Tier List Speculation

[DARKcpu0]

EDIT: Damn this **** is long. Have fun.

WELP TIME TO FIGHT WITH THE CREATOR. PULL UP YOUR BRIDGES SAKUR- uh... ****whatsyourname Shheee- SHELL.

*Ahem* Sorry. Had to clear my throat. Had alot of popcorn potato chips and accidentally went to a beach and swallowed some of the water. The hell was I doing there anyways its ****ing 30 degrees

Mewtwo can still do hover approaches, which are smoother than ever due to the physics changes on hover.

This is true. I do this. I'll just float in, nair, the teleport away from a certain point on stage to where I can ledge cancel my lag on up b to get another float off then up b into the stage then either side b or neutral b to auto cancel. Atleast with my complicated method of getting in and out, getting punished is pretty easy. Still easy from the hover. Although the speed boost to it is nice. As for the auto cancelling into specials, more or less side b because of the nerf on shadow ball.

I must ask, why?
What led yall to make that slower?

He can also still do burst range teleports into aerial attacks. He just has to choose between a more visually-telegraphed but safer hover approach vs a less telegraphed but ultimately more committed teleport approach

He can, but its abit harder to do so in that Mewtwo ends up abit higher, and (atleast from what I can tell, correct me if I'm wrong) acts out abit slower than usual. Also both are very much visually telegraphed in that while hover is obvious, 5 frames before actually going into the frames where mewtwo appears, frames before lets say fair for the example, the 3 active hitbox frames on fair (again, correct me if I'm wrong), then the fast fall to l-cancel, leaves enough to at least, Iunno. Shield grab? Besides, its a pretty easy read to make. Its one of mewtwo's biggest tools. Who doesnt expect mewtwo to come in and invade your space?

Hell, I've seen Taj pull that **** in melee against SFAT. Not saying its a bad option at all, because by all means it isnt, but there seems to be much more risk over reward for getting something that alot of characters can do with SHFFLL'd nair.

I'm trying to prove a point to the person who built the 3.02 mewtwo and admittedly regrets it. What am I doing with my life.

Having both invincible invisible burst range movement into attacks with unpunishable low land lag was just undeniably toxic (and as the person responsible for creating this I apologize) but separated into their components they're considerably more reasonable. Neither of these options were available in Melee, and I think that having those options in conjunction with all of his other move buffs/fixes put him better than Melee by a pretty significant margin.

I wouldn't say unpunishable. When mewtwo teleports on stage, I think we all know he's coming for your ass. Literally all you had to do to avoid mewtwo's hover out of teleport nair, was run away. Simple, but the float cancel kinda kills the solution. I am perfectly fine with mewtwo losing hover out of teleport. **** was pretty unfair. What baffles me is the loss of DJ out of teleport. I get that its supposed to be a solution to killing hover, but it feels unwarranted.

Example:

Mewtwo could hover out of up b horizontally without really leaving the ground, via teleporting off stage. Mewtwo lacks this ability in 3.5, but retains his jump. Same remains from just, teleporting straight up off the ground for example. Keeping that in mind, seems losing hover after teleport but not DJ very much was an option. No more reaching to the top of the stage to finish the opponent. Perhaps this was to add more risk to the move, but wasn't being sent into recover after acting out of it a thing in 3.0, that got changed in 3.02? Why not do something like that over eating DJ?

I completely understand killing things like ledgestall (for the most part anyways. There are atleast 2 ways I've found to still infinite ledgestall which is pointless anyways that I'm sure you already know about) and hover out of float, but some of the changes seem just abit overkill for the guy.

His grab game is great, definitely better than melee, the side b combo extending beauty is well, I think you get the point, Not to sure how bad his down b was nerfed, but its still good as a quick mix up. Not alot of mewtwo players use the move in the first place. Shadow ball while slower, still isn't too horrible for spacing, I don't prefer it anymore, but still not bad. But the poor guy is going to have a pretty hard time letting off a good approach. That's the only problem I really have with mewtwo. Approaching is the biggest pain. OoS was hard to figure out but its pretty simple once I got it down. I would be approaching with b reversed shadow ball charges, yes I realize how bad that idea is, but the size stops that from being very effective. I'd go with an aerial afterwards, but the window left over is a bit unreliable. I could just spam bair and play it like an awkward jigglypuff, but (more corrections in the case that I'm wrong for you here) with the hurtboxes on the tail that may or may not exist, I'm just not to sure on how safe that option is either. I could just throw out a shadow ball, but the speed in which it comes out leaves me out long enough to at least be stopped before hand. I could try out one of the aforementioned approaches, but I already whined about those. Perhaps I can approach with wavedash dtilt? That almost works, almost. Only really works at around 20%, 50% on fast fallers, 70% on heavies and spacies. I could try DJC'ing or Float cancelling. Float I already touched on. DJC may be the only way out to have a safe approach. DJC Nair where it stands is probably mewtwo's best approach option as if done right gets a good knockback which if followed up correctly, leads into some decent combos, atleast on spacies. Still punishable, just alittle harder to as opposed to the rest of the options, and given the way the hitbox is, decent risk in walking up, and its better than teleporting in that if done right you aren't left as high up, while still having an out if you already know you're ****ing up by being able to atleast jump away while throwing out a fair as a bluff to get space. We all cant have nair -> shine after all.

