Tier List Speculation

[Overswarm]

I like boring characters because I'm fueled by my opponent's rage.

But there's too many cool characters and I like them too.

Plus I suck with Jigglypuff.

 

[Kink-Link5]

That's why you pick a cool character like Charizard and then play lame as **** with them to offset the cool factor.

 

[Mr.Pickle]

i don't think jigglypuff will ever be a tournament threat in this game. she's too boring and people don't want to play her. in melee her raw goodness offsets how boring she is, but in a game where she's only mediocre i'd say not a chance.

i don't think ness will ever be a real character either.

not to say that they should be changed, i think they're fine as-is. i just don't see them performing well.

/pure speculation

Good jiggly is lame lol.

And on ness, as long as his design makes sense and he doesn't have 90/10 matchups, I agree with you. Maybe if a skilled player takes interest in him, and does well at some tourneys it might boast his popularity enough to make people want to main him, thus boasting his place on that tier list thingy.

 

[Bryonato]

i don't think jigglypuff will ever be a tournament threat in this game. she's too boring and people don't want to play her. in melee her raw goodness offsets how boring she is, but in a game where she's only mediocre i'd say not a chance.

i don't think ness will ever be a real character either.

not to say that they should be changed, i think they're fine as-is. i just don't see them performing well.

/pure speculation

The Ness meta is definitely still developing and I think there is a lot of potential in his case as some people seem to be on the right track with him. See here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZZYTPQ1mH0#t

Being a Ness main though I am without a doubt biased.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Relevant--

http://smashboards.com/threads/footstools-and-why-you-should-be-using-them.334385/#post-15399996

 

[RPGsFTW]

I know I can't be the only one who thinks that Dedede might just be worse than that of, say, G&W. Besides campy grab games and random Bair gimps, I feel he is just... not doing so well. Also, his Up-B not having super armor on it anymore feels really really bad.

 

[Deleted member]

Being a Ness main though I am without a doubt biased.

I was also a very heavy ness player for melee when he came out. I'm fully aware of how much the character can be developed due to the depth his DJC creates (I made the term DJC actually) but they don't allow ness to make good use of macro stage control, they just allow you to combo the crap out of the opponent. stage control is much better than combos in a traditional smash game, which PM operates as. the lack of stage control is why i think ness will not perform well.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Umbreon with the super real talk. Ness's neutral game is pretty booty butt cheeks.

 

[Pwnz0rz Man]

I was also a very heavy ness player for melee when he came out. I'm fully aware of how much the character can be developed due to the depth his DJC creates (I made the term DJC actually) but they don't allow ness to make good use of macro stage control, they just allow you to combo the crap out of the opponent. stage control is much better than combos in a traditional smash game, which PM operates as. the lack of stage control is why i think ness will not perform well.

Seeing as Ness is pretty damn good at comboing and killing and then seeing that you said he lacks stage control (Which I completely agree with), what would need to change regarding him for him to be able to have a little control over the field?

 

[Plum]

Also, his Up-B not having super armor on it anymore feels really really bad.

It feels almost out of place in Project M. Like, it feels like it would totally belong in Melee which would be fine and dandy if most of the cast didn't have crazy good recoveries... He has horrible mobility, sad excuses of jumps, and then this horribly linear Up B that just screams "come and get me!" to top it all off. And then you look at Ike's Up B and his new and improved Side B and wonder why exactly... At least give it some heavy armor so he isn't a total sitting duck.
It's not exactly like DDD is so good at everything else that he needs a horribad recovery to make him almost resemble a balanced character (ahem... Falco).

 

[Strong Badam]

the feels I get when people say that Falco's recovery is bad....

 

[Bryonato]

I honestly just kind of feel like D3 is just... there. You know what I mean? Like he is so mediocre that I my mind struggles to even acknowledge that he is in the game.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Falco

Bad recovery


a

ahahaha

 

[B.W.]

People still think short distance recovery = bad recovery.

Oh my stomach. It it full of the chuckles.

 

[Scythe]

the feels I get when people say that Falco's recovery is bad....

It feels much worse in pm, not sure why though.

 

[B.W.]

Probably just because more people are better at stopping it.

 

[Overswarm]

D3 does have some near tricks with glide tossing his waddles. Over-b angled up, glide toss with the waddle towards the stage. Pretty cool.

