Tier List Speculation

[Nausicaa]

upair to dair feels so nice as mk. I don't know what it is about it, but ending combos with dair just feels so right

Tru dat
These are the kinds of tiny clicks that happen throughout PM that really make the game feel like is doing well.
When I can look at CF and be less satisfied with almost everything that connects than when looking at almost any other good-feeling connections that characters can get on small or large scales of significance...
You know the game is good.

On another topic, every time I've logged on this last week I've had like a billion notifications and expect some kind of good conversation, but it just ends up being a bunch of 'likes' and like a person quoting me or something saying some kind of 'yeah' comment.
Nobody address my posts directly in deep discussion anymore, either everyone is used to me by now, or I'm better at explaining what I'm seeing, or everyone is on the same page.

That's all fine, I'll just be in my own little world talking to myself and the general 'people of the world' while you all chit chat.

Enjoying your interactions and engaging player vs player stuff.
Ya big jerks
What am I, Fox or something and avoiding all interactions while still being in the fight without really meaning to but avoiding interactions while being in a match just happens because Fox is Fox?


Random list of characters that I consider roughly even in this version.
Might be some I just threw in and shouldn't be there, maybe some I didn't list that could be in there.
I just clicked on faces when it was like 'yeah maybe' in the emote window.

Notice, Fox is in there.
Some maybe be higher and some may be lower.
But!
Fox. Is. In. The. Mix.
Not outside of it.
They're all ridiculously good characters.
Just like Fox.
Fox is ridiculously good.

Edit: ZSS and Diddy or something (editing again... Snake/Wario/others too... maybe I should just make a full list) probs fall in the batch below this crew, more with or something, but yeah, all of the characters are so good it's silly so it would be a bit more effort to actually place them where I'd actually place them.

This is the plan > Maybe someone will engage in conversation with me if I actually list stuff!
lol

@ TheoryofSmaug Stahp

 

[KinGly]

Tru dat
These are the kinds of tiny clicks that happen throughout PM that really make the game feel like is doing well.
When I can look at CF and be less satisfied with almost everything that connects than when looking at almost any other good-feeling connections that characters can get on small or large scales of significance...
You know the game is good.

On another topic, every time I've logged on this last week I've had like a billion notifications and expect some kind of good conversation, but it just ends up being a bunch of 'likes' and like a person quoting me or something saying some kind of 'yeah' comment.
Nobody address my posts directly in deep discussion anymore, either everyone is used to me by now, or I'm better at explaining what I'm seeing, or everyone is on the same page.

That's all fine, I'll just be in my own little world talking to myself and the general 'people of the world' while you all chit chat.

Enjoying your interactions and engaging player vs player stuff.
Ya big jerks
What am I, Fox or something and avoiding all interactions while still being in the fight without really meaning to but avoiding interactions while being in a match just happens because Fox is Fox?


Random list of characters that I consider roughly even in this version.
Might be some I just threw in and shouldn't be there, maybe some I didn't list that could be in there.
I just clicked on faces when it was like 'yeah maybe' in the emote window.

Notice, Fox is in there.
Some maybe be higher and some may be lower.
But!
Fox. Is. In. The. Mix.
Not outside of it.
They're all ridiculously good characters.
Just like Fox.
Fox is ridiculously good.

Edit: ZSS and Diddy or something (editing again... Snake/Wario/others too... maybe I should just make a full list) probs fall in the batch below this crew, more with or something, but yeah, all of the characters are so good it's silly so it would be a bit more effort to actually place them where I'd actually place them.

This is the plan > Maybe someone will engage in conversation with me if I actually list stuff!
lol

@ TheoryofSmaug Stahp

I can't help but notice Sheik and Marth missing. I'm interested in your reasoning. I suppose they feel a bit bland compared to the others you mentioned but I'm still surprised. Also curious about G&W not being in there, and pika being there.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

I liked it specifically cuz it bothers you. Thought I would be honest.

I would post and discuss, but I dont really understand most if your posts and this one, well, I dont even know where to start... How about, what makes ZSS good? And Wario?