Maybe I'm looking too far into the bad sides of the options, but Iunno man. I just dont know.

How does one approach as Mewtwo now?

 

[Jechtire]

How does one approach as Mewtwo now?

You don't. Mewtwo's approaches aren't very good. And that is probably his biggest flaw right now.
Mewtwo is still a strong character, and the recovery nerfs have solidified him as having one of the best offstage abilities in the game. He's gonna struggle vs. the melee characters way more in this update, but the nerfs to the other top characters like Metaknight and Diddy work in his favor.

I feel as though his matchup vs. the 3.0 top tiers (except fox) have gotten better while his matchups against the older, lower tier characters have gotten slightly worse.

What people really should be complaining about are the changes to Sonic lol. Never have I seen a character get neutered like that since 2.6 Sonic. At least these changes aren't as bad as those.

 

[Rᴏb]

God damnit.

So uh, where all the GnW mains at? He feels pretty godly this time around. I think my GnW is better than my tink now, which is pretty sad to say the least. =[

Legit question for GnW players: What does your character do? What is his gameplan? How does he operate? What strengths does he possess? How does he approach his matches?

GnW is one the few characters I don't have any kind of feel for so I'd love to know. I know he's a paper-light heavy-hitter and that's it.

G&W is so good now... It's ****ing amazing. The only significant nerf he got was his dumb bacon spam getting removed, which is totally understandable since it was pretty over-centralizing and way too good against big/slow characters. Being able to FF Chef is a nice trade-off though, it allows you to approach with Chef's pan hit a little more safely, and basically makes your opponent have to worry about G&W setting up a second bacon vs FFing and approaching another way. Being able to do all of that + being able to angle your bacon's trajectory adds a lot of depth to the move without it becoming overbearing.

G&W is similar to Mario in that he's really easy to play. You just kinda try things and they work.
If you wanna know specifics, read this thread. It's fairly old, but not much has changed. He can probably juggle even better now with his new up air.

Before 3.5 came out, I thought G&W was pretty average, but now I think I can say that he is relatively good. I guess we'll see how things turn out.

 

[InfinityCollision]

Xxshadicxx: Everybody all "Oh my god my character is ruined you don't even know what you're doing PMDT" combined with "____ character is fair to play against now! Thanks PMDT!"

I mean... yeah. It's mostly either that, masturbate to Ganondorf changes, or talk about how much your character wasn't changed... and the latter isn't great conversation material.

OMG, they changed Marth's dash grab and jab2!

They made Wolf's laser faster (maybesupposedtobeanerfbutnotreallyanerf?) and made some changes that don't change him all that much! (much of this almost seems like change for the sake of change, actually)

SHEIK CAN'T BUFFER INPUTS OUT OF TRANSFORM, THE WORLD IS ENDING

Collision fixes and sfx buffs are damn nice btw, gotta admit that. Delicious buttery wavelands.

-----

Wall o text incoming, you've been warned.

What exactly changed about ZSS? I actually like her in 3.5 when I didn't care for her in 3.0, but I'm not sure why that is.

Alright, I'm gonna walk you through this in roughly the order that things happened.

ZSS had a few moves that straight up did not work properly for various reasons in 3.02. Among these are fair and usmash. They were probably the first things changed, and these changes represent fixes.

Tether nerfs happened at some point. This kills the ZSS, a character already perceived as pretty mid-tier. Utilt, dtilt, nair, jab3, dash attack buffed in damage to compensate.

Down-b changed subtly in various ways.

A few BNBs got toned down somewhere along the way. Nair range and BKB reduced (big change, was a staple combo option), fsmash adjusted (backwards hitboxes no longer function as effective combo starters), dair got nerfed a bit (probably warranted, and the hitlag adjustment fits in with a broader design goal), dsmash got nerfed.

The last part is where things get somewhat disagreeable, but it's workable and if that's all that had happened the grumbling from ZSS players would be more in line with anyone else that got nerfs. Hell, ZSS even got a couple buffs fixes! But there's more. The stuff from here onwards is where everything goes to hell in a handcart.

ZSS has a slow as balls tether grab and it makes certain things harder/more complicated. Also her (old, tether) dash grab is really awkward because it's suuuuuuuuuuuper slow and the distance is weird.

So somebody had an idea: give her a normal grab! No need to try and adapt other tools or just balance around a given weakness. So they did. And it changes everything. Her conversions, her defensive play, everything changes because suddenly she has a much more viable grab. Some of those nerfs above might've even happened as a direct result of this, I don't know. What we do know is that this made her throws really ridiculous, so those got changed too. IASA frames were set later, dthrow angle was adjusted... and uthrow is now a spacie chaingrab thanks to a shiny new 82 degree angle. While obviously this buffs her against spacies (historically a bad matchup for her), this is the same update that just removed a bunch of chaingrabs. Oh, and the old uthrow/dthrow mixups and followups off of each no longer exist as a result of these changes.

