I feel Pac-Man's recovery is actually crazy good. You can make his side B curve any way, and his upB propels him very fast, even if you have to bounce on it a couple of times. But from most situations you can likely use side B's incredible ungimpability to recover.
I think that I rather agree, after getting more time with the Wii U version of the game in particular. That said, I'm still not sure how to rate his safety... his range is certainly S tier, but the question becomes safety. At the moment, I'm considering Pit-level or so as a 'safe until proven otherwise' approach. Though, on the subject, I'm now quite entangled in the process of sorting through the upper tiers a bit...
S- will likely get the addition of Villager once more, and Pikachu may even move to S+ just to free up space to distinguish outliers like Zelda as the new 'S-' just to distinguish her from sch varied recovery specialists as Shiek or ZSS. The problem, regardless, is that Zelda then has no 'notable peers' beyond Metaknight... who might even brush S himself, depending on how vulnerable his up B sweetspot might be... I can't really think to frame my uncertainties outside of the framework of a list, so I figured I'd stick to my strengths and just share my current footnotes. I figure it beats updating just as an excuse to get input on my points of consideration, at least! (Parenthesis denote uncertainty, while ?'s represent a feeling that the tier is wrongfully underpopulated, with +'s for likely additions.)
S+
Every time I suspect Pikachu might not be the very best, like no one ever was, some new little quirk or trickery to his recovery comes to light, like a walljump or the double up B trick still being viable, or that his neutral B will climb up rather than down walls on contact, et cetera. It's still not any better distance than Zelda, nor does it even attempt to rival, say, Villager, but it's hard to deny consistency... particularly when Lucario's sweetspotting takes a psychic type for me to manage with any reliability given any random aura level (okay, okay, enough sketchy Pokemon jokes).
S
+
All feel pretty solid at S, but Villager will once more be joining them, if for no other
excuse reason than
consensus walljumping. Walljumping. In all honesty, though, having Lucario's range and only
theoretical vulnerability to gimping isn't so sure to hold up, and S doesn't need be totally gimp-proof. The keynote, though, is that the Wii U version finally has a few stages big enough for that up B distance on Villager to finally be particularly relevant, albeit perhaps only if something like 3-4 player team-versus-team formats like VIP or the like, or perhaps a 'so long as there's no hazards' method of stage banning in a given tournament allowing for the likes of Temple or whatnot...
S-
+??? I really don't understand who's worth raising to S- to accompany these two, but a tier of two seems sparse, and the middle tiers are too crowded for it to feel necessarily... I don't really feel like they're the only ones who belong at the tail end of S-, it's just excruciating to try and pick apart a character enough to feel they deserve the placement. Of course, wondering if Metaknight might even be S rank hardly helps matters... G&W feels to lack too much range, Dedede is more vulnerable than MK, the Pits lack hitboxes, Jiggly might be footstooled, Kirby's strictly 'less than or equal to' Jigs, Sonic doesn't feel like he could best G&W, Jump Shulk is a bit messy to move past A+ or so, and Wario is crippled by the loss of his bike a bit too much and his up B is still a mite iffy... I suppose Pac Mac might have potential, but it's almost impossible to gauge his safety given how niche and strange his recovery is... Still, I feel like someone needs to move up if for no other reason than a point of comparison between Zelda and MK, as no one from higher tiers looks to have much need to fall and a tier of 2 or less just doesn't feel to give useful comparisons... Could be bias on my part, of course, though...
A+
(
?
?)
+? Palutena's fall has G&W feeling a bit more perilously placed, given his diagonal recovery, but the properties of his recovery do feel pretty similar to Pit (less angling tricks, more safety during up B) or Dedede... but both of those at least have multi-jumps at their disposal, which has me thinking that the 'Rosalina problem' of lacking jump tools might make a good up B unable to carry his recovery game unaided. Still, multi-jumpers might always just move up to compensate, though he could end up as low as Palutena... Dedede's more a question of how much I'll infuriate myself by trying to decide who of the puffs might be better or worse than him or who might even rival MK, if any.
