Tier List Speculation

[Deleted member]

so If I tell you how to fix DDD, will you try to implement those, or provide feedback?

try copying me, i think this is the best way to go about making real changes:

http://smashboards.com/threads/my-problems-with-the-sheik-changes.407763/page-3#post-19842208

 

[Narelex]

You know, after hearing that Yoshi has a bad neutral talk, it kind of hit me- who even has a good neutral in this game besides spacies? It's like the entire cast is lacking or something.

Meta Knight, Marth, Roy

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Yeah you DD or you have spacie pressure. Everyone else has to commit pretty hard.

 

[DrinkingFood]

DDing counts as a commitment for the record. It's a much smaller one than most other things based on your speed, but it's not like DDing is some cure-all lol. I think nobody in posting in here understands neutral game except like a few people lol
Yoshi not having a neutral game is the silliest thing i've heard all day, out of like 3 things i've heard today

 

[Soft Serve]

I think a lot of the time people assume strong neutral means you can approach really well, which is why people underrate the neutrals of wolf, or falcon, or say that characters like kirby, ICs, or luigi, who function by putting up hitbox walls defensively in neutral then going in with a burst movement option on a opening, have poor neutrals. None of the characters lack tools to compete in neutral (maybe bowser?), its not like you're melee roy and just lose to CC and platform camping no mater the MU, or melee kirby where your best approach option is roll through them>tilt; everyone has a dash dance, or a decent projectile, or good approach stuffing hitboxes

 

[DMG]

Neutral in PM is kind of weird sometimes. There's more "anti-neutral" tools and things going on. The new crawls, things like Snake grenades and Diddy Naner, glide toss and AGT (both I think were in Melee sorta but not even close to prominent or as usable), some janky defensive stuff you can pull out your butt if the stars align

Dealing with an AGT + Z dropping Toon Link on a bigger stage sounds like maybe less fun than Obama promised. My idea of a good neutral is a character that can deal with that, or at least generate genuine pressure against people who go that route. If you're the best Samus or Peach at trading and out-baiting, but then get platform or distance camped, not sure the character's neutral is really that good.

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

My 2 cents: If you believe the cast has an equal means of approaching each other safely one way or another, then the subject of "who has good neutral?" is pretty moot.

Pressure and punishment isn't neutral. It's what happens after you've won or lost it.

 

[DMG]

DDing counts as a commitment for the record. It's a much smaller one than most other things based on your speed, but it's not like DDing is some cure-all lol. I think nobody in posting in here understands neutral game except like a few people lol
Yoshi not having a neutral game is the silliest thing i've heard all day, out of like 3 things i've heard today

Yeah people tend to assume the max of DD, where your fingers and brain aren't limited going back and forth + responding accurately to the opponent. Human level it's way less good than that unrestrained version, but that doesn't seem to be properly recognized when people talk about MU's or playing neutral, which leads to entire MU write ups for Falcon and others to be "lol just DD grab"

#JustSmashThangs

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Hey give me some credit, I never said DD was no commitment. I was trying to express that most characters that people agree have a good neutral either have spacie pressure or really good DDs, and other options do require more commitment than there.

 

[DMG]

No neutral is good in PM. Not when god-tier sleeper jank troll Squirtle uber-lords are out there waiting to slay us all. We may not be prepared... on big stages

 

[Boiko]

Just the way it is man, no throw would have killed Falcon there. Even Mewtwo up-throw doesn't kill Falcon until 160 something.

Bowser's command grab, Squirtle's down throw, Olimar's blue back throw, Lucario's side b.

And then you consider that other throws may not kill but they set up for better positioning considering their angles. Like ROB's side throws, Lucas's back throw, Diddy's side throws, Wario's side throws, Sheik's forward throw, etc.

Ness' "kill throw" is objectively worse because it doesn't kill and it allows the opponent to drift back to stage from a very high angle. The angle needs to be changed, not the power, IMO.

 

[FreeGamer]

Zelda's B-Throw would have killed him.

 

[tasteless gentleman]

I mean, if anyone thinks bowser is actually playable right now, he's welcome to try making him work. He has literally 0 winning matchups, most are 6-4 or worse, and a substantial amount are straight up unplayable. In terms of overall spread (ie. Not weighted by relevance) he's probably worse than melee Ness right now.

No Johns because most of his mus are still sort of winnable, but Jesus christ it's exhausting when EVERY matchup is this huge uphill struggle and commentators across the board are still like "I think Bowser was slightly buffed overall from 3.5".