There's still one looming elephant in the room: dash cancel paralyzer (DCP) into grab is kind of a big thing after this change. So the dash cancel gets canceled, as it were. Uncharged paralyzer shots are also no longer transcendent, but I suspect that was happening regardless. Anyway, now paralyzer sucks. So they buff the startup, travel speed, let her drift during aerial shots. To be honest it still sucks, but there's another problem.

Removing DCP and changing her grab fundamentally changes the way ZSS plays. DCP beautifully emphasizes her speedy, slippery, ultra-mobile playstyle. The tether is less fundamental to her playstyle, but DCP cannot coexist with the new grab and opinions on the old one were not overwhelmingly negative by any means. Subtle changes to dash grab likely would've relieved the most widespread complaints.

The end result is that ZSS's modus operandi has lost much of what made her unique and interesting, replacing those elements with an emphasis on a more traditional style based on DDing and CQC.

tl;dr this quote epitomizes the different ZSS playstyles:

Last I checked, Oro hates her grab. But Oro plays a pretty bare bones ZSS (which I think he's even told me). It's focused on a portion of her kit...a mix of ftilts, jabs, bairs, and a lot of CQC. Numerics juts likes shooting lasers and footdiving on the edge of platforms into uairs and whips and dumb stupid beautiful things.

They changed ZSS from a character that could do both reasonably well but somewhat favored the latter approach to focus more on the former instead, and she's immensely less interesting and unique for it.

Each side considers different elements of her game important. Things like DCP are, to the former camp, nonessential flavor elements. They prioritize a solid moveset base over flair elements that define that character's playstyle in small (or not so small) but meaningful ways.

Imagine if vBrawl suddenly changed and Salem had to start playing ZSS less like Salem and more like old Nick Riddle play (no disrespect Nick, you know what I mean). It's not the best analogy (you can tell I'm struggling for an analogy when I reference vBrawl lol), but 3.02 ZSS -> 3.5 ZSS is kind of like that.

And no, Oro is not singlehandedly responsible for these changes. He's well known for the particular playstyle the PMDT elected to emphasize, however.

Much of what I've said regarding the process of her changes is corroborated by statements from a PMDT member here.

 

[Soft Serve]

Legit question for GnW players: What does your character do? What is his gameplan? How does he operate? What strengths does he possess? How does he approach his matches?

GnW is one the few characters I don't have any kind of feel for so I'd love to know. I know he's a paper-light heavy-hitter and that's it.

I'm picking GnW back up for 3.5 because this enviroment feels the most like melee to me, and melee GnW is my bae

GnW can't really approach anymore, never had the ability to force his way in, never really will. New bacon makes it so that he cant fill the air with a huge wall of projectiles will being constantly on the move, which is also great (If you want examples of why this was so good, Dakpo used it to greatest out of all the GnW players). Like most characters, he plays in a reactionary way, netting his punishes off of baits (dash dances, WD back, Early bucket release), Anti-airs (Uptilt, Uair, Nair, Fair, Bair), Crouch cancels>dtilt, Grabs, Up-b OoS, and catching people with the dair ground hitbox if you corner them (this specifically is really good imo because if they shield the dair, they have to continue to shield the ground hitbox, and then the up-b, because IIRC unless they have an intangable OoS option its safe). He has other ways but main ones are Dtilt and good spacing. He doesn't have Melee D-throw, sadly, which was a chain grab and guaranteed follow up on everyone at the same time (think 2.0/2.1 link dthrow if you ever played that). Thankfully he actually has working defensive options in PM, which turns A lot of MUs around (I think he beats falco now, which was arguably his worst MU in Melee).

He plays the neutral game like other characters that cant force their way in, and then blows the opponent up with his obscene combo game if he lands a hit. Zero-to deaths on mid-weights are sort of expected of GnW imo. He approaches MU's with the mentality of "I dont really have the greatest approaches if I dont have control of the match at the moment, but I know I can kill them off one D-tilt with my pillar combos. As long as he doesn't get completely shut out, he does fine in most MU's. Marth/M2/Pit/Ivy have been some of his worst MU's in PM for this reason, and most of them just got more manageable.
He recovers well enough, huge vertical distance with lacking horizontal, expecially now that he can't bucket stall to live longer. He has a fantastic ledge game, he can plank and ledge hop aerial regrab easily with pretty much every aerial. He can also jump from ledge>Uair>waveland on stage. Uair wavelands are really good in general, and can be done out of short hops.

He has a great edge guarding game but often doesn't need it because his combo game is so destructive. WD-back F-smash is also fantastic.

I Think he might be high/top tier this patch, but Im biased and thought he was high tier in 3.02.




Glad the spacie talk died down, it was giving me cancer. I do think fox need much more nerfing. I love fox to death, but I found it really frustrating that the character development of fox was "valued" more than those of PM characters. What I mean by this is like, Diddy mains put in a **** ton of lab work on the character to try to optimize him, have been since 2.5. Despite him being a really simple/easy character, the character has obcene amounts of flexibility that was developed by all the diddy players. Most of it got thrown out the window in 3.5. I can imagine that Lucas and M2 players feel the same way (although I think both of them got off easy for nerfs, comparatively).

