect balance. The more characters and new moves you add, the much more difficult it is to balance.

On the other hand, the differing styles are conducive toward interesting metagame changes between characters. Being forced to play characters differently opens up new ideas. For example, I'd say there is a better chance at finding a breakthrough Olimar technique than there is at finding a breakthrough Mario technique. My rationale is as follows.
1. There will be more people playing Olimar, not only because he is a newcomer but also because he is being touted as having amazing knockback and damage capabilities.
2. Olimar plays so vastly different from the rest of the other characters that it opens the possibilities for different tactics.

The more character-specific ideas and concepts that are found, the less likely the game will be more balanced.

BananaNut said:

Now with melee, basically, if you could SHFFL,you could play almost any character well.

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It depends on your definition of well, but SHFFLing does indeed help.

BananaNut said:

And secondly, I think people are complaining about brawl being less balanced becuase they are still used to melee.

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This statement seems a bit off to me. You might be partially right, but I don't think that blanket statement is going to cover it.

TrueRedemption said:

@ Replacement and all the readers of our discussion:

That is all fair logic and balancing, and it would certainly provide a balanced skeleton for each character. Your certainly right there are a lot of simple balances we overlook because they seem intuitive.

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Back to reality though, I'll offer a compromise. Give me tiers, even now this early. I won't believe them and truly expect things will be different in months to come, but a lack of balance in a way is less scary. If a game seemed so well balanced, all it would take is one oversight by the developers, one tech that would separate a character from the rest so badly that it would truly unbalance the game. Slight differences in tiers (because I don't believe its as drastic as Yuna claims) shows that were beyond normal balancing, but the game is playable and competative, with less chance of some sudden tech discovery wrecking everything. Just me being a realist I suppose, but thats why its only my opinion and doesn't have to be yours.


-True

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I completely agree with all you said in regards to the balancing system I offered - as it did definitely limit the variations in moves, and especially when placed on a fighting game, I also failed to take into account special features of moves such as Link's Return Boomerang.
I agree that only the core principles of this balancing system can be taking into account for such a fighting game, and such a system is intended more for turn-based RPGs, such as Pokemon.
However, as you said, Skeletons and Attribute balancing does have its value in a game like the Smash series (I really hope I don't mis-quote your on this). I think that if we could develop this theorem in Brawl, and achieve a result - then it could be very interesting and helpful to the community.

The best way to do this, would of course be the idea of scoring the moves, as you suggested.
It would be time consuming, and a little difficult, but it would achieve the results. Say we made a 4-Space (like a Cartesian map) with the headings of Speed, Power, Priority and Range - all of which, we could assume are equal, possibly with an Intransitive Heterarchy among them (Like Paper, Scissors, Rock.) (Oh, here's an interesting thing about Melee. Under each heading, Marth has fantastic scores... especially with Disjointed Hitboxes - thus making him imbalanced, one could say.)

Now, if we were able to formulate lag and IASA under Speed, Damage and Knockback under Power - then Range in pixels and Priority as a ranking, one could formulate which moves are best and which are best against other moves. Especially assuming that an Intransitive Heterachy does exist on some minute scale, one could even get into counters. (This would be more time consuming, and no-one would likely pay attention to it however). But through this, one could measure up a character's potential with hard facts.

This could also give way to what many people are experiencing in the 'feeling' or 'personality' of a character. A phenomenon with many well-made games suggest that many people feel that a character has a personality based on how they move, attack, and the strategies they can use when facing an opponent. This has been happening with Brawl. Many people, such as Ryuker above (who explains it very well.)

He says that in Melee, once you knew a certain tactic with character X, it could be transferred to character Y (let us take SHFFLing, for example). In this game however, as he explains, Diddy Kong has a poor approach - and thus must play differently to a character who specialises in their approach. Now, please do not mistake this for "Hmm, the Warrior seems to be good at close combat, while the Mage seems to be good at AoE attacks" - This is on a subconscious, more subtle level, but is just as important in defining a character's play-style. For example, such a subtlety could give way to giving a character a 'genre' and lead to a Intransitive Heterachy. An example of say, a Genre would be, as Ryuker says, a 'Punisher' a character who plays defensively, then takes advantage of a mistake with a complete domination, as opposed to the slight domination that any other character could. One must keep in mind that this is all subjective, however - this is theory, not fact.