This. Im not even good, but whenever i win i hear "See, bowser is not unplayable?" or "he is not bad he is just different" or "I'm pretty sure he was buffed overall, you just dont want to change" especially on stream because then it projects an image that bowser is not bad and that we are just whiners.

 

[Journal]

You know, after hearing that Yoshi has a bad neutral talk, it kind of hit me- who even has a good neutral in this game besides spacies? It's like the entire cast is lacking or something.

Ike, Diddy, Marth, Roy, Mario, and Toon Link all come to mind.

 

[Boiko]

This is my opinion on the tier list. Very vague order with their tiers.

 

[Kipcom]

Yoshi doesn't have a neutral game. His projectile is too slow to actually have threat in neutral, he has no disjoints to try and safely poke (every "poking" option he has requires him to get VERY close and take some big risks), and now the option of baiting your opponent to hit his double jump doesn't work as well because he's lighter. The risk/reward of all of Yoshi's options is just not as good as other characters'. He still has one of the best punish games off of his combo starters, no doubt about that, but if Yoshi is playing against a truely fundementally sound player Yoshi is simply too easy to bait and punish over and over in neutral.
Also, Yoshi's neutral in Melee was based around parrying, and that's the only thing that makes him viable or whatever. Now the last remnants of that stupid mechanic are gone, along with his other "win neutral" option he had in 3.5, which was his pivot grab.
The fact of the matter is Yoshi is a flawed character to start with, and extremely hard to fix in any reasonable way. In 3.5 he was viable and usable, but now he's just... ugh. But now he follows more rules of how Smash should work at a top level, so it's a really hard thing to discuss about what's "right" for the game or whatever.
It'll take some serious creativity to make Yoshi a fair and balanced character in a high-level meta, but it's doable, and I very much hope it could happen.

Weren't you the one advocating some of these nerfs, or are the Yoshi mains out there really out for your blood for some reason?

 

[Rizner]

Zelda loses to the overwhelming majority of A, B, and C. Squirtle hard counters her. She loses to Mario and Pit. She struggles with ZSS. Pikachu is rare, but he should have the advantage based off being short, having great vertical KO power, better mobility, and good damage output. A Pikachu main might know more about their strengths in the matchup. Ganondorf, Charizard, and Sonic are hard though she might have the advantage over them. Kirby beats her. Yoshi seemed 0 or -1 from Oracle's two sets versus Hamyojo in 3.5. I think she beats Ice Climbers. She beats Ness, DK, and Bowser, but beating fatties is a trivial strength. The Jigglypuff matchup is stage dependent. Olimar didn't exist in 3.5, so I'm clueless about that matchup. With the tiers you currently have listed, she'd belong in D. In D, the matchups in her tier and below would range from -1 to +2 with possible exceptions for Sonic and Kirby.

I don't think she's as bad as claimed here tbh. She is even ish with Mario, imo beats pit (been a while since I've played against one, though), is stage dependant vs Ganon and sonic, beats zard, and ic. From s to b tier, I'd say she loses 10 matchups, 5 being from s. Her biggest issue I see is that she loses really hard to those 5 in s tier.

 

[Player -0]

Still curious on this. Would changing the jump part of Side B for Diddy to a footstool be bad?

Currently it sends at a fairly powerful meteor (which, in 3.6 is nerfed because lol cancel window). If it were changed to a footstool it could be followed up on with a Dair for more commitment while if he chose to let the opponent fall they wouldn't be completely boned if they were one of the characters that gets bodied by meteors.

Basically it would make Diddy commit a little more for monkey flip gimps.

idk who to tag so @ Soft Serve

 

[TheoryofSmaug]

This is my opinion on the tier list. Very vague order with their tiers.

I think this is the best list I've seen. Maybe Wario in A tier and I think Bowser, Puff and DDD at least deserve their own tier.

Also I don't think anyone is so far ahead of the cast to be an S tier. In other words I think what is now S tier is more like A tier, and current A tier is like A- tier.

On an interesting note I could see any of the non D tier characters making top 3 at a major.

 

[Boiko]

I think this is the best list I've seen. Maybe Wario in A tier and I think Bowser, Puff and DDD at least deserve their own tier.

Also I don't think anyone is so far ahead of the cast to be an S tier. In other words I think what is now S tier is more like A tier, and current A tier is like A- tier.

I agree. I should clarify that there isn't a substantial difference between each tier.
I can agree with those changes.