I also really dont understand why Wolf just got such a huge buff lol. I'll take it though. Falco's lasers were the only thing that set him apart from wolf previously, but now that wolf has a better blaster for approaching, I think its very safe to say wolf is the 2nd best spacie. Better than Fox? On paper, I dont know. In practice, we'll have to see how the meta-game shapes as wolf got one huge buff and a handful of neglible nerfs, and all of his bad MUs sans fox and marth got easier. He still has a ton of even MU's imo, but a contender for top tier, top 3 even. I dont think he was even top 15 in 3.02, but this wolf in 3.02 would have been top 10

Most changes for the cast were essentially saying "You guys need to actually be good at the game to win with your character now, and you have to know how to play your character, not the one or two stupid options you used to have. Oh, and fox/wolf you stay the same."

Heres my stupid day 2 tier-list, numbering characters at this point is stupid because we have no idea what characters are popular and how the hypothetical MU charts are going to work out. Theres a lot of essentially new characters in the mix with the amount of changes, so its a new game.
No particular orders in groupings
Group 1: Characters that should be able to win a major tournament by themselves without the need to switch off to cover a MU. IE they can have bad MU's, but they are still winnable. No common MU's worse than 60/40.


Group 2: These characters are completely able to win tournaments by themselves, but have a few bad MU's they they might struggle with if met in bracket.

Group 3: These characters are pretty mid-tier, fantastic potential but are hindered by bad MU's to common characters or an innate flaw in their kit that ruins some ability to win. Could win tournaments still, just need a secondary or a perfect bracket. They have to work harder.


Group 4: I wasn't good to begin with but I got nerfed because no-one like playing against me, now I'm a worse character thats somehow even more annoying to play against
10's

Group 5: Please kill us, we dont have a neutral game, win like 2 MU's at best, have the highest knowledge floor of any character to be even competent, and out punish game is based around the hope that the AI we control is with us and is in a situation where we want it to be in, Ie synched/desynched at the right time and hasn't been hit at all in the last 2 seconds



Real talk IC's are still bad, and zelda was bad before and got worse. Its okay though, I can still play

 

[DARKcpu0]

Move mewtwo to group two. Mewtwo struggles hard against fox.

Real hard.

Also why have I suddenly started a chain of walls of text.

 

[Foo]

@ Thane of Blue Flames *f-air wasn't working, not ftilt. Also, don't breeze over nair. IMO, This was the most offensive change. They didn't tone her nair down, they neutered it. The base knockback is less than half, so it basically cannot be used for combos, just tech chases.

Also, ZSS was never weak against shield, it's just not easy to shield pressure, you had to play a kind of tricksy "hot and cold" game, but that was a blast. She came jam packed with safe aerials (when spaced) and frame traps to make your opponent question coming out of shield.

What she was weak against was BEING shield pressured and comboing fast fallers. tbh, only bad ZSS had trouble with shield pressure.

@ Soft Serve I would like to know why everyone is placing ZSS so high up. All exaggerated salt aside, she took really hefty nerfs this patch. They made her throws bad, her projectile next to useles and he bread and butter nair unsafe on shield and inable to combo well.

 

[InfinityCollision]

Yeah, some typos/misworded statements. Just finished cleaning that post up... I think.

edit: nope, wasn't done. Maybe done now. Also you tagged the wrong person lol.

 

[Shell]

Re. Mewtwo, perhaps there's some confusion, DARKcpu0, you can still do Grounded Up-B -> Double Jump to chase opponents for KOs off the top, just not Aerial Up-B -> DJ.

Also the combination of the D-tilt interrupt change (fr24 -> 20) and the perfect wavedash input fix means that his Melee BnB spacing option of wavedash D-tilt is noticeably faster and smoother than it was in v3.02... of course D-tilt is CCable so it's not a bulletproof approach or anything but it does help now.

As for the rest I understand how upset you are to lose what was arguably the most potent approach tool in the game but for now I encourage you to jump into the lab see what you can do to push the v3.5 Mewtwo game onwards. While he doesn't have a single best go-to option for approaching I suspect that with a skillful combination of wavedash'd tilts, Hover'd aerials, Teleport mixups, JC grabs, and (B-reversed) side-b/down-b with occasional nB harassment he'll still have an extremely potent spacing game that converts quite well into his stellar offstage game.

 

[shapular]

Wall o text incoming, you've been warned.



Alright, I'm gonna walk you through this in roughly the order that things happened.

ZSS had a few moves that straight up did not work properly for various reasons in 3.02. Among these are ftilt and usmash. They were probably the first things changed, and these changes represent fixes.

Tether nerfs happened at some point. This kills the ZSS, a character already perceived as pretty mid-tier. Utilt, dtilt, nair, jab3, dash attack buffed in damage to compensate.

Down-b changed subtly in various ways.

A few BNBs got toned down somewhere along the way. Nair range and BKB reduced, fsmash adjusted (backwards hitboxes no longer function as effective combo starters), dair got nerfed a bit (probably warranted, and the hitlag adjustment fits in with a broader design goal), dsmash got nerfed.