Now, relating this back to Brawl, I must side with a common point being made - no character seems to be completely and ridiculously good, or bad.
In Melee, as soon as I picked up Mewtwo, Pichu, Bowser and Kirby, I knew they were awful.
As soon as I picked up Marth and Fox, I knew they were immensely powerful. (Keep in mind that I got it 5 years ago, so I was 11.)
So far, no-one has explicitly been able to label each character as immensely awful, or immensely good. Yes, Marth does get a lot of attention, but this could be explained by his closeness to his Melee counterpart. Peach is cited as being horrible, and she could be the most changed character.

~ Replacement

Replacement100 said:

Now, relating this back to Brawl, I must side with a common point being made - no character seems to be completely and ridiculously good, or bad.
In Melee, as soon as I picked up Mewtwo, Pichu, Bowser and Kirby, I knew they were awful.
As soon as I picked up Marth and Fox, I knew they were immensely powerful. (Keep in mind that I got it 5 years ago, so I was 11.)
So far, no-one has explicitly been able to label each character as immensely awful, or immensely good. Yes, Marth does get a lot of attention, but this could be explained by his closeness to his Melee counterpart. Peach is cited as being horrible, and she could be the most changed character.

~ Replacement

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A strong point. I fell into a similar situation where I found characters to be poor and others to be powerful, even before I knew of the existence of tiers. Now, I haven't had enough experience in Brawl to make any conclusions like that, but this is a solid point, but seems to have less evidence. It's mostly based upon testimonies that a character "feels" balanced. Once Brawl comes out in America and more tournaments are held, I believe that only then can we begin to get a feel for which characters are superior. In a game like this, it is virtually impossible to have a truly balanced game. There will definitely be superior and inferior characters, but the length of the gap and who will fit into which group is the question.

SanjiWatsuki said:

A strong point. I fell into a similar situation where I found characters to be poor and others to be powerful, even before I knew of the existence of tiers. Now, I haven't had enough experience in Brawl to make any conclusions like that, but this is a solid point, but seems to have less evidence. It's mostly based upon testimonies that a character "feels" balanced. Once Brawl comes out in America and more tournaments are held, I believe that only then can we begin to get a feel for which characters are superior. In a game like this, it is virtually impossible to have a truly balanced game. There will definitely be superior and inferior characters, but the length of the gap and who will fit into which group is the question.

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Well, said, I completely agree.
The main point I am putting forward is that the gap between Fox and Mewtwo in Melee, is nowhere near.... well... anything in Brawl.
We don't have a 'Fox' and we don't have a 'Mewtwo', thus, logic says that if there is no OBVIOUS gap - that anyone can see, then the game is more balanced than Melee which did have such an obvious gap.

(Just re-iterating my point in light of your post, thanks ^_^ )

Yuna doesn't like Brawl

I can't say much but idk....seems more balanced from what i have SEEN that is all i can say at this poitn

Mikezor said:

I feel that Brawl is more balanced.

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Apparently no one saw this post, I think he cleared things up quite a bit for this thread.

Good points, Replacement100. I believe your idea could tie well into mine (which unfortunately did not receive enough attention). I'll explain it very briefly here.

I proposed that the competitive community form a "tenative" tier list based on a controlled experimental fashion: basically, we would have the current top players engage in each possible matchup. There are 666 unique matchups altogether, not including ditto matchups. If we generate enough data for each one of them, say, 20-25 matches, and determine whose fighting style best "counters" another characters, we can then assign values to how each character will fare against another character.

For example, say in that in the example of King Dedede vs. Peach, Peach has a slight advantage over Dedede, in that she wins 14 out of 20 matches and Dedede wins 6 out of 20 matches. We could then assign a value of 7 to Peach based on this win-loss record and 3 to Dedede - I simply took the number of wins for each character and divide it by 2. If, however, Dedede demolishes Link and wins every single match against him (unlikely, but bear with me), we would give him Dedede a value of 10 and Link a value of 0 for that matchup. Suppose, then, that Peach and Link each win 10 matches against each other, giving both of them an even 5. After we collect all of this data, we would then add up the values from each match-up and arrange the characters from highest to lowest. Using this narrow example, here is what we'd get:

Peach: 7 against Dedede + 5 against Link = 12
Dedede: 3 against Peach + 10 against Link = 13
Link: 0 against Dedede + 5 against Peach = 5

We then form tiers based on these numbers...