 

[The_NZA]

Honestly, i'm always amused by how far people who don't play Nesses extensively want to air out their well defined theories on how well balanced he is. Even after you have me, Akhi, StereoKIDD, and Boiko all saying he's definitively low tier, that he seems deceptively good because he can handle fast fallers, people are STILL putting him in B tier. Statements like "Neutral game is the most important thing, and this character loses to dash dance" are relevant--until they are aired out about Ness's state in the game.

I can see why the facts can be obfuscated. Ness's flaws aren't obvious like fatty flaws (DK/Bowser), There are Ness's who have good bracket runs here and there where they engage and wreck fast fallers (Aki at WHOBO) and people who don't know wtf they are doing, and you have someone like Calabrel on the development team who doesn't compete, and feels fairly competent in his experience that Ness has a "middle tier neutral game that is underrated". But trust us when we tell you, Ness loses a large enough proportion of matchups and has some pretty bad matchups to ever justify him in his current state being better than the tier DK is in. A 6% magnet and a damage change so his fair is easier to SDI on the first two hits but worst to SDI on the last two hits is not going to change that. Character needs a few more fundamental strengths in his column to not be in bottom tier.

For the record, I feel Ness loses the following matchups badly (6-4 and worse):

Wario
Luigi
Zelda
Fox (when played with matchup knowledge)
Sheik
Link
Toon Link
Ivy
Samus
Pit (arrow cancelling pkthunder was murder in 3.02 and I believe it still is. I can be corrected on this one)
Kirby
DDD
Ike
Marth
Roy
GnW

And I think he loses the following matchups slightly:
Mario
Peach
DK (debatable--the grab range and kill confirms are crazy. Really easy for him to setup grabs on Ness)
Captain Falcon
Wolf
ICs (he's the perfect combo weight to be chaingrabbed inescapably for SoPo OR both of them
Mewtwo (? unsure on this one. Boiko could share more)
Lucario
ZSS
Olimar
Rob
Sonic

I think he goes pretty even with Squirtle, Charizard, Ganon and potentially Falco. I have no opinion on him v. Diddy, Lucas,and Metaknight since he has a pretty nasty punish game v fast fallers. Those might be even. He probably handedly beats Bowser, Jiggs, and potentially edges out Pikachu, as well as players playing any character without matchup experience. I don't know how he does v. Yoshi or Snake (this one might be slightly in Ness's advantage). I'm curious to see what Boiko and Aki think but this is how I feel the matchup spread of the character is.

I think it would take 3-4 minor tweaks though to give him a lot of 50/50 matchup spreads. Tweaks that Boiko and I have been talking about privately and are trying to test out.

EDIT:

Also Boiko, I really like your tier list. I'd push Wario up though to A tier. Beyond that, we have some personal disagreements but i can respect the positioning of everyone on it. I think Ganon and Yoshi are probably too low, but I admittedly know very little about how much Yoshi has dropped off. From what I can tell, Yoshi's still got a decent dash dance, bair, fair and his general non floaty + DJC combination theoretically still gives him a decent neutral game. His smash attacks/tilts are still decent, and he has a projectile that can force an approach so I have a hard time believing he has a really bad neutral. But who knows--I don't play that much with Yoshis. That's why I wanted to hear from more of them.

 

[Shokio]

This is my opinion on the tier list. Very vague order with their tiers.

Mario Should be in A tier honestly, Olimar in C, Marth in A, Zelda in D, and Ness in B. Yes I read NZA's post but I feel what I feel; Ness is gud this patch.

Other than that this list looks understandable solid to me.

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

I think this is the best list I've seen. Maybe Wario in A tier and I think Bowser, Puff and DDD at least deserve their own tier.

Also I don't think anyone is so far ahead of the cast to be an S tier. In other words I think what is now S tier is more like A tier, and current A tier is like A- tier.

On an interesting note I could see any of the non D tier characters making top 3 at a major.

this is funny because puff won a national in 3.5 where she was relatively worse

I'd put puff at least in c tier, most likely b tier

 

[CyberZixx]

I don't see why everyone is ranking Mario so low.

 

[Boiko]

Mario Should be in A tier honestly, Olimar in C, Marth in A, Zelda in D, and Ness in B. Yes I read NZA's post but I feel what I feel; Ness is gud this patch.

Other than that this list looks understandable solid to me.

Marth is really good. He has almost no losing match ups. Idk, I find it hard to see him anything but top tier, but I get it.

Ness sucks though. Definitely not B tier.