The last part is where things get somewhat disagreeable, but it's workable and if that's all that had happened the grumbling from ZSS players would be more in line with anyone else that got nerfs. Hell, ZSS even got a couple buffs fixes! But there's more. The stuff from here onwards is where everything goes to hell in a handcart.

ZSS has a slow as balls tether grab and it makes certain things harder/more complicated. Also her (old, tether) dash grab is really awkward because it's suuuuuuuuuuuper slow and the distance is weird.

So somebody had an idea: give her a normal grab! No need to try and adapt other tools or just balance around a given weakness. So they did. And it changes everything. Her conversions, her defensive play, everything changes because suddenly she has a much more viable grab. Some of those nerfs above might've even happened as a direct result of this, I don't know. What we do know is that this made her throws really ridiculous, so those got changed too. IASA frames were set later, dthrow angle was adjusted... and uthrow is now a spacie chaingrab thanks to a shiny new 82 degree angle. While obviously this buffs her against spacies (historically a bad matchup for her), this is the same update that just removed a bunch of chaingrabs. Oh, and the old uthrow/dthrow mixups and followups off of each no longer exist as a result of these changes.

There's still one looming elephant in the room: dash cancel paralyzer (DCP) into grab is kind of a big thing after this change. So the dash cancel gets canceled, as it were. Uncharged paralyzer shots are also no longer transcendent, but I suspect that was happening regardless. Anyway, now paralyzer sucks. So they buff the startup, travel speed, let her drift during aerial shots. To be honest it still sucks, but there's another problem.

Removing DCP and changing her grab fundamentally changes the way ZSS plays. DCP beautifully emphasizes her speedy, slippery, ultra-mobile playstyle. The tether is less fundamental to her playstyle, but DCP cannot coexist with the new grab and opinions on the old one were not overwhelmingly negative by any means. Subtle changes to dash grab likely would've relieved the most widespread complaints barring the obvious challenge of dealing with shields.

The end result is that ZSS's modus operandi has lost much of what made her unique and interesting, replacing those elements with an emphasis on a more traditional style based on DDing and CQC.

tl;dr this quote epitomizes the different ZSS playstyles:



They changed ZSS from a character that could do both reasonably well but somewhat favored the latter approach to focus more on the former instead, and she's immensely less interesting and unique for it.

Each side considers different elements of her game important. Things like DCP are, to the former camp, nonessential flavor elements. They prioritize a solid moveset base over flair elements that define that character's playstyle in small (or not so small) but meaningful ways.

Imagine if vBrawl suddenly changed and Salem had to start playing ZSS less like Salem and more like old Nick Riddle play (no disrespect Nick, you know what I mean). It's not the best analogy (you can tell I'm struggling for an analogy when I reference vBrawl lol), but 3.02 ZSS -> 3.5 ZSS is kind of like that.

And no, Oro is not singlehandedly responsible for these changes. He's well known for the particular playstyle the PMDT elected to emphasize, however.

Much of what I've said regarding the process of her changes corroborates with statements from a PMDT member here.

Whooooaaaaa. This is awesome. You're awesome. That makes a lot of sense. I totally don't remember how Nick Riddle played though. It's been forever since I've actually seen him play. But yeah, this is way more than I was expecting and I totally get what you're saying. Thanks a lot.

 

[Foo]

Yeah, I worded that wrong. Just finished cleaning that post up... I think.

not sure you hit save. Your post seems the same. Still says BnB just got "toned down" and that ftilt doesn't work

 

[InfinityCollision]

How about now?

Whooooaaaaa. This is awesome. You're awesome. That makes a lot of sense. I totally don't remember how Nick Riddle played though. It's been forever since I've actually seen him play. But yeah, this is way more than I was expecting and I totally get what you're saying. Thanks a lot.

Sure, glad it was informative. I'll admit I kind of used your post as a springboard to talk about the changes in detail lol, so thanks for giving me an excuse to do so!

 

[Frost | Odds]

@ Soft Serve I think you're doing Bowser a disservice (though I'm not entirely sure, and could ofc be wrong.)

Speaking as someone who probably has a reputation for underrating Bowser:

IMO, he requires lots of dedication to consistently perfect waveland (which is gonna be mandatory), but can now probably push through any matchup. The Ivysaur MU, previously his worst in my opinion, is now maybe 60:40 in her favor -- possibly even closer, or even in Bowser's favor if he has sufficient tech skill. Mewtwo is now also eminently beatable, Zelda can be approached, and Meta Knight can be gimped.

I'm actually kinda scared that Bowser might have been overbuffed, but time will tell.

 

[Soft Serve]

@ Soft Serve I would like to know why everyone is placing ZSS so high up. All exaggerated salt aside, she took really hefty nerfs this patch. They made her throws bad, her projectile next to useles and he bread and butter nair unsafe on shield and inable to combo well.

