The Difference Between "High Tier" and "Low Tier" + Why Low Tiers are Viable

[Dan Salvato]

From my perspective, anyway.

Smash is all about mistakes. Whoever makes more mistakes is going to lose. Making a mistake can either put you in a position to be punished or cause you to drop the advantageous position you had over an opponent.

For instance, dash attacking a shield is generally a mistake because your resulting position is usually a punishable one. Another example of a mistake is performing an action that your opponent predicts, e.g. ledge behavior. If your opponents expects a ledge attack and you use a ledge attack, your opponent will react accordingly and punish. Making a mistake by dropping an advantageous position may include dropping a combo, failing to edge guard, or failing to punish a mistake your opponent has made.

So, from this perspective, what does it mean to be "High Tier" or "Low Tier"?

High tier characters are inherently less prone to mistakes and make smaller mistakes. Shiek and Jigglypuff can be difficult to edge guard. Marth and Captain Falcon can retain their advantageous position by easily tech-chasing after a throw. Fox and Falco can get in a single hit and retain the advantage for a huge combo. These are only examples.

High tier characters can still make plenty of mistakes. Down-smashing a shield with Peach is a mistake. Jumping after being thrown is a mistake if your opponent expects it and can punish before you react. Using Fire Fox down toward the ledge is a mistake, again, if your opponent expects it and can punish you hard.

Low tier characters are more prone to mistakes and make larger mistakes. It's much easier to punish a shielded Bowser fair than it is to punish a shielded Marth fair. Your opponent can more easily retain advantageous position when you are offstage because you might have fewer recovery options (e.g. Roy, Luigi, DK). You may also more easily lose your advantageous position by having difficulty comboing - you might get in 25% where a high tier could get in 70% before the opponent regains control.

But, the key is that low tiers don't HAVE to make mistakes if you use them correctly. As long as you keep your spacing, properly read your opponent, retain advantageous position as long as possible, and avoid a bad risk/reward ratio, you will beat your opponent. A high tier might be inherently prone to fewer and smaller mistakes, but it's up to your opponent to realize that and take advantage of it as a player. Similarly, if you maneuver yourself around the potential large mistakes of your low tier, your opponent will have a hard time treating you like a low tier.

A low tier may be more challenging, but in the end you'll win if you are the better player who makes fewer mistakes.

 

[Geenareeno]

High tier characters are inherently less prone to mistakes

Agree with everything except this. I'm not really sure what you mean by it but if you're playing Fox or Falco it's very easy to do a side-b during your sheild pressure and kill yourself. Or do a fair or laser offstage. The examples go on. But yeah everything else makes sense.

 

[Beat!]

you'll win if you are the better player who makes fewer mistakes.

This is true to a bigger extent than a lot of people want to believe, but when you get to really bad matchups it's not really true.

And "less prone to mistakes" is faaaaar from true, and not exactly the only reason high tiers are high tiers and vice versa anyway.


For example, even if you don't make a single mistake with Kirby, you're still going to lose to competent Foxes.

 

[CloneHat]

Low tiers aren't more prone to mistakes at all. Their non-mistakes are just more punishable. Therefore, as mistakes in play decrease, they become worse, not better.

 

[oukd]

Getting hit is a mistake

Shouldn't this be in the tier list thread?

 

[Veetaak]

Lasers make you high

 

[Kal]

Smash is all about mistakes. Whoever makes more mistakes is going to lose.

This is basically tautological, since a mistake is, by definition, something that will cause you to lose. However, it's a huge oversimplification, since you're ignoring the possibility that one character simply has no options against another, in which case all of his options are mistakes. I mean, what if it's not even possible for a character to "keep his spacing," make use of his reads, retain advantageous position, or avoid a bad risk-reward ratio? I'm not saying that this is the case with Melee, but you see then that it becomes something of a sliding scale. I don't personally think the low tiers are "viable," according to any reasonable definition of viability.

I feel that people just cling to this desire for every character to be viable, and for it to be endearing or honorable to play a character despite being at a disadvantage. Hence why we constantly see arguments about how some terrible characters are viable or capable of winning by being a sufficiently skilled player, as though there is some shame in just admitting "Zelda can't win at high level play. She sucks."