 

[NWRL]

I think this is the best list I've seen. Maybe Wario in A tier and I think Bowser, Puff and DDD at least deserve their own tier.

Also I don't think anyone is so far ahead of the cast to be an S tier. In other words I think what is now S tier is more like A tier, and current A tier is like A- tier.

On an interesting note I could see any of the non D tier characters making top 3 at a major.

Definitely agree on this point.

I don't think we should be trying to call for nerfs on characters with perceived strong attributes, because ultimately that's what makes a game fun.

PMDT should approach balance similar to how Icefrog does with Dota, keeping a characters strengths while making their weaknesses apparent, and if nerfs are required, do it with small incremental changes instead of heavy handed nerfs.

 

[mimgrim]

I think a lot of the time people assume strong neutral means you can approach really well,

This. So very much this.

The neutral isn't only about how well you can approach. That is only a part of the neutral game and some characters simply don't do well in that part o the neutral game. But there is soooo much more to it.

The basic gist of the neutral is to lead to the punish game. Some characters do this by going on the offense and approaching the opponent and try and just force them to make a commitment from the offense they are trying to pile on them so that they can get the punish, others want to force their opponent to approach them instead and make them over commit on their approach so they can get the punish, and others prefer to weave around the mid-range zone and not really throw out an attack all that often in neutral just outside of the opponents reach enough to be threatening and get a punish if they try anything too committal in that range. And that is really just the tip of the iceberg tbh.

Some characters have godlike neutral because they can do any of these things in neutral allowing them a lot of variation in how they play.

Other characters have horrible neutrals because they can't really do any of these things super well.

But seriously people. There is tons more to neutral then just approaching.

Am I in a Smash 4 thread because that is what it feels like with having to feel like I need to explain why neutral is way more about how well you can approach and how all it really is is how well you can lead to the punish game and that there are different ways to do this then just approaching.

 

[CORY]

i've kinda always felt that the strength of a character's neutral was more about how safe/non-commital their options are, regardless of how they play it (though i don't disagree with mim's thoughts on the subject at all).

if a character can do a lot of [stuff], but still has relatively high commitment in doing them, their neutral's weaker. if you can only do one [thing] really really well and very safely, you have an ok neutral, from lack of options. if you can do several [things] and do many/all of them safely, then you probably have a really good neutral game.

or is this kind of offbase?

 

[Soft Serve]

Curious as to why diddy is jumping up from lower high/upper mid to top tier in everyone's list

Not disagreeing because diddy is amazing and completely could be, but from 3.5 to 3.6, the only changes to his mu spread were mus he already won getting easier (ganon, bowser, zss, potentially rob/roy although I'm still iffy on what the mu was/is), and fox is a good deal more manageable (but still one of his 3 worst mus ). Pit/mk mus are harder now too but i maintain diddy still wins them. His mu spread hardly changed, and he's always been a character who's position in the tiers is more related to the prevalence of who he loses too (honestly just fox/wolf/peach/samus/wario/m2/sonic/some other floaties)

Idk, seems like another "this character won another national, has to be top tier" thing.

 

[TheoryofSmaug]

this is funny because puff won a national in 3.5 where she was relatively worse

I'd put puff at least in c tier, most likely b tier

I hate people citing forte 2 as an argument that puff is good.

At Forte 2 Hungrybox, the best puff player ever to live by a far cry, a melee god who built the puff play style we know. Made it through a lucky bracket with just the match ups puff actually does decent at, and managed to win the tournament against player who sans Sethlon and Oracle, are not exactly the finest to ever play the game.

No other player has half the skill HBox has with puff. There is no way in hell a character with such unwinable match ups as MK vs Puff, Mewtwo vs Puff and so on can be anything with low tier.

Hungrybox would probably 4 stock me in melee, but with PM MK vs Puff he would have a much much harder time, even though my skill level is nowhere near his.

Puff is bad, bad, bad and Forte 2 does not change that.

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

This. So very much this.

The neutral isn't only about how well you can approach. That is only a part of the neutral game and some characters simply don't do well in that part o the neutral game. But there is soooo much more to it.

The basic gist of the neutral is to lead to the punish game. Some characters do this by going on the offense and approaching the opponent and try and just force them to make a commitment from the offense they are trying to pile on them so that they can get the punish, others want to force their opponent to approach them instead and make them over commit on their approach so they can get the punish, and others prefer to weave around the mid-range zone and not really throw out an attack all that often in neutral just outside of the opponents reach enough to be threatening and get a punish if they try anything too committal in that range. And that is really just the tip of the iceberg tbh.