 

[DMG]

ZSS loses by like, being dumb. Idk how to describe it, she's really good and outside of tether punishes or some edgeguards that seem lame there doesn't seem to be a whole lot to exploit vs her. You kind of have to be fearless playing as her, and play with a lot of confidence that you know what you are doing imo

 

[TheoryofSmaug]

I can't help but notice Sheik and Marth missing. I'm interested in your reasoning. I suppose they feel a bit bland compared to the others you mentioned but I'm still surprised. Also curious about G&W not being in there, and pika being there.

Pika is god, I agree with everything else you said though.

 

[Manaconda]

-snip-

If you stopped writing in metaphors while using Mango's syntax, then it'd be a bit easier for me to get what you say sometimes.

Edit: 'Metaphors' is obviously the wrong word, but it's kind of like a stream of thoughts tacked onto each other instead of coherent sentences that my brain can handle after work at 11:30 pm.

Like, seriously tell me the following sentence is the most elegant way of conveying this idea:

"What am I, Fox or something and avoiding all interactions while still being in the fight without really meaning to but avoiding interactions while being in a match just happens because Fox is Fox?"

 

[DMG]

Nausicaa has the brain of like 5 different Presidents and Founding Fathers trying to combine their glorious thoughts into 1 view. I give him a free pass on most things except for like Luigi = God. He means well but he's better off meditating under a waterfall of shines or something; he is beyond most people's thoughts and we're not ready for him yet

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

Nausicaa has the brain of like 5 different Presidents and Founding Fathers trying to combine their glorious thoughts into 1 view. I give him a free pass on most things except for like Luigi = God. He means well but he's better off meditating under a waterfall of shines or something; he is beyond most people's thoughts and we're not ready for him yet

I don't think nausicaa actually knows exactly what he's talking about but he's got a good idea of vague senses and directions and is trying to get other people to think in the right way more exactly

I'm not sure if luigi is god or if he's satan but he's one of the two

 

[DMG]

He knows more than you realize but it almost always hurts ur eyes

 

[Boiko]

Okay guys, here is a much more comprehensive spreadsheet of a bunch of attacks:

Excel doc: http://www.mediafire.com/view/vbbgn8vawrxkwkd/KB_Spreadsheet.xlsx

I recommend this one over google docs, but if you don't have excel you can use the link below.

Google doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OT76uqEE7dkzvFiyrSZi9_2I-71-FJO-nT5eak3FoXM/edit?usp=sharing



Edit: I really want to stress that the knockback number is a benchmark and nothing more. Fast fallers and floaties are affected by angles in different ways, you can't just assign a universal number to the cast. The more important information is the dmg, bkb, and kbg, which you can use in conjunction with the kb calculator to draw your own conclusions.

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

He knows more than you realize but it almost always hurts ur eyes

like in my mind nausicaa is the wise old hermit on top of the mountain who knows more than everyone but doesn't want to reveal it all because it'll mess things up if he spills the secrets too early because certain character's games won't develop organically so even if they know that something seems like the best option they don't know why it's the best option

but then part of me is like "nahhhh he couldn't actually be that smart wtf pm is a murky pile of mud and I can't even figure out how to make my own character work" then I reread some of his old stuff and figure out that he was right more often than not and I don't know how he does it so I just leave it alone

at one point I was going to compile a list of his posts into one nausicaa theorycrafting bible but then he came back from his spiritual hike and I got a job

holy runon sentences batman

 

[Ripple]

@ Boiko fox's uair is a little disingenuous.

you rarely, if ever, hit with only the last hit. but the KB for that if you did hit with only the last hit would be accurate. it actually should be 12% damage at 105%

which should be a little higher value

 

[Rongunshu]

Get'em to re-test it.

This is what I thought.


Quebec PMing at all or just Ont?
@ DrinkingFood I'm pretty sure we're familiar with the absolute opposite regions. Like PERFECTLY opposite. lol

Truth
Snake is OP

but... Bowser
And tru dat

Tru dat to mewtwo

meh at the rest

She can kill if she gets a hits, and has a threatening area around her to make those hits possible in some ways.
Instead of moving through space to get RIGHT INTO that threatening space (think Peach dancing), she maneuvers that threatening space around so the opponent has to stay out.
Very different dancing. Something that has never been present in a Smash game in any significant way. Especially not in Melee. It's a cross between Ganon trying to corner someone with his dysfunctional neutral kit, while exchanging the need to cover yourself > for the need to not giving up the space you're covering the way a Melee Zelda would, or a half-camping Ivy or Oli would.
Attrition through burst-threats, rather than burst-threats through attrition. If that makes sense.