Top Tier
Dedede 13
Peach 12

Bottom Tier
Link 5

(Sorry, Link fans! I needed some fake data to work with...)

That is how my idea works in short. It has enough statistical rigor to be considered a scientifically valid analysis of the results of theoretical high-level Brawl.


Now, Replacement, this is where your post comes into play. After analyzing this data, we can then find out, in general, which sorts of strategies work against which other strategies. Suppose, using Diddy as an example, in the general group "good at creating setups", fares well against Ike. If characters like Diddy generally have an advantage over characters like Ike, we can then propose a certain rule which states "setup-creating characters have an advantage over punishers". Now take another category, "combo-ing characters" (I won't name any specific characters given that I have not played Brawl at all), and suppose that they can do well against both punishers and setup characters in general. We can create another postulate which states that "combo-ing characters do well against setup characters and punishing characters". We can collect enough of these statements and then form a map of the so-to-say idealized character for Brawl.

I've seen a lot from Yuna lately on the Brawl forums. It mostly sounds to me like "Baww baww baww air tripping baww so unbalanced baww."

Chrono Centaur said:

By good golly gee, sir, you've convinced me. Forget the other, five-paragraph arguments posted on this thread; you obviously know your stuff. You know it so well you don't even have to post it! Amazing. Just amazing.

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It's opinion. Sarcasm wasn't needed. Personal attacks aren't appreciated. This isn't about you, and I wasn't trying to convince you either. Yuna is obviously not going to budge on this issue anyway.

Bendu said:

I've seen a lot from Yuna lately on the Brawl forums. It mostly sounds to me like "Baww baww baww air tripping baww so unbalanced baww."

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Read his original post, where he lays out a solid argument, and never even mentions tripping whatsoever. He's just genuinely wondering what leads people to think that Brawl is so balanced.

fletch71011 said:

Read his original post, where he lays out a solid argument, and never even mentions tripping whatsoever. He's just genuinely wondering what leads people to think that Brawl is so balanced.

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I was talking about Yuna's posting habits as a whole. Not just this post.

Bendu said:

I've seen a lot from Yuna lately on the Brawl forums. It mostly sounds to me like "Baww baww baww air tripping baww so unbalanced baww."

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Congratulations, your post did nothing to further this topic. Despite what you may have been lead to believe by unknown sources, no one cares what you think about Yuna. I doubt even Yuna cares about what you think of him. Was there no way you could have been so kind as to have kept that thought inside your head?

How about this? The next time you, or anyone else, feel a compulsive urge to create an annoying speed bump in the middle of an interesting topic, don't. Go write a blog about it or something, I don't care. Send PMs to the other people who don't like Yuna instead of posting it here. See if they care, because I can guarantee you that most of the people reading this topic don't.

Stop cluttering up everyone's board because you think you're important.

Lavos said:

Congratulations, your post did nothing to further this topic. Despite what you may have been lead to believe by unknown sources, no one cares what you think about Yuna. I doubt even Yuna cares about what you think of him. Was there no way you could have been so kind as to have kept that thought inside your head?

How about this? The next time you, or anyone else, feel a compulsive urge to create an annoying speed bump in the middle of an interesting topic, don't. Go write a blog about it or something, I don't care. Send PMs to the other people who don't like Yuna instead of posting it here. See if they care, because I can guarantee you that most of the people reading this topic don't.

Stop cluttering up everyone's board because you think you're important.

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Lolol, I don't think I'm important at all. I doubt anybody cares either. I don't care if you're gonna baw baw baw like a baby because I interrupted your super interesting topic. The simple fact that I have contempt for Yuna means that I just don't really care about this and could care less if I ruined anything.

Oh ya, and who are you? Lol. Stop telling me what to do cause you think you're important. Go get a mod or something so they can give me an infraction, and then STFU because nobody cares about you either.