Really? I played ZSS for a while today (granted it was only an hour or so of solid ZSS, and my ZSS was never that great) but I felt like Nair was still amazing for combos, and was easier to link strings of it than before. Less knockback= more follow ups at higher percent. I might have been a lack of DI, and that my roomates play Ganon/Zard/Rob/Samus/Shiek almost exclusively, but I was consistantly stringing multiple nairs from one end of a stage to the other, and ending the combo with a fsmash or drop zone Dair>land stage>attack. I Did notice in the change log mostly buffs, Blaster and D-smash nerfs I felt however. The tweaks for side-b were apperant, less horizontal movement. Ftilt felt really good and crisp and like it was intended to be a central part of her kit.

If the ZSS players feel like she got neutered in viablity I'll take for word for it. I already feel like I put Diddy to low (although as much as I say he is still great, he got destroyed this patch). From an outside-point of view from someone who didn't play much ZSS before, she felt amazing in her combo potential, and her movement is just as stellar as before, and the new grabs and throws were iceing on the cake.
I know Vixen really hates most of the changes, or did the last time I heard/read her talk about them.

@ DARKcpu0 Yeah I guess by my own grouping definetition I should put M2 lower because I'll agree he struggles with fox now, although no where near how bad it was in melee. I dont know if its worse than 60/40, new m2 feels fantastic. I think the idea of "my character can't approach now" isn't something that can justifiy saying their viability is gone, the only characters in past smash games that could approach without risking anything is still very small, IE Falco, and PM m2 +diddy (to a lesser extent.) M2 has to actually play the neutral game now, and while he does get CC'd at early percents, he is by no means unable to approach with his great movement options, He will just have to grab more now at earlier percents.

@ Frost | Odds The bowser buffs were pretty apperant, played a few rounds of bowser/vs sheik eariler, and while it was bad because my bowser is bad, He just felt quicker and more able to deal with other characters in ways that aren't powering through them. I think he still struggles vs projectiles and combo monsters, as well as characters that generally go for grabs, so I dont know if I'm underrating him much. I'm probably underrating most of the cast, they are all really good

Except zelda and ICs

 

[DARKcpu0]

Re. Mewtwo, perhaps there's some confusion, DARKcpu0, you can still do Grounded Up-B -> Double Jump to chase opponents for KOs off the top, just not Aerial Up-B -> DJ.

Eh, on a stage like FD, a stage that is more or less mewtwo's best stage, that doesnt really work. Still an option, but not exactly the best for chasing.

Nor does Aerial Up-B -> DJ. At all.

Seriously. Its not a thing. Pretty sure I said 2-3 frame window to actually teleport after DJ. Frame 4 sends mewtwo into recovery.

Also the combination of the D-tilt interrupt change (fr24 -> 20) and the perfect wavedash input fix means that his Melee BnB spacing option of wavedash D-tilt is noticeably faster and smoother than it was in v3.02... of course D-tilt is CCable so it's not a bulletproof approach or anything but it does help now.

Dtilt got buffed? Huh.

perfect wavedash input

Pffffft... Me doing perfect wavedashes. HAH.

But the dtilt approach did feel easier. I did notice that right off the bat.

After losing teleport hover, I kinda just instinctively poke in with dtilt. Feels good. Feels good.
Still sucks at anything below 30%

Eh. I'll just have to hit the lab this week before KTAR XI and figure out how to make him work.
Or just main ganondorf lol.

I've been using him. That float of his is just, so good for ****ing with people. Float to reverse down b spikes anyone?

 

[DARKcpu0]

He will just have to grab more now at earlier percents.

Trying to avoid playing melee mewtwo here. I could easily just run up, grab, up throw, and take it from there on spacies, or back throw and start the bairs on everyone else, if mewtwo could get in.

Also I never really tried to discredit viability. I was trying to say Mewtwo is going to have to work crazy hard to actually start something. New mewtwo feels the same as 3.02 to me, but with slightly different tilts that work alittle better, and teleport that sometimes likes the ledge, sometimes doesn't. That's not his fault though. Couple people I know have noted shiek having issues grabbing ledge after up b and the accuracy required. Just those new mechanics.

On non-mewtwo things, Move up Roy. Guy still has a sexy combo game. I never liked uair combos, so I do sourspot dair combos. Work like a ****ing charm, and work at higher percents, and lead into bairs so much easier.

 

[Bleck]

One build ago people couldn't stop complaining about Diddy, Mewtwo, Mario, etc. now Fox is decisively "broken", again? Please.

to be fair I never complained about any of those dudes and I never stop complaining about Fox

 

[Soft Serve]

Also I never really tried to discredit viability. I was trying to say Mewtwo is going to have to work crazy hard to actually start something. New mewtwo feels the same as 3.02 to me, but with slightly different tilts that work alittle better, and teleport that sometimes likes the ledge, sometimes doesn't. That's not his fault though. Couple people I know have noted shiek having issues grabbing ledge after up b and the accuracy required. Just those new mechanics.

On non-mewtwo things, Move up Roy. Guy still has a sexy combo game. I never liked uair combos, so I do sourspot dair combos. Work like a ****ing charm, and work at higher percents, and lead into bairs so much easier.