 

[Habefiet]

I've always thought of low tiers as characters that have less options in a given situation. They just plain don't have as much that they can do that will help them win a match in most situations, in my opinion. You take someone like Fox, or Sheik--they've got multiple responses to most situations that can arise in the game, and most of those possible options can work in their favor. You go down to someone like Zelda or Kirby, and this is no longer true. They don't have as many options that will help them succeed in a given situation.

 

[Superspright]

Low tiers don't just lack options--their options are suboptimal compared to fox's shine, or falco's dair. Those moves are just plain good. Put those moves on any hurtbox model and that character gets better period. Low tiers lack the tools. The tools that high tiers have allow them to be more punishing and crippling after a single hit. Some characters just can't even kill without very special setups or complete mistakes by their opponents. That is not viable. Any character that can string a ton of hits together and pressure well is viable. Any character that can't is pretty questionable.

 

[SamusPoop]

fox/falco's tools make them the best being able to 0-death members of the cast with an insanely fast move that says f*** Your sheild too? I mean falco can make powersheilding a laser a mistake(shoots high and runs up and grab). Top tiers seriously cover options far better in every respect or have more options normally. As far as low tiers with notable options would be like yoshi's 2nd jump, watch/roy's d-tilt and bowser's Up-B oos otherwise they are just out classed in speed, kill power, gimps, sheild pressure, options, number of players willing to play as them and everything.

Really good spacing and lack of mistakes won't save You, say fox shoots lasers till one hits You nothing could save you really then he just dd camps like bowser or whoever can't cover that much space and if you enter that range your reflexs become useless becuase of how fast you'll get baited or hit.

 

[Jonas]

Low tiers aren't more prone to mistakes at all. Their non-mistakes are just more punishable.

This is self-contradictory. If you get punished, it's because you made a mistake. You can't punish a "non-mistake" since a mistake is anything you do that allows you to get hit instead of hitting your opponent.

 

[Blea Gelo]

no dude, of course it's hard to play vs a fox beeing bowser, but there's still a pposibility a lot of people can take adventage. watch axe, taj's mew2, ka-master's luigi at his prime, and v3ctorman's yoshi recently, they do well and can do better. armarda's was pretty smart on how he developed the ylink/puff match up, it's working well for him, better than how he did with peach. you just have to understand your character aint fox, marth, sheik, not even falcon. u have a low tier, and from that point, you have to look other way to get to him, that how u develop your metagame, this game it's not impossible for any character

 

[Kal]

Jonas, it's technically possible for your best option to still be punishable if your character sucks enough.

 

[Blea Gelo]

Jonas, it's technically possible for your best option to still be punishable if your character sucks enough.

yeap, that's why sometime the best option is going back. best option's always change

 

[CloneHat]

This is self-contradictory. If you get punished, it's because you made a mistake. You can't punish a "non-mistake" since a mistake is anything you do that allows you to get hit instead of hitting your opponent.

So theoretically everything is a mistake?

 

[Rykard]

i always saw it more as high tier characters are high (from a punishment standpoint) because they can punish you harder off a mistake by your opponent than the low tier ones. For example, of marth F smashes your shield as fox, you can wavedash oos and get a shine combo or upthrow > something. if the same situation happens against kirby, you get f tilted or thrown for pretty much nothing

 

[Twinkles]

So theoretically everything is a mistake?

Actually, I think he wants to say that anything CAN be a mistake. It all depends on usage, situation, etc. Worse options means easier ways to make mistakes

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

I don't know what game you guys are playing, but Pichu is definitely not viable.

 

[Twinkles]

LOL, so brutally honest, but so much truth

 

[SamusPoop]

Really the game is theory other than maybe 8-10 members of the cast

 

[Cactuar]

The op is flawed. You are speaking in terms of effect rather than cause. Im on my phone and dont feel like writing it all out, but characters are a combination of options creating potential. Low tiers are so because they have extremely limited options, causing their play at top level to trend towards being very two dimensional. As a result, top tiers can beat them using two dimensional responses, such as bair spam. That they do not have a response doesnt mean that they have made a mistake.

Saying that this game is based around mistakes is extremely vague and really doesnt mean anything when you have to repeatedly change interpretations to accomodate various scenarios. Why bother convoluting the pool of information with vague bull**** when it can be explained much more specifically?

 

[Kal]

Because the more vague you are, the less likely you are to say something false.

 

[Jonas]

Jonas, it's technically possible for your best option to still be punishable if your character sucks enough.