Some characters have godlike neutral because they can do any of these things in neutral allowing them a lot of variation in how they play.

Other characters have horrible neutrals because they can't really do any of these things super well.

But seriously people. There is tons more to neutral then just approaching.

Am I in a Smash 4 thread because that is what it feels like with having to feel like I need to explain why neutral is way more about how well you can approach and how all it really is is how well you can lead to the punish game and that there are different ways to do this then just approaching.

I agree with most of this, but I'm gonna say that the term(s) good/weak neutral are pretty oxymoronic. It's neutral. There's no good or bad to it. What you want to say are character's tools are great/bad in neutral, which makes way more sense.

 

[mimgrim]

i've kinda always felt that the strength of a character's neutral was more about how safe/non-commital their options are, regardless of how they play it (though i don't disagree with mim's thoughts on the subject at all).

if a character can do a lot of [stuff], but still has relatively high commitment in doing them, their neutral's weaker. if you can only do one [thing] really really well and very safely, you have an ok neutral, from lack of options. if you can do several [things] and do many/all of them safely, then you probably have a really good neutral game.

or is this kind of offbase?

To a degree. Safe and non-committal moves are super important as well but some character have the tools to get around this.

Like Falcon.

Falcon doesn't really have that many non-committal moves aside from like Nair really (maybe grab as well?) but just about every other move is a commitment in neutral for him.

But here is the kicker. Despite being so full of committal moves he is still able to be very non-committal (relatively) because of his mobility (mostly his DD) because it allows him to weave in and out of the opponents space very fast and just threaten them with your monstrous speed.

Ganondorf on the other hand doesn't have the mobility like Falcon so he is much less able to weave in and out of the opponents space (even though that is where he wants to be because he can't really force approaches and his approach game is to big of a commitment) but he still does this well enough (enough to make his neutral sub-par but doable imo) because him just being there standing still is all kinds of threatening tbh. But he is a good ways worse off than Falcon in neutral.

So really non-committal/safe options are dependent on how well a character is at just doing nothing first. And then if they have the mobility to compliment that, And then finally how safe their options are.

but I'm gonna say that the term(s) good/weak neutral are pretty oxymoronic. It's neutral. There's no good or bad to it. What you want to say are character's tools are great/bad in neutral, which makes way more sense.

I don't care lol.

 

[Player -0]

To explain myself I've (pretty much) maintained the thought that Didds is ~high tier. Stuff that happened at LTC3 didn't have me mention my Diddy thing from somewhere around 3.02/3.5.

 

[The_NZA]

I always find when discussing neutral, that there are two frames of reference.

1. One camp (the one i'm in) believes Neutral is everything that isn't "the punish game". Basically, neutral is everything that occurs before you get the first hit on a non-shielding opponent, without you yourself getting hit. This means neutral includes patience non-engagement, control of tempo, it includes things like shield pressure, spacing aerials in a shield. It includes your ability to bait out a poor attack via dash dancing, spot dodging, or shielding, and it includes your out of Shield options.

2. The second camp (I think DF is in this one) believes neutral is deliberately different than "stagger game". Falco's neutral game would be defined by lasers and nairs, but dair->shine on a shield is not a neutral game tool or a tool in his neutral game. This camp does not consider your OOS options as being a part of neutral. I personally find this camp confusing.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Marth is really good. He has almost no losing match ups. Idk, I find it hard to see him anything but top tier, but I get it.

Ness sucks though. Definitely not B tier.

Not to call you out too hard on the Marth thing, but I've definitely been guilty of over rating characters that happen to crusherino bowser. You may or may not be doing the same.

 

[Soft Serve]

Still curious on this. Would changing the jump part of Side B for Diddy to a footstool be bad?

Currently it sends at a fairly powerful meteor (which, in 3.6 is nerfed because lol cancel window). If it were changed to a footstool it could be followed up on with a Dair for more commitment while if he chose to let the opponent fall they wouldn't be completely boned if they were one of the characters that gets bodied by meteors.

Basically it would make Diddy commit a little more for monkey flip gimps.

idk who to tag so @ Soft Serve

This would be really broken. Side-b jump is a really weak meteor that because it is a grab always refreshes the opponent's jump, and with new meteor window (and just holding jump to buffer it?) for diddy to take stocks with it, he has to either do it ASAP and hope they don't react to you Comboing into it/intercepting, or do it as late as possible and hope they don't mash so you drop further before jumping. It's already a pretty high commitment move, if you miss then you're out there without half your recovery and they got the ledge.