Oh, wasn't pointing fingers at you for that one, was mostly just throwing it out as some M2 mains like Kaos (even though he is a homie) overreact and think he is dead just because M2 cant approach for free

Idk, you might have to play more like melee MewTwo to get success. Theres a lot of good tech and set-ups in melee mewtwo that you could steal.


@ Bleck Yeah, we all know lol. I'm not dissagreeing with you either, Fox was a stupid character in a stupid game, now he kept his stupid and the other characters lost everything.

 

[DARKcpu0]

Oh, wasn't pointing fingers at you for that one, was mostly just throwing it out as some M2 mains like Kaos (even though he is a homie) overreact and think he is dead just because M2 cant approach for free

Oh. My bad.

Only tech mewtwo really has in melee is DJC.
****s not bad, but not sure how effective it will be.

I said this in my first wall of text at top, DJC Nair might be mewtwo's best approach, and even then he's abit ****ed. 'Least on spacies DJC Fair leads to grab at 0% if done right.

 

[Foo]

Really? I played ZSS for a while today (granted it was only an hour or so of solid ZSS, and my ZSS was never that great) but I felt like Nair was still amazing for combos, and was easier to link strings of it than before. Less knockback= more follow ups at higher percent. I might have been a lack of DI, and that my roomates play Ganon/Zard/Rob/Samus/Shiek almost exclusively, but I was consistantly stringing multiple nairs from one end of a stage to the other, and ending the combo with a fsmash or drop zone Dair>land stage>attack. I Did notice in the change log mostly buffs, Blaster and D-smash nerfs I felt however. The tweaks for side-b were apperant, less horizontal movement. Ftilt felt really good and crisp and like it was intended to be a central part of her kit.

If the ZSS players feel like she got neutered in viablity I'll take for word for it. I already feel like I put Diddy to low (although as much as I say he is still great, he got destroyed this patch). From an outside-point of view from someone who didn't play much ZSS before, she felt amazing in her combo potential, and her movement is just as stellar as before, and the new grabs and throws were iceing on the cake.
I know Vixen really hates most of the changes, or did the last time I heard/read her talk about them.

I don't actually believe you lol. Zss nair DOES combo at higher %s, that's true, but that's at the percent where the comboing is mostly irrelevant. She still can't reliably kill out of combos because fair is SUPER easy to SDI and it still doesn't connect. The problem is that it doesn't combo at lower %s. DI down and away, and it is impossible to chain nair to anything but dash attack, which has no reliable follow up unless the miss a tech and don't immediately start getup. I was playing in a tournament today, exclusively ZSS, and I was having trouble chaining nairs against ZELDA. Yeah, Zelda, one of the most floaty and light characters, was hitting the ground before I could follow up. And before you ask, yes I am shffling it properly.

As for the rest, this is why I don't believe you actually played ZSS or even read the notes

1. and ending the combo with a fsmash or drop zone Dair>land stage>attack Only fast fallers at super high % would get hit by nair to fmash, and dair to fast fall into bair doesn't work anymore (unless I misunderstood what you are saying).
2. "New grabs and throws are icing on the cake" Her throws are HELLA HELLA NERFED. Yeah, her new grab is really nice, but I'd much rather have old grab and old throws because her current throws are awful.
3. Ftilt is exactly the same. It's great, but it hasn't changed.
4. Mostly buffs... no

Uptilt: Slight damage buff, kbg makes it slightly better against fast fallers (nice)
Downtilt: Slight damage buff, but much harder to connect into bair at higher % (not nice)
Nair: Slight damage buff, halved base knockback and less range, harder to combo with and pressure shield with. (litterally hitler)
Downair: Worse combo tool, slower, clunkier, no meteor so it doesn't connect to bair (not nice)
Fair: First two hits connect a little better and second hit doesn't stale, so a little more damage (nice)
Grab: Regular grab (uneeded but nice)
Throws: Now don't connect to anything with good di and there are no DI mixups. (well that completely negates the grab buffs and then some)
Blaster: Made useless (satin)
Side-b: Now works as intended (nice)
Up-b Range and generally recovery nerfed (not nice, but I don't mind it at all)
Down-b Removing the horizontal momentum negates the unpredictability of this move and makes dive kick gimps much harder to get. Also, you have to press b to flipstool rather than hold it (not nice
Jab and dash attack: Very slight damage buffs (who cares)

If you'll notice, almost all of the "buffs" are just minor fixes to moves that were not working as intended, whereas most of the nerfs flat out removed aspects of her gameplay.

Even if she is still good, I don't care. I'd rather play a 3.0 style ZSS that's bottom tier than this ZSS that's top tier. I'm going to work REALLY hard to see if I can find love in ZSS again, but I almost certainly won't. I'll just go play falcon until they change her back.

@ Shell Any way I can make my voice on this matter more heard than just posting on the forums? I'm so passionate about this change, that I'd really like to make my voice heard as much as possible. If so, I'd write up an actual essay with better articulated points and arguments.

If not, would starting a petition on the ZSS forums help? Pretty much everyone over there is livid about the changes. I could set up a petition where you could sign to either change her to 3.0 "style" (blaster cancel, old nair, grab, throws etc. but still with recovery nerfs and whatever else you guys felt necessary) OR you could sign to keep her the same.