A
(
)
(Jump) Speaking of the puffs, I haven't a clue if Jiggly's footstool problems are enough to be 'worse than Dedede' or just 'worse than Metaknight'... or, hell, maybe even just 'below MK within S-'. I know Jiggly won't be falling any time in the foreseeable future (pun unintentional), but the concern of footstooling is so difficult to judge without personal experience to throw behind the idea. My current haphazard guess favors the 'equals Dedede' camp, but if MK rises or even if he's deemed to have some weaknesses, Jiggly might still end up in S-... particularly if some key edge over D3 becomes evident... Wario, meanwhile, continues to defy testability with the insanity of his bike making 'vulnerability' a subject of more question than his diet. I really just can't tell how much of a liability the bike-reliance might make him, but it certainly respawns instantly enough if off-staged. Me might rise a tier, in any case, but it's really just so... weird. At least Wectoring made the answer clear. Sonic, meanwhile, is a bit of the odd duck. His up B compares to Pit while allowing actions, and he has neat tools like neutral B and walljumps... but does that make up for his lack of multiple jumps and thus more limited diagonal recovery? The fact of the two tiers above being such an abject mess has me at a bit of a loss as to how to figure out S- through A, in general, and Jump Shulk is certainly not helping matters with his Villager-like levels of mysticism obscuring clear placement. At least Kirby remains as a clear example of what A should represent... unless, of course, he ends up promoted too.
A-
(
)+(
) A- is at least feeling more secure than some of the other A's, though Rosalina's recovery simply leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It's quick with some distance, certainly, but it always
feels to be hiding something from me, a sense of dread looming over every jump like I'm eating a ham sandwich that's suspiciously just
crunched-- sure, I can't prove something's wrong, but that doesn't keep me from considering it perhaps better suited for ballistic rather than gastrointestinal testing. It may just be a case of the Ness... Ness
es...
Nessery, where her recovery feels bad but turns out to be all bunnies and roses, but I really can't shake that sense of dread-- not that I'm anything but known for my colorfully paranoid dillusions. Pac Man, meanwhile,
feels to really be outclassing his present peers... at least, he would, were his stage-bouncing side B a better bread-and-butter (say that five times fast...)., or were his up B within the same game as far as standards go in terms of gimping conditions. Still, 'range plus problems' is a very Kirby formula, so I suspect he'll better suit A/A+ or so... particularly given the slight edge of walljumping letting him eschew some of the 'up B then wait with jam on one's jubblies' approach to recovery on walled stages... Olimar's acting out of up B and MM's walljumps would have them rising, but perhaps only past Palutena, as a cop-out for my worry of over-nerfing claims slung her direction. Charizard and Peach feel to have similar vertical range to Palutena whilst retaining much of the safety (via super armor and the world's spike-trollingest disjoint I've ever seen respectively), and each boast far better horizontal recovery as a compromise for their respective gripes. At the very least, they feel a step above Yoshi and Fox respectively, for what those are worth.
B+
(
) All of B+ feels off in more ways than one, honestly, but they might manage simply by letting others pass them up into A- or the like. Samus and co. certainly don't feel to quite hit this bar, but Speed Shulk or such might reach this threshold, while Ike might even fall a bit after one too many strange inconsistencies popped up with Aether's diagonal distance. Still, Samus's up B has the potential to slightly edge out the Links... I'd say because of wall jumping, but Tink went and ruined that pretty handily as some unique trait.
B
(
(Speed) + Falco?) I just don't even. Samus/Link/Tink feel very close and all, but while Link and Tink feel content to grapple it out for who's better between them, neither has really touched Samus's 'average-y benchmark of distance plus a Zair tether and some down B teching with an up B hitbox' crown of the niche. As I said, Shulk could move up, but Falco diving into B is a possibility, given his walljump and what very likely may be the indigestion of my old 'Falco exactly a step below Fox' breakfast. Still, the walljump and whatnot do at least give the idea legs to stand on, as it helps to distinguish him from, say, Marth... even if Marth is only so low for the fact that he's the only character I've ever been spiked by Falcon's uTilt with. A walljump is even enough for Diddy to arguably move up to Yoshi/Fox tier, even if I did just KO one by virtue of happening to sneeze whilst offstage, then watching his rocketbarrel pack draw out an aerial middle finger to the then-deathbound chimp. Still, distance and mixups and wallclings (oh my) have this flying monkey unlikely to fall much further, if nothing else.