Side-note, these kinds of characters are always the last to develop when it comes to meta-game. The meta-games of others dictates more about this kind of match-up and game-plan than the character performing this. Hence it's so odd and janky. Gotta know Zelda really well to not get bopped by silliness, but then it's really hard for Zelda to not get bopped until she adjusts to whatever the opponent does in response.
Zelda comes last in nature of this pacing, but if the opponent (PM players who fight Zelda's) don't do the work first, then the meta-game will also be degenerate.


Was talking about this elsewhere.
I've also figured it would come to 2 things.
1) Lasers getting around Samus's Z-Air range, or whatever the 'close range' would be where it gets the full-damage from a laser.
Eliminates the need to occupy so much distance when it's ideal to play the Fox-camp-counter-approach game, which makes the mid-ranges a lot less over-committing if the opponent wants to commit to anything. Makes BIG distances less of a slowly-automatically-winning-position for Fox, and rather just a strong position.

2) Move the angle on U-Air to be slightly to one side. So DIing the wrong way is death off the top, DIing right can help you live. SDIing and DIing mixed makes it really interactive to get one without messing up the other, on top of Fox mixing up U-Air spacing and timings and directions. Lots of play, and lessens the auto-mode stuff.

Just kind of predict that if it were to go anywhere from here, that would be the place it would go because the PMDT kind of get that you can't just wreck stuff in the game for the sake of balance, but instead can make stuff more engaging for better play and that alone is auto-balancing.

Edit
3) is that I always thought CF would get some similar treatment for diversity and interaction interest sake.
U-Air having a more vertical angle, N-Air's 2nd hit having a more Jiggs-N-Air KB to it. Makes decision making a lot more interactive and interesting without losing anything he already has. It's less cart-wheels to death and more cart-wheels that will lead to death based on player-options, but more options and decisions to make on the way. More utility has to be used to actually make it work, but it can be just as free.
If the opponent makes the wrong play, or CF makes the right play. Instead of CF just makes the play regardless of whatever each player does.

CF can be the linear as ever character though. He's solid, would be nice if he was cooler.

Just Ontario really. The last PM tourney he went to in quebec was like early 3.5 so that was like forever ago.

 

[Boiko]

@ Boiko fox's uair is a little disingenuous.

you rarely, if ever, hit with only the last hit. but the KB for that if you did hit with only the last hit would be accurate. it actually should be 12% damage at 105%

which should be a little higher value

Fox's uair does 17%(4%)(13%) when both hits connect. The assumption would be that the first hit connects at 96%, resulting in the second hit connecting at 100%, that way it follows the same benchmark as the rest of the results. Or, for the sake of keeping everything consistent, you can assume that just the second hitbox hits.

I get what you're saying though.

 

[Ripple]

Fox's uair does 17%(4%)(13%) when both hits connect. The assumption would be that the first hit connects at 96%, resulting in the second hit connecting at 100%, that way it follows the same benchmark as the rest of the results. Or, for the sake of keeping everything consistent, you can assume that just the second hitbox hits.

I get what you're saying though.

1. I forgot the first hit was nerfed

2. but if you did hit someone at 96%, the first hit would put them up to 100% but the second hit would only do 12%. not 13% so it's still not accurate if you are just listing the second hit

 

[Boiko]

1. I forgot the first hit was nerfed

2. but if you did hit someone at 96%, the first hit would put them up to 100% but the second hit would only do 12%. not 13% so it's still not accurate if you are just listing the second hit

https://youtu.be/eC6r-rirdSA
28:24 uair does 17% non-staled.

 

[Ripple]

that could just be due to half %s not displayed. unless PM treats multihit move staling differently than Melee

 

[Boiko]

that could just be due to half %s not displayed. unless PM treats multihit move staling differently than Melee

It could be, but it's not necessary to dive into that much nitty gritty, imo.

I'm going to leave it unchanged for now, although I do appreciate the feedback.