But still awful.

 

[CyberZixx]

Might just be a comparative thing. In melee I felt Marth's recovery was serviceable. In PM it feels so bad.

 

[Bryonato]

I think Marth is still Marth in terms of recovery. It's very safe and just due to his kit he can turn a gimp around very quickly.

 

[Deleted member]

marth's recovery feels good to me in both games.

falco's recovery seems good to me in melee and bad in PM.

also i edge guard everyone to death so maybe i'm biased.

 

[SpiderMad]

It feels much worse in pm, not sure why though.

His up-b is shorter than Melee's (apparently they can't fix that yet)

 

[Jandlebars]

People still think short distance recovery = bad recovery.

Oh my stomach. It it full of the chuckles.

I always assumed that a recovery-move having low distance made it 'bad'.
I mean, obviously, recoveries that are easy to gimp in several circumstances tend to be considered as pretty poor despite the distance they can travel (ie. the aforementioned D3) purely because that distance becomes kind of negligible.

 

[Strong Badam]

the distance falco recovers is bad. this makes outright kills occur earlier on him than against other characters.
his recovery is amazing. this makes edgeguarding him very difficult, thus in situations where some other characters would have suffered an edgeguard loop -> death, falco recovers (unless the edgeguarder heavily outplays the falco multiple times in most cases).

 

[The_NZA]

His up-b is shorter than Melee's (apparently they can't fix that yet)

I thought they said it was the same length.

If I had to guess on it, I'd say its cause he's lighter so he gets knocked further.

Umbreon, can you speak on stage control for a second. Who in Melee would you say has good stage control? Does having a spammeable projectile like falco, moderate range like marth, mean you have stage control? What about cfalcon––does he hav any?

Also, how could ness maintain better stage control? One idea, I think, is to play with his psi magnet to give him even better aerial mobility than he already has. In the sinb video posted up earlier, sinister makes good use of the psi magnet as an aerial wavedash of sorts....I think this idea right now in the game is an unrealized option––a concept in use that could be fleshed out better by the developers to make it essentially better for that purpose. By improving his movement properties for his downb, perhaps Ness can be given some space control through mobility.

Beyond that...maybe his usmash and dsmash can be buffed in speed to give him more area control on the ground (of which he really has none right now). I wouldn't also mind making his PKthunder even faster, to give him the ability to jump into PKthunder2 quicker to open some cool movement options akin to QD with ike.

 

[Plum]

marth's recovery feels good to me in both games.

falco's recovery seems good to me in melee and bad in PM.

also i edge guard everyone to death so maybe i'm biased.

You main Sheik, and so do I. Most recoveries seem bad when you play Sheik. At least that's how I feel.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Sheik's recovery is pretty mediocre. She has a degree of guessing that goes into it, but simply ledge grabbing at the right time and being decent at getting back up quickly means you can effectively cover both of her recovery paths at once. She can stall, but it's not the same as having a straight up good recovery.

 

[Overswarm]

It's really not difficult to see at a glance if someone has a bad recovery or not. Just go down the list.

Do they HAVE to recover in a predictable fashion? (Always low, always high, always with move X or Y, no reliable mixups)

If so, they're going to get gimped and thus their recovery is bad.

Do they go a short distance?

If so, they die much earlier than their weight would imply and have a recovery that's much easier to read and predict, thus making them easier to edgeguard. Not necessarily bad, but generally at least a stumbling block. But probably bad.

Do they have a significant disadvantage if they are forced to land on the ledge or stage (thus wanting the other)?

If so, their recovery isn't necessarily bad but they are given a large weakness. This is most evident in character's like Sheik or Wario that have significant lag when they land on the stage, or ROB when he's on the edge and is one hit away from death. This won't "kill" a character's recovery, but it adds extra chances for your opponent to mess you up AND it makes it easier for them to do so.

If you get hit while trying to recover, does this mean you die?

How many times have you seen Captain Falcon get hit, up+b, get hit, up+b, get hit, on repeat until on the 7th time he manages to juke his way onto the stage or sweetspot or make his opponent miss and grab the ledge? If you don't die, that means the edgeguard takes more attempts and that means you have more attempts to get back on stage. This is much different than, say, Falco, who drops like a sack of bricks and then can easily be edgeguarded by just rolling off the ledge 90% of the time when he's hit off stage.