Mikezor said:

It's opinion. Sarcasm wasn't needed. Personal attacks aren't appreciated. This isn't about you, and I wasn't trying to convince you either. Yuna is obviously not going to budge on this issue anyway.

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yuna never budges. its pointless to argue with him.

its like arguing with a blue painted wall.

=ArtH= said:

Olimar is just ****ing nasty. He can camp like a ***** and spam Pikmin or just **** you with Fair to Dair combos. His grab range is also ridiculous. It's like Marth and Peach had a baby while doing drugs. HE'S JUST THAT CRAZY.

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Lmfao geez that made my day, mind If I quote you in my sig?

as for brawl being unbalanced, I have no Idea yet as I have yet to play the game, but I do feel that it might be too early to tell, sorry for not bein much help =/

Since it's been requested:
My impressions of the tiers (in no particular order):

(In no particular order)
Amazing:
Original Marth (pre-patch)
Pikmin & Olimar
Toon Link

Great:
Pit
Meta-Knight
Lucas (possibly Amazing-tier if the Amazings are nerfed or we find out some Amazing combos with him)
Fox
Ike (though it could just be that he's new and people aren't used to him. I personally think he's a bit overrated)
Pikachu
Ice Climbers (if anyone figures out how to do that Chainthrow I saw)
Diddy Kong
Zelda/Sheik

Blah:
The Rest

Bottom:
Ganondorf (Forward B my tuchas)
Jigglypuff (Everything's nerfed)
Yoshi

fr0st2k said:

yuna never budges. its pointless to argue with him.

its like arguing with a blue painted wall.

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Yes I do, when I'm proven wrong.

It just so happens that the majority of the times here on Smashboards, I'm not, especially not on the issues I argue against you.

Yuna said:

Since it's been requested:
My impressions of the tiers (in no particular order):

(In no particular order)
Amazing:
Original Marth (pre-patch)
Pikmin & Olimar
Toon Link

Great:
Pit

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Wait, "patch"? What patch? Or was that a hint at the elusive utopia of downloadable content and balance patches?
Also, what keeps you from listing Pit as amazing? I have yet to observe a single weakness in him.

Fawriel said:

Wait, "patch"? What patch? Or was that a hint at the elusive utopia of downloadable content and balance patches?
Also, what keeps you from listing Pit as amazing? I have yet to observe a single weakness in him.

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People speak of patching done to the US-version. Marth's fair has more lag on block/hit now and Falco's laser has been nerfed. I have no way to verify this as I do not own the US-version.

Pit isn't amazing because he doesn't have that many KO-options (as in: Low %s, not 150%'s) and none of them can be comboed into. His approach can also be countered by the Amazings even on block (if not punished them at least stopped, like how Jiggz couldn't WoP Marths well because of Fair in Melee).

Pit also can't rack up damage as well as the Amazings. Unless I've missed some Amazing combos here. He's close to the Amazings, but not Amazing himself. His moves aren't really that fast either neither on startup frames nor cooldown (with or without landing). Especially not his stronger moves (i.e. KO moves).

Jiggly is better in this game, goes to show you aint put enough time in.

Yuna why dont you **** off the brawl boards and stick to melee? all ive seen you do is bith and moan like a lil girl. If you dont want to participate positively then why dont you leave the boards to people that do?

How the heck is Jigglypuff better if the rest has been nerfed into infinity? Meanwhile, I don't see anything that's boosted her other attributes enough to make up for it.

Yuna said:

Since it's been requested:
My impressions of the tiers (in no particular order):

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Yuna, you just made my day. You made me laugh, literally. I laughed out loud. Like a schoolgirl.

Why?
You don't even know what a tier list is.
Your whole argument is based of false premises.

AlphaZealot said:

Tiers are a general breakdown of how each character stacks up in comparison to the other characters in the game. [5%]
The tier list assumes a few things. First and most importantly is that it is based on the current metagame (which is based on the mind-games and technical skill of the top players). [45%]
Current is the vital point here, it is not based on future potential, but on current potential (as a note here Fox is considered to have the most potential in the game). [45%]
Second, the tier list assumes those playing are of near equal skill, and that they are both near the top of the technical (human) ability for their given character. [5%]

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You know how many points out of a hundred you got? (in terms of understanding tiers)
10%. The basics. The basics that every newb and his fox know.