 

[steelguttey]

Okay guys, here is a much more comprehensive spreadsheet of a bunch of attacks:

Excel doc: http://www.mediafire.com/view/vbbgn8vawrxkwkd/KB_Spreadsheet.xlsx

I recommend this one over google docs, but if you don't have excel you can use the link below.

Google doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OT76uqEE7dkzvFiyrSZi9_2I-71-FJO-nT5eak3FoXM/edit?usp=sharing

i completely understand why you did it, but rip olimar

if you didnt want to go through the hassle of doing it for every pikmin, you could just do the knockback for the lowest knockback pikmin (white) and the highest (purple) because every attack has the same angle no matter the pikmin

 

[Boiko]

i completely understand why you did it, but rip olimar

if you didnt want to go through the hassle of doing it for every pikmin, you could just do the knockback for the lowest knockback pikmin (white) and the highest (purple) because every attack has the same angle no matter the pikmin

That's actually not the problem. I'll have all pikmin data out at the same time.

 

[MTL Kyle]

Quebec PMing at all or just Ont?

Yes. Going strong compared to other regions in Canada.

 

[Bazkip]

Quebec PMing at all or just Ont?

I've been putting in so much over the past year or two to get Montreal on the map, this cuts me deep ;_;

We're not super big but we've got a solid amount of good players and up and comers
Go check us out https://www.youtube.com/user/SmashBrosMTL/playlists?flow=grid&view=1&sort=dd

that could just be due to half %s not displayed. unless PM treats multihit move staling differently than Melee

Yeah PM doesn't have the every hit of as multi-hit stales it while active thing that Melee has, that's why Fox got some damage reduction on multihits so that they do the same damage as they would in Melee.

 

[InfinityCollision]

If Mewtwo had a Crawl + I could figure out how to sweetspot teleport, I would enjoy M2 a lot more.

*edit* Crawl because it is so perfect for wd characters. The real question is will the PMDT ever make wave scuttling (or whatever you wanna call crawling after a wd for a boost) work both directions. It works with Squirtle too...

Mewtwo's ledgegrab box doesn't expand at all during teleport, so it's pretty unforgiving if you're recovering low - especially since his head occupies a decent amount of space within the box:

Spoiler

That pic is of the frame before he grabs ledge, 30 frames after initiating teleport (13 frames vulnerability before grabbing ledge). His life is much easier when he can recover high. Fortunately, that's most of the time.

As far as the wavescuttle thing, it technically can be done in both directions. @ Nausicaa or maybe @ PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP could probably tell you what's up, I have a general idea of how it works and can kind of do it but not really because Mewtwo can't crawl etc.

 

[Strong Badam]

1. I forgot the first hit was nerfed

2. but if you did hit someone at 96%, the first hit would put them up to 100% but the second hit would only do 12%. not 13% so it's still not accurate if you are just listing the second hit

Multi-hit moves actually do not instantly stale (during the move) in PM. So it would do 4 and then 13, fully dealing 17. Melee's deals 5 and then 11.7 damage.

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

yeah you can wavescuttle in both directions but doing it facing left requires a one frame backwards crawl input which I've seen done on tas but I've personally never been able to do it

I learned about it from @1FD ask him for more info

wavescuttling is on my list of "movement tech that would be really cool and fun to be able to do consistently" along with perfect waveland dropdashes, b-reversed vududashes, and really silly stuff like optimal tumbledashes

 

[TheGravyTrain]

I read about it way back in 3.0, but never practiced or figured the inputs out. Then I accidentally did it recently, but couldn't get it working the other way. In fact, it appeared the crawl had less speed than usual, so the inverse of usual. And for teleport, I suck with angle recoveries. I just hold forward when I recovery and thus am not in a spot where I can sweet spot. I barely can do above the stage sweetspots, and that's only a recent development.

As for Nausicaa things, I appreciate what he has to say because:

1) He has a noticeable difference in opinion than most
2) People respect said opinion
3) He is funny

I dont regularly attend tournaments yet (starting this fall), so most of it can't really be applied yet. That's why changing the way I approach the game topics and extreme opinions on tiers aren't really possible for me to truly engage in.