So theoretically everything is a mistake?

Some mistakes require near psychich abilities (or just really good reads or luck) not to make, depending on how much your character sucks. Since for some characters this game involves a lot of guesswork, 1 wrong guess = mistake. I'm not saying that getting hit stems from playing a bad playstyle, just that you will get hit if your opponent outsmarts you.

 

[Geenareeno]

Kal's got this ****.

I don't know what game you guys are playing, but Pichu is definitely not viable.

Man, I don't know. I beat my friend with Pichu one time, I think he's pretty good. (Define viable [but don't actually because that would be a waste of our time])

 

[Rubyiris]

low tiers are viable because of A. gimmick factor and B. niche match ups.

 

[Strong Badam]

Low tier mains either:
1. Constantly complain about how bad their character is, perform average or mediocre in tournament
2. Never complain about their character, perform average, above average, or amazing, and impress hundreds.

 

[Kal]

She hit the floor. Next thing you know, shorty got low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low.

 

[♡ⓛⓞⓥⓔ♡]

I love it when people try to make out melee to be more balanced than it actually is. there are so many characters in melee that are utter trash and no one who intends to win has no reason to play those characters. melee is far from perfect in terms of character balance.

 

[Dan Salvato]

Low tiers aren't more prone to mistakes at all. Their non-mistakes are just more punishable. Therefore, as mistakes in play decrease, they become worse, not better.

If you were punished, you made a mistake.

By "more prone to mistakes" I mean more of your moves and tactics are more likely to end in a mistake. If you accidentally dair a shield as Falco, just shine and you're safe. That's what I mean by less prone to mistakes.

 

[Geenareeno]

If you were punished, you made a mistake.

By "more prone to mistakes" I mean more of your moves and tactics are more likely to end in a mistake. If you accidentally dair a shield as Falco, just shine and you're safe. That's what I mean by less prone to mistakes.

I don't think citing a scenario where a character accidentally does something they're supposed to do is evidence of said character being less prone to mistakes.

 

[Cactuar]

This thread was bad enough that Kal and I are agreeing. Nuff said.

 

[Bones0]

This whole argument about whether a character has viable options is really pointless in the end because all of the low tiers (and even some of the higher mid tiers like Doc/Ganon/Samus) are RIDICULOUSLY underdeveloped and underexplored when it comes to competitive play. How you can say in good conscience that Yoshi has fewer options than Fox in any given situation? We thought Sheik was by far the best character when the game came out, yet perceptions can change. People are always inclined to argue, "Well we know the game much better NOW," but then the metagame continues to change and evolve despite how much we THINK we know. It's not unlike technology in the world. Don't you think people who were around during the Industrial Revolution sort of assumed that they were living in the point in time where technology was, for the most part, "figured out?" Even today, many people seem to think that we know most of what there is to know, yet discoveries are made all the time that prove that sentiment wrong.

But I'm rambling. My point is, the low tiers are SO underused compared to the top characters that it's really naive to claim that there is no way for them to deal with certain situations. Fox's drill shine used to be considered gamebreaking for half of the cast that didn't fall over, but in today's metagame, although it is still an effective tactic, it is largely defeated by simply using SDI. The thing I really wish people would just take away from this game is that you really can't count any character out because you never know what kind of developments will be made. I think Yoshi is such a great example of this as we are at a time where there's only a handful of players who are able to parry and shield drop with him, yet those tactics make HUGE differences in a LOT of situations for him. Previously OP shield pressure is negated with a shield drop uair, and approaches that usually led into forced rolls are now counter-attacked with parries. There's also many offensive options to be explored. It took what, 10 years, for people to really start using Marth's reverse fair fsmash? And that is one of the most popular characters in Melee's history. Imagine how much would be discovered if any one low tier was as popular as Fox or Falco for just ONE year.

 

[Metal Reeper]

Lower tier characters just have less options, dont punish as hard, and are punished harder than others.
EDIT: Cactuar quit trolling.

 

[Kal]

This thread was bad enough that Kal and I are agreeing. Nuff said.

This has convinced me to change my stance. Pichu is clearly viable if you're good enough.

Bones, all you're saying is "you might be wrong." Viability is assumed relative to the current metagame. It's not like those of us calling Pichu a bad character are refusing to accept that he would improve given new developments. We're saying that, currently, Pichu is ********. Though I'm not sure if that's correct use of the British idiom. I can't believe that word is censored.