 

[mimgrim]

Justin Bailey is top tier.

Zero Suit Samus is bottom tier.

...

Anyways. I've been finding myself using Sheik, Ike (Black Knight armor is probably the main reason, but Smash 4 Palutena's Super Speed has gotten me more use to how QD works in thiss game and appreciate it more), Wolf, and Ganondorf (Mainly because OoT skin, TP skin just did not look good on Project M Ganon) the most in 3.5, so far. Played around with other characters as well but find myself coming back to these 3 the most.

And good grief do I hate Olimar in 3.5. So much ew.

 

[Shokio]

ZSS is horrendous.

Olimar is.....I dunno, it's hard to explain. It's like he's not fun to play as anymore.

 

[Deleted member]

ZSS is really good
Olimar is really bad

 

[Ripple]

nah, youre crazy lunchtables. I just told oro yesterday ZSS is the worst character in the game

 

[Deleted member]

Lets give ZSS a reliable neutral option, a regular grab!

Definitely trash

 

[Ripple]

now youre thinking like a top level player

 

[Soft Serve]

I'm waiting for CT to release their Tier List before I form any of my own opinions. Top three at the SSS which just finished was Fox/Lucario/Fox, Fox and Lucario must be the top 2 characters

 

[Deleted member]

sad to see aero kind of flub with tink, I think he got 7th? I don't know the challonge bracket

gonna go to a 3.5 tourney this weekend, hopefully I can prove 3.5 tink is still fine lol

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Xanadu GF/LF had Boss going Fox.

...

It begins.

 

[Deleted member]

Definitely aren't going to be seeing any foxs in TX
Sethlon and I have them on lockdown aka ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOY

 

[Legit]

Lets give ZSS a reliable neutral option, a regular grab!

Definitely trash

She is. Yay we finally have a regular grab.... with god awful throws, useless paralyzer, and 0 combo potential!

 

[Deleted member]

Thats cute.
3.5 complaints are cute.
Everything is cute.

 

[GP&B]

Forget Fox salt (even tho moar nerfs plz pbr), 3.5 salt is gdlk.

 

[Soft Serve]

sad to see aero kind of flub with tink, I think he got 7th? I don't know the challonge bracket

gonna go to a 3.5 tourney this weekend, hopefully I can prove 3.5 tink is still fine lol

http://challonge.com/SSSAWHOLENEWWORLDSINGLES


Aero lost to Venom who just got back into the scene, Wolf is obv broken

Fox/Wolf/Lucario top 3 based on these results

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Definitely aren't going to be seeing any foxs in TX
Sethlon and I have them on lockdown aka ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOY

MK and R.O.B make Fox work too iirc, so yeah I still think I'll be stream maining TLOC

 

[TTTTTsd]

Gonna be real, I feel difficulty in Mewtwo's approach but I feel like he's still gonna be aight. D-tilt is scoops (so good) and his grabs are still awesome, but he definitely does feel noticably toned down. His offstage got better though thanks to universal recovery nerfs basically.

Also still weirded out that we're at a phase where people aren't calling Falco dumb and all the energy is being focused on Fox.... welp, not complaining!

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Actually I think I know exactly what's happening

There wasn't enough cause to nerf Fox before because of how broken everyone around him was

So they toned everyone but Fox down so in the next balance patch they have to go "WELP WHADDAYA KNOW GUESS WE HAVE TO NERF"

Guess we'll just have to ride this one out.

*crosses fingers so hard they break*

 

[DMG]

Falco took more of a hit from the CG's, better approaching and defensive tools, and very strong edgeguard potential of the cast. Stages maybe a tiny bit worse for him than Fox?

I'm worried about Juggernaut. He will be unstoppable if they release him in Project M(arvel). Head crush will need to have 1 less hit and do 20 dmg less overall, and his wtf body slam needs to have more cooldown. It's ****in bull**** Doom (Mario) can use his assist to cover how laggy he is. PLZ nerf Juggernaut in dev builds plz

 

[Anonistry]

I'm worried about Juggernaut. He will be unstoppable if they release him in Project M(arvel). Head crush will need to have 1 less hit and do 20 dmg less overall, and his wtf body slam needs to have more cooldown. It's ****in bull**** Doom (Mario) can use his assist to cover how laggy he is. PLZ nerf Juggernaut in dev builds plz

You just got my salty to high hell. Would be maining MvC if Juggy was still a playable character. And now with rights lost by MAHVEL, the world will never know...

 

[Juushichi]

Strong Bad covered it right with Game and Watch mainly. You basically lose neutral or fake like you can hold forward for minutes at a time and then you get a hit and you damn sure better finish it.

If this works, congrats! You're playing a high-mid tier character.
If/When this doesn't work, too bad! You're playing a low-mid to mid tier character.
If you think that Hammer will solve your problems, you're dead to me.

Also if you think Zero Suit Samus is awful now, you might just be crazy.

I wish that we still nerfed Ike's Side-B. Unpopular opinion, but w/e.