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

also I should figure out that brawl pivot thing that @Dakpo talked about and I want to see how it relates to luigi

edit: I really want to be a sort of nausicaa disciple and learn all that he has to teach but I'm scared because he's much smarter than I am and I didn't respond to his last message and I have literal anxiety issues about talking to him about meditation which meditation ironically would probably help

something rich man camel eye of a needle something

edit: page 911 shoutout to m2k

 

[steelguttey]

also I should figure out that brawl pivot thing that @Dakpo talked about and I want to see how it relates to luigi

its ****ing crouch dashing and it was pointed out by @L Pag **** that "brawl pivot" trash

 

[Rizner]

On another topic, every time I've logged on this last week I've had like a billion notifications and expect some kind of good conversation, but it just ends up being a bunch of 'likes' and like a person quoting me or something saying some kind of 'yeah' comment.
Nobody address my posts directly in deep discussion anymore, either everyone is used to me by now, or I'm better at explaining what I'm seeing, or everyone is on the same page.

And here I thought my likes really meant something to you. I see how it is.

I would like to talk about your other posts, but want more time on them before starting a conversation without both sides on equal ground. Right now the plan is to try implementing a lot of the stuff you were talking about (more awareness and overall thought) when playing against real people, then to bring up what will be at that time old posts.

I do feel like I understand what you're saying in a lot of those, and just want to see how implementing it goes. Should be good.

 

[DrinkingFood]

the crouch dashing/infinite dash thing has been known for a long time, and so have the "brawl pivots" aka tilt pivots in dakpo's vid. idk why he called it revolutionary tech or something when for most people it's either "I already have tilt pivots down" or "it's in the works" and usually also "that infinite DD seems overrated/inconvenient". Tilt pivots are a pretty standard thing for me at least, no need to bother with a finicky angle on the cstick when you could just use the control stick. Practiced them a long time ago when Magus came on the forums and pointed out how he made pivots reliable in PM.

Also, it honestly seems like nausicaa doesn't actually know that much and just covers it up with a pseudo crazy-intellectual tone of posting and excessive vagueness

 

[frankxthexbunny]

Tru dat

Even Naus recognizes the link main curse.

but yeah that looks right, I still am on team charizard though

 

[TheoryofSmaug]

Okay guys, here is a much more comprehensive spreadsheet of a bunch of attacks:

Excel doc: http://www.mediafire.com/view/vbbgn8vawrxkwkd/KB_Spreadsheet.xlsx

I recommend this one over google docs, but if you don't have excel you can use the link below.

Google doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OT76uqEE7dkzvFiyrSZi9_2I-71-FJO-nT5eak3FoXM/edit?usp=sharing



Edit: I really want to stress that the knockback number is a benchmark and nothing more. Fast fallers and floaties are affected by angles in different ways, you can't just assign a universal number to the cast. The more important information is the dmg, bkb, and kbg, which you can use in conjunction with the kb calculator to draw your own conclusions.

When you say MK Dimensional Cape, are you referring to the hit where you hold B or the one when you use the CStick and can drift? Because the Hold B one is way stronger and way less useful in my experience.

 

[Boiko]

When you say MK Dimensional Cape, are you referring to the hit where you hold B or the one when you use the CStick and can drift? Because the Hold B one is way stronger and way less useful in my experience.

Holding B.
I'll add the other next time I update it.

 

[Nausicaa]

@ PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP @ DMG pretty truthiness there.
I'm actually quite confused a lot of the time, but usually I think it's because I Roy-Zone with people in conversations a lot.

I've been putting in so much over the past year or two to get Montreal on the map, this cuts me deep ;_;

We're not super big but we've got a solid amount of good players and up and comers
Go check us out https://www.youtube.com/user/SmashBrosMTL/playlists?flow=grid&view=1&sort=dd

Good to hear/see.
I don't pay much for 'steady' attention to anything related to the general Smash community, so don't be too cut about it. hehe

And here I thought my likes really meant something to you. I see how it is.

I would like to talk about your other posts, but want more time on them before starting a conversation without both sides on equal ground. Right now the plan is to try implementing a lot of the stuff you were talking about (more awareness and overall thought) when playing against real people, then to bring up what will be at that time old posts.

I do feel like I understand what you're saying in a lot of those, and just want to see how implementing it goes. Should be good.