 

[CloneHat]

Basically, you're not going to be the one percent of the tournament scene that gets paid, so try advancing the metagame with other characters.

 

[Dan Salvato]

Lower tier characters just have less options, dont punish as hard, and are punished harder than others.

This sums it up well. As long as you can avoid getting punished (by avoiding mistakes) and punish your opponent's mistakes consistently, you'll do well regardless of character. This is just much harder to do with certain characters.

 

[Bones0]

This has convinced me to change my stance. Pichu is clearly viable if you're good enough.

Bones, all you're saying is "you might be wrong." Viability is assumed relative to the current metagame. It's not like those of us calling Pichu a bad character are refusing to accept that he would improve given new developments. We're saying that, currently, Pichu is ********. Though I'm not sure if that's correct use of the British idiom. I can't believe that word is censored.

You aren't refusing to accept that he could improve, but you ARE refusing to accept that he could ever improve enough to be a viable choice by a player attempting to win a tournament. Whether it's true or not, it's pretty obvious that the best course of action for a player as well as a game is to assume every character has equal potential and just see how far you can take that character. If you end up hitting a wall later, oh well, you gave it a shot. Who knows, maybe a year or two later someone who has also been playing that character will do things even you never thought about. This is how all characters are driven forward through the metagame, so forgive me for thinking it's a shame that less than half the cast is considered viable just because it's easier to pick up characters with concrete strategies as opposed to ones with waters untested. This is basically the same mentality Armada had when choosing Peach as a main. He thought she had room to improve, he made the improvements, and he's on a two-win streak from two of the largest nationals ever.

 

[Jonas]

By "more prone to mistakes" I mean more of your moves and tactics are more likely to end in a mistake. If you accidentally dair a shield as Falco, just shine and you're safe. That's what I mean by less prone to mistakes.

I've never seen a Falco dair a shield by mistake lol

 

[Kal]

You aren't refusing to accept that he could improve, but you ARE refusing to accept that he could ever improve enough to be a viable choice by a player attempting to win a tournament.

What, so you're measuring the exact amount I'm willing to accept a character could improve as "just below the threshold of winning tournaments?" Come on, Bones. If new strategies are discovered for a character currently regarded as bad, then he might very well win tournaments. This is not a bad thing, but that doesn't mean you should count on it. Ice Climbers used to be terrible. This does not mean that, before Chu Dat and Wobbles came into play, I would advocate the character's use "because they might get better."

I could just as easily dismiss every claim you've made about viability with the exact same justification you are using: "you're refusing to accept that he might not ever improve enough to be a viable character. For all you know, the new strategies discovered are easily countered by most of the cast."

Whether it's true or not, it's pretty obvious that the best course of action for a player as well as a game is to assume every character has equal potential and just see how far you can take that character.

Given no knowledge about the game, there is no best course of action for the player, as far as character choice. It's largely arbitrary. However, we currently have some knowledge about the game:

Fox, Falco, Jigglypuff, Sheik, Marth, Peach and C. Falcon are all noticeably more successful than the rest of the cast.

Which means that it's not the best option to choose a character who very likely won't do as well as these seven (considering that, if there were powerful strategies for this character, they would probably have been discovered by now).

If you end up hitting a wall later, oh well, you gave it a shot. Who knows, maybe a year or two later someone who has also been playing that character will do things even you never thought about. This is how all characters are driven forward through the metagame, so forgive me for thinking it's a shame that less than half the cast is considered viable just because it's easier to pick up characters with concrete strategies as opposed to ones with waters untested. This is basically the same mentality Armada had when choosing Peach as a main. He thought she had room to improve, he made the improvements, and he's on a two-win streak from two of the largest nationals ever.

When people play to win, they're not going to invest a lot of time testing strategies that probably aren't any good in the first place. Armada's choice of Peach isn't really the same as what you're advocating, since Peach had already been established as very viable, and Armada merely pushed it further.

If you want to argue that the characters are underdeveloped, you might have a point. At which point, we'd discuss whether developing them further would make them better. However, we don't know either way. There is no guarantee that the new strategies discovered will be any good.

 

[Dan Salvato]

I've never seen a Falco dair a shield by mistake lol

It was merely a top-of-the-head example, but it could happen, supposing you dair to continue a combo or tech chase with it.