This also means that getting hit off stage at low % is a death sentence.

Does their recovery have a hitbox that is effective (i.e., not super slow or impossible to hit with)?

No brainer. If you're ness and you up+b, I get to saunter to the ledge, wait for you to move towards me, then roll and you will fall and die. No danger to me, no difficulty in pulling it off. If you're dedede, you have no hitbox until you land on them or the stage, meaning it's super easy to just hit you out of it due to the whole "no threat" thing.

Does standard recovering procedure involve using your second jump in a specific way?

If so, your recovery isn't necessarily bad but it is a stumbling block. Marth's in Melee was one of these, primarily due to the shield killer. He needed his second jump in many situations to be able to hit them onto the stage so he could then up+b without killing himself or making himself incredibly vulnerable. Anyone who is threatened by someone just hanging on the ledge and needs to use a jump or projectile to get them off? They're in trouble. Salvageable, but added difficulty.

 

[DMG]

marth's recovery feels good to me in both games.

falco's recovery seems good to me in melee and bad in PM.

also i edge guard everyone to death so maybe i'm biased.

Marth's recovery feels relatively worse with new/buffed cast

All of the Falco recovery talk: I remember reading somewhere that they couldn't properly match or fix Upb angles to match Melee. This was 2.1 mind you: I dunno if this was fixed and I don't remember anything about distance. Just that angles would be a bit off, and also because of this your momentum/capability to grab the edge after the Upb would feel off. If this is still around, which I feel it definitely is for Fox, then that's probably what you're feeling.

You play Sheik, so yeah you basically edge guard "Look Ma, no hands!" style

You main Sheik, and so do I. Most recoveries seem bad when you play Sheik. At least that's how I feel.

^^^

Silly Ike players, even 2.1 Ike got that ol' Sheik edgeguard wee-wee

Sheik's recovery is pretty mediocre. She has a degree of guessing that goes into it, but simply ledge grabbing at the right time and being decent at getting back up quickly means you can effectively cover both of her recovery paths at once. She can stall, but it's not the same as having a straight up good recovery.

They meant edge guarding. As in, when you play Sheik, you feel like a god that can edge guard any recovery and any reasonable recovery variation, and make the other guy look real bad.






General discussion about recovering: What I would do is separate or distinguish between the actual recovery move, and the recovery "capability" or gameplan of the character. Take Falco for example: His Side B is a fairly solid recovery move. What feels bad is if you get sent off at a lower angle or a lower % edge guard scenario. He's subpar at general recovery, but does fine if he gets to Side B/is in a situation where Side B has mixup timings. Ganondorf Upb is not that great, but if that mother ****** comes down from the top corners with Wizard Kick, the rest is history. Etc

Ask more specific questions, receive better and clarified answers.

 

[SpiderMad]

I think the not as many angle thing is true but also still the distance is less is also true

I need a reminder of the angle thing though, I think it was Melee:100+ vs Brawl: 21 or something

 

[Bryonato]

Umbreon, can you speak on stage control for a second. Who in Melee would you say has good stage control? Does having a spammeable projectile like falco, moderate range like marth, mean you have stage control? What about cfalcon––does he hav any?

I'm definitely not as experienced as other here so input from them would be nice, but as far as what I believe to be great stage control I think each of the characters you mentioned posses a lot of solid core elements to stage control and here's why:

Falco- Awesome mobility and a spammable projectile that allows him to control neutral space and force opponents into uncomfortable approaches.

Marth- When I see Marth on stage there's almost an aura around him that is due to his great range on all of his attacks. He controls platforms above him due to UTilt, Fsmash, etc and neutral space between him and has opponent because of his potent ground/tilt game and again, his mobility.

CF- IMO C.Falcon definitely does not have all of the elements that the aforementioned characters posses but he does have the main aspect I keep coming back to which is, you guessed it, high mobility. CF's aerial speed especially out of a dash is insane and he can put himself in the right place at the right time very quickly. He controls neutral space in front of him with the threat of SideB/DownB.

Ness struggles in that he doesn't have a super-spammable projectile (PKF is good to an extent but nothing compared to something like Falco's laser). His Fair is a great tool in approaching and covering approaches but all in all he doesn't have a ton of range or amazing mobility to get in close to his opponents so he just kind of lacks when you compare him to others. It's not to say he doesn't have any but the amount of space he controls compared to someone like Marth is lackluster.