You are basing tiers off:
1. What you think they are in terms of strength.
2. What the character may become if people learn more about how to use them. (a.k.a the future - which we all know is a big no-no.)

You actually think there is a tier list, when there have not been enough tournaments to decide on a decent one, and not every character has been represented.
Your tier list is about as significant as the ones in this thread (link), based off no evidence.
Yes, your tier list is about as useful as the ones that state that Marth is bottom tier. (Let us assume that he isn't, for the sake of argument)

You know what I find hilarious though? You condemn Kone for saying that Jigglypuff is decent, while your judgement isn't any better....... well, that and saying that Zelda/Shiek are one character, anyway.

To put in bluntly, you have failed.
You fell into my trap, and I don't think anything could save you now.

Sorry, quite sneaky - ain't it?

Wow, Replacement100, you have no idea what this thread is about, do you? I presented my view of the balance of Brawl, others said they disagreed. I said I feel there are several divisions among the characters, amazing ones, great ones, blah ones and useless ones.

People asked me which ones I thought were what. I replied. Then you flamed.

I based everything I said off of everything in your little quote. Apparently, I scored a perfect score.

1) How good each character is in comparison to each other
2) The current metagame (what is known insofar)
3) Current potential, yeah. I made no assumptions as to what we might learn about in the future. From what we know about the game and the chracters so far.
4) Yes, I'm assuming two highly skilled players of equal skill are facing off against each other.

100% score.

I did not condemn Kone for saying Jigglypuff is better than in Melee (which he did). That or he meant to say "She is better than what you give her credit for", but he specifically said "in this game" so I assumed he meant "than in Melee".

I did not flame him for it, I did not insult him for it, I did not tell him to STFU (even though me basically told me to do it). I asked him to motivate his claim that Jigglypuff is better "in this game". Anyone can say "This is that" but they have to elaborate if they want discussion to come out of it. Maybe Kone found out a bunch of things that makes Jiggz really, really good in Brawl. But I won't know what those things are unless he tells me, now will I?

Who's the failure here?

Oh noes, I flamed you with the power of a well-structured argument... WHAIIIYYY!?!?!
I meant no insult, just to show you the error or your ways.

I congratulate you on your attempt to recover.

So yeah, you totally scored perfectly - a.k.a "(possibly Amazing-tier if the Amazings are nerfed or we find out some Amazing combos with him)" and "(if anyone figures out how to do that Chainthrow I saw)" totally refer to the present. Yeah. So much for "Current is the vital point" eh?

Yuna said:

Yes I do [budge], when I'm proven wrong.

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So, how about it, eh?

To answer your final question:
You, still you, and always you. (sorry if you take offense, it isn't meant, I just mean to say that you have, in this instance, failed to prove your point to me.)


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Seriously though, dude, I don't have a problem with you. You make me laugh, and I am totally cool with that.

(have to go to bed now, though, I'll continue this argument with you tomorrow night - until then, seeya! )

The question here seems to be the difference between the tip top and the distant bottom.

I only have a few days of play, but remembering back to the same point in Melee, at this point we had already figured out that Sheik was undeniably better than the rest of the cast, and that there were about 10-15 characters that were kind of balls. Now, on some of those points we were just wrong. We didn't realize how good Fox and Falco could be, we thought the IC's sucked, etc. But in general we were right.

At this point in playing Brawl, we haven't really perceived the balance, which speaks well to it. There simply isn't a character who destroys in the first few days the way Sheik did. There just isn't. You put Yoshi at the bottom of your list, but I've seen a couple vids of players untapping some hidden potential with him. I just don't think that Yoshi or Ganondorf compare at this point in our Brawl experience to how crappy we felt Pichu was at a similar point in Melee. An general impression I've heard everywhere has been that characters who were strong in Melee have been nerfed and those who were week have been buffed, so I think that speaks well to the overall balance.

And as for the idea that "only noobs think this game is balanced," I seem to remember multiple discussions on Show Me Your News that were praising the balance. So, you should bring it up to Samurai Panda, Youko, and several of their guests who have expressed that point of view.