Likes are good.
Discussion is just heavily lacking proportionally. Totally understandable though.
You basically summed up why/how right there too. Hope things go well, whatever that may mean for you when working with that stuff.

If Mewtwo had a Crawl + I could figure out how to sweetspot teleport, I would enjoy M2 a lot more.


*edit* Crawl because it is so perfect for wd characters. The real question is will the PMDT ever make wave scuttling (or whatever you wanna call crawling after a wd for a boost) work both directions. It works with Squirtle too...

You only need the initial frames for the Crawl, so it works both ways.
Wavescuttling in it's commoner known form seems to be crawling backwards at accelerated rates for long distances.
Get to know it by the way you can slide backwards long distances while using attacks (NOT crawling anymore) and you're good.

I can't help but notice Sheik and Marth missing. I'm interested in your reasoning. I suppose they feel a bit bland compared to the others you mentioned but I'm still surprised. Also curious about G&W not being in there, and pika being there.

Marth has been through very little when it comes to changes, but I've definitely noticed every patch (and I'm sure everyone has), and every month that goes by, the character sways up and down everyone's lists and ideas of goodness in here quite frequently.
"A Marth will dominate this patch in the top 5" followed by "A Marth is like a gate-keeper to high-tier" within a month without changes is pretty frequent in ALL of PM history.
Easy way to put it is, to me, he isn't getting better and worse for no reason in the middle of patches and meta-games. He's been roughly around mid-tier to begin with, and he's basically stayed that way up to now. Nobody seems to understand what they actually think about the character, but I'll try explaining what I see and what I assume is making everyone be confused about this with their future and past selves.

Buffing anything in the game (literally ANY buffs to ANY thing) makes Marth worse. Nerfing anything in the game makes Marth better.
Almost everything in the game has been buffed to crazy levels, where Fox isn't overbearing, where Bowser can function mildly in a Smash game. Marth, therefore, has been indirectly hurt more than most.
Anything to do with interaction-control (so anything in the entire game) that is GOOD, makes life harder on Marth than it does on Peach/Falco/CF/Fox/Sheik/Jiggs.
So that's why he's not going to be breaking through large-scale tournaments at any time.
When anything about controlling interactions is IMPROVED, which is just about everything from range on a move to size of a shield, this makes Marth's ONLY strength, weaker.
Sheik, on the other end, basically has the same deal. She likes stale-mating neutral to slow the game down whenever she can just use her speed for pressure. This stalling of the neutral requires a FLEXIBLE neutral. Anything in the game getting better outside of tech-rolls is basically making it harder on her by diversifying the neutrals of OTHERS and she has to match it by stretching in more ways, new ways, and ways she can't so has to make up for it elsewhere (which often isn't possible).

Same with punishes, which applies almost everything else that could be buffed. Both of these 2 can punish hard, but get punished hard. Anything buffed to anything on an universal scale, will make this harder on them than extremities like Peach and Falco.

They haven't been gate-keepers to Top Tier as far as I'm concerned. Unlike they seemingly have to most (at random moments in random patches).
They've been gate-keepers to the Top Tier as far as Melee-levels of play are concerned. Which, is more like mid-tier in this game.
On top of that, when a bunch of characters who COULD compete with them in Melee (Mario/Luigi/Samus/Pika/TL/etc) were buffed to decent extents, and somehow are STILL considered worse than the Melee-Tops...
It ALWAYS brings up the question "What do those characters NEED to finally be BETTER than the Melee-Tops?"
Because it really makes NO sense at all, and that question has NEVER been answered.

You could probably guess from there, that I have them pretty low.
To me, that makes sense in every POSSIBLE way.
Whether it's observable matches, or simply logical analysis.
Everyone else saying the opposite has never made sense of why they think so outside of bias or guess-work, (and maybe duuuur spaceswords) and have some serious explaining to do if they ever seriously want their own thoughts to make any kind of sense.
Funny how it works.

I'll make a list sometime, or at least a deciphering of this things at some point. Hope that makes sense for now though.