Auto footstool would be really broken(off stage kills so much sooner than his current side b ever would because there's the huge 40ish frame window where you can't act out of getting footstooled, and on stage it would mean guarenteed dairs on parts of the cast which nets more than the side b attack, or guarenteed agt down> fdmash/dsmash instead of them always being able to shield your option until 180 ish where it knocks down), and if it was that on both land and air it would make diddy the best character in the game, I think significantly.

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

I always find when discussing neutral, that there are two frames of reference.

1. One camp (the one i'm in) believes Neutral is everything that isn't "the punish game". Basically, neutral is everything that occurs before you get the first hit on a non-shielding opponent, without you yourself getting hit. This means neutral includes patience non-engagement, control of tempo, it includes things like shield pressure, spacing aerials in a shield. It includes your ability to bait out a poor attack via dash dancing, spot dodging, or shielding, and it includes your out of Shield options.

2. The second camp (I think DF is in this one) believes neutral is deliberately different than "stagger game". Falco's neutral game would be defined by lasers and nairs, but dair->shine on a shield is not a neutral game tool or a tool in his neutral game. This camp does not consider your OOS options as being a part of neutral. I personally find this camp confusing.

I think I'm with drinkingfood here, the stagger game is definitely different than true neutral

the stagger game is basically the equivalent of blockstrings in traditional fighting games, there's a large difference between that, where one character is clearly on offense and another is on defense, compared to neutral, where both characters are really doing neither

 

[CORY]

To a degree. Safe and non-committal moves are super important as well but some character have the tools to get around this.

Like Falcon.

Falcon doesn't really have that many non-committal moves aside from like Nair really (maybe grab as well?) but just about every other move is a commitment in neutral for him.

But here is the kicker. Despite being so full of committal moves he is still able to be very non-committal (relatively) because of his mobility (mostly his DD) because it allows him to weave in and out of the opponents space very fast and just threaten them with your monstrous speed.

Ganondorf on the other hand doesn't have the mobility like Falcon so he is much less able to weave in and out of the opponents space (even though that is where he wants to be because he can't really force approaches and his approach game is to big of a commitment) but he still does this well enough (enough to make his neutral sub-par but doable imo) because him just being there standing still is all kinds of threatening tbh. But he is a good ways worse off than Falcon in neutral.

So really non-committal/safe options are dependent on how well a character is at just doing nothing first. And then if they have the mobility to compliment that, And then finally how safe their options are.



I don't care lol.

that's kind of what i was aiming for, too. i consider super left-right-left bros to be part of neutral, so characters who play that game really well (safely, large threats out of it, etc...) i tend to consider having good neutrals (not necessarily great, as in falcon's case as you outlined, but still good).

 

[The_NZA]

I think I'm with drinkingfood here, the stagger game is definitely different than true neutral

the stagger game is basically the equivalent of blockstrings in traditional fighting games, there's a large difference between that, where one character is clearly on offense and another is on defense, compared to neutral, where both characters are really doing neither

What advantage in conversations about character strength do we get from distinguishing neutral and stagger? I think of stagger game as augmented neutral game rather than something else. Falco dair/shining you in neutral is technically not neutrla game or punish game, but if we were talking about the strength of Falco's neutral game, we would need to include how shine makes him safe to continue close range pressure in neutral.

Conversely, if we accept being able to pressure shield without consequence is part of someones ability to "win neutral", then we also have to accept that someones ability to counteract pressure and "win neutral" is part of someones neutral game. Hence why I think frame safe shield pressure AND OOS options to punish poor frame-safe pressure are both part of the neutral game.

I'm all for referring to stagger game in commentary or teaching techniques, but for evaluation of character strength, its a pointless clarification. Basically, all neutral game isn't stagger game, but the stagger game can be considered a class of neutral.

But i'm also the guy who considers light armor, medium armor, and heavy armor to all be subclasses of a general term called "super armor" which I know pisses some people off.

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

What advantage in conversations about character strength do we get from distinguishing neutral and stagger? I think of stagger game as augmented neutral game rather than something else.

We measure the strength of a character's tools in neutral by how easy/hard they make the character leave neutral into advantageous position or how hard/easy it is for the character reset back to it. Broken characters pretty much ignore neutral and say "We're going to play my game, and it's only my game we're playing".