Just my opinions. Hope that helped you out and that others can chime in, too.

 

[Juushichi]

He (Falcon) probably controls his space much better with things like fair and nair. Both of those things can be made moderately safe by things like land-gentleman and all those variants, dash away and just in general by attack timing and placement on shield. His control game works differently for a few reasons all highlighted by his mobility and his ability to bait.

You swing erroneously or react wrong and he's right there with a myriad of setups and attack options that can rely on one touch and lead to really bad positioning and/or a stock.

 

[The_NZA]

Is there a logical way to give ness more stage control and is it warranted?

 

[Overswarm]

Is there a logical way to give ness more stage control and is it warranted?

Stage control is about controlling space around the character. Ness can control space in certain situations and in certain areas, but he's not fast enough in the air or on the ground to really dominate the space around him and his moveset doesn't making moving into his range deadly. Compare it to Marth who can stand just outside his range and shut down a lot of your options or to Fox who can zip in and out at a moments' notice and hit you effectively no matter where you are.

 

[The_NZA]

So i feel that answers the latter part of hte question to say it is warranted. He should be able to control space better. And since Ness is such a fighter jet, I think it would be in improving his aerial mobility...making his second jump faster could lead to some good dynamics...improving his magnet to give him even more aerial mobility could help. I dont know what else would work well.

 

[Overswarm]

So i feel that answers the latter part of hte question to say it is warranted. He should be able to control space better. And since Ness is such a fighter jet, I think it would be in improving his aerial mobility...making his second jump faster could lead to some good dynamics...improving his magnet to give him even more aerial mobility could help. I dont know what else would work well.

Not every character has to control space well. Kirby in Brawl, for example, is horrid at controlling space. It's a huge weakness. He can still find success, it's just a flaw in his character.

A better question is "can Ness still be considered viable when he can't reliably recover or control space on stage". If he doesn't have strengths to outweigh those negatives, he'll trend towards the bottom.

 

[The_NZA]

Given his recovery and lack of range are already huge negatives, I don't see why Ness doesn't deserve better aerial mobility. I think of him as a fighter jet and I think part of his design lends him to be the insanely intelligent aerial combo machine. Perfectly execute your jumps, djc, and aerial magnets, and you should be able to juggle your opponent with perfection. Having the ability to "get In" could only flesh out his tool set.

 

[Overswarm]

And giving Mario the ability to throw out his fireballs as fast as he could in the original game would make him have a super awesome approach, but that's not necessarily what he's supposed to have.

If Ness is designed to 0-death everyone he touches (I don't see it becoming standard), giving him the ability to get in incredibly easy might be the wrong direction. Falco has both those properties and he's a monster because of it, but it is mitigated by the ease in which you can combo him and edgeguard him.

 

[The_NZA]

No one's saying it has to be without reason...sometimes it feels like your a hyperbole translator. If Ness is considered in the bottom tier (something that I'm not entirely convinced of), one has to ask, what is the design of the character aiming to do. Obviously, he's supposed to be a technically unique creative aerial combo wizard designed to have many ways to use and link his aerials to destroy his opponents. His weaknesses are supposed to be a relatively limited projectile game, bad range (as well as grab range), and a predictable and punishable recovery. The question I'm posing is, can we tease something out of this general design that improves his core function so he's a fair character without making him silly.

I think giving his magnets the attributes that they have been given is a start, but the way it is currently being used is I think different from what the BR intended. To be honest, I think it's superior to what the BR intended and it uniquely compliments him (it is used as a way to have cool aerial mobility with a protective hitbox––an air wavedash at every height). Given the way people are using it, can it be designed to better fit this new function. I think it can.

But you can exaggerate how I want a free win character with 0-deaths on the entire cast.

 

[Overswarm]

I think of him as a fighter jet and I think part of his design lends him to be the insanely intelligent aerial combo machine. Perfectly execute your jumps, djc, and aerial magnets, and you should be able to juggle your opponent with perfection.

I don't see how this doesn't imply death combos being a norm.

 

[The_NZA]

dafuq overswarm.

Let me try and speak your language.
perfection!=0-death
perfection in this case = hyperbole to mean fantastically, with great adeptness, and relative strength compared to much of the cast.