B-
+(
) Actually, this tier is looking pretty solid now, albeit WFT is apt to creep up next to Marth with that shiny new information of a wall-jump making itself so clearly known. As you can probably tell, the idea of shifting ranks upwards to free up middle-space has turned out to do nothing more than make S+ the 'top' rather than S... but, se la vi-- at least we now get more space to dunk Little Mac into the abyss this way, if nothing else.
(
)+(
?) 'Okay' is the most fantastically all-encompassing description I could really fathom for this tier. If Ness is allowed in, then the newly discovered walljump is
excuse reason enough to let the dogs out of the D house, so to speak-- a retroactively incomprehensible turn of phrase, but few can capture the
Nesstine (wait, mind was elsewhere, scratch that) Nessific nature of the dog's recovery: distance despite speed and safety. Wherever Ness ends up, DHD just looks apt to follow at this point.
C-
Falcon and Mario walljumping has them only feeling stronger, while Luigi's inferiority complex keeps him from beating Mario in just about any form of race-- least of all one back to the stage. While Mario's range may be lesser in the horizontal department, he happens to be far quicker at it. Add to that his wall jump equalizing the tornado recovery, and I'll call them a relative draw. Falcon's mostly up for being able to wall jump and not feeling to be particularly so unfortunate as, Donkey Kong in terms of options as a result.
D+
(Defense) Shulk is moved up mostly for similarity to Ganon/Kong: one note, unremarkable, and passable range with some singular glaring problem-- in his case it's an air speed that I can only call 'realistic' (i.e. nonexistent). As for the other two, both are quite limited in terms of options, while both have their own points of vulnerability in recovering. Say all you will on spikes being 'irrelevant', but if you spend three hours in spinning, vaguely ascending helplessness as a target the size of a Little Mac complaint thread, waiting politely for your foe to come back from lunch before they leisurely stroll offstage to spike you, it just feels insincere to hear spikes called a 'universal' problem and thus 'irrelevant'. Not that Ganon's hyper-realistic (i.e. running gag) double-jump does him many favors, but at least his up B actually moves sometime within a week of pressing it. He's still worse off for the Kong-copter's whole horizontal recovery being solid like Koopa Libre over in D, but that vertical vulnerability is just getting embarrassing...
D
Speaking of embarrassment, DMMD over here may as well be a proctologist for all the discomfort anyone in proximity to him on these lists would feel. A wall jump may be all well and good, but he's feeling more like a plague doctor than anything at this point, as his air movement can only be described as 'marked for death'. Some may argue that his wall jump might place him higher, but I've certainly not let that mislead anyone into finding Little Mac to have useable recovery, so the Doc's hardly getting a pass there. Literally his only grounds for not being in the
same tier as LM are diagonal distance and his questionable down B... yet, honestly, the far pettier reason of 'to have a tier just for Little Mac' is honestly far more compelling, given that LM even has a counter as a mixup.
D-
The only uncertainty I've ever had with Little Mac is one of him not being low enough. Bottom almost seems too good for him-- like the kid who gets a D- rather than a straight F just because a class happened to be graded on a steep curve... In fact, were DMMD not so similarly air-crippled, I'd be inclined to just make a special, illiterate tier that's just some scribbling on a post-it note rather than even claiming he's within several letters of the rest of the cast. Still, for the sake of symmetry, I'd rather keep the 'D-' after 'brilliantly' adding an S+ for what turned out to be no reason at all.
---
Excuse the bit of a shift in tone to my post-- I've decided to reign in a bit of my walking-on-eggshells approach to the place out of some comfort, but it's by no means meant as contempt. Just a bit of scathing humor to lighten up my usual particularly lengthy post-that-I-fell-asleep-writing. Still, of course, keen to get as much input as I can, but, seeing as this is the longest I've found myself to be within caps-lock range of someone on the internet without some prick typing in boxing gloves comes along with the usual pointless hostilities. Honestly quite impressed with this place's etiquette-- the internet being a place where the word normally equates to simply being housebroken.
. Lucario can do some crazy things not very many characters can do, which is cling to surfaces with his Up-B)