G&W and Squirtle/Yoshi/etc were probably going to be the next couple I listed in the CF/Roy package. He's right there (better than Melee-Tops) just didn't make the cut to the Top.
The character had a surprisingly slow meta-game given how simple his stuff should really be. I'd attribute a lot of that to Bacon spam being a key part of his game-plan early on, but things like proper Up-B/Bacon mixes in combos became a thing pretty quickly after that was dismantled.
Where toppish G&W play is now seems to basically be where I was looking in 2.1 onward, still a bit to go regarding the ground BnB side of the game, but soon it'll have to go in directions that I can't anticipate and don't know anything about. If it can do that to SIGNIFICANT extents, then that's cool, but until then, I've had the same view of G&W for a very very long time. Swaying a bit patch by patch, but basically the same spot. Melee-Top around Falco, somewhere below CF. So the high-end of mid-tier. He won't break the game open and change the meta-game of the general PM game, but he'll be right there with it.

edit: lots a little changes and spelling, it's early >_>

 

[Searing_Sorrow]

Just going address the part of your statement in relations to marth when you said why are the melee tops still considered better than the buffed upper melee tier. The characters you listed, (mario, luigi, pikachu, toon link, and samus) had their core melee mechanics buffed to improve their punish and overall interaction in neutral among against the entire cast.

Using mario as an example, pm took all of his core melee skillset, and generally buffed his moves universally, but his core flaws also stayed the same when looking at the matchup.
Due to mario's comparatively lacking range, he has just as hard of a time getting in to start his amazing punish on Marth as he did in melee. Even if his punish game was made to do 15% more damage on relevant exchanges, it doesn't have a large impact on the matchup itself when he loses neutral almost 4/5 times. In order for mario to compete against marth in the matchup (while holding his general flaws the same), mario ' buffs would have to be to the degenerate toxic levels of his 3.02 self or better.

The reason mario isn't considered better than marth is because fox sheik and marth are very common pm characters, and using a character that can not at least check these three has a greater influence of where they fall on a relevance tier list. ( also why ddd should be higher than where people put him, since currently he does ok against many tops, and his counters aren't very common.)

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

DDD is high tier, high mid-tier at worst, I think people have been saying this for a long time but the general playerbase dismisses ripple/big d/smur/fly amanita's performances as "the player being better than the character" or "matchup unfamiliarity" or "gimmicks"

when you get a character like rob, with the same good matchups against the top characters and a large amount of unfamiliarity, why do people, rather than contributing rob success to mu inexperience or gimmicks, call rob a good or busted character? is it because he doesn't look a stupid as DDD? (probably, actually)

actually it probably has to do with the placebo effect of being able to combo rob/ddd. rob can't be comboed as easily, leading people to think he has no counterplay, while DDD can be beat to a pulp, survive with good DI until 250%, and then kill you off of one grab. but people think that they're beating DDD most of the time, even when they lose like westballz, while when facing rob, they feel powerless (like westballz)

conclusion: ROB and DDD are both good, but people will overrate ROB and underrate DDD because of how it "feels" when they play,
something similar to how people thought that bowser was top tier in 2.5 because he could beat people really quickly. however, once people figured out how to not get hit and grab bowser, his ability to win at all (let alone quickly) fell drastically

it's my favorite bit of PM knowledge that for a period of time (like a year) from 2.0 to 2.5ish bowser had the best tournament results, topping everyone including fox

 

[JOE!]

that could just be due to half %s not displayed. unless PM treats multihit move staling differently than Melee

Is fresh move bonus still in tact from brawl, where a totally fresh move does like 1.1x damage or something?

Otherwise, it'd be 1.0x, 0.95x, etc until it gets to a fully staled 0.5x, correct?

It'd be why Seismic Toss only does 15% instead of 16%, seeing as it hits 4 times for 4%:

4 + 3.8 + 3.6 + 3.2 = 14.6, PM rounds it up to 15% shown

 

[OHrigby]

Maybe because Melee players, who have been adapting to matchups and just playing wayy longer than us are just better than us?

This. You dont see TOP foxes that started with PM. Those players have years under their belt playing and learning how to deal with specific situations and playstyles. Yet some PM players whove only played for 1-3 years are able to keep up with these players.. Thats unheard of in the melee scene. Sure, foxes who started with pm might still place well locally but you never see them placing well at larger tournaments against GOOD pm and especially against melee players. Fox is really good no doubt but some of you need to accept that some of these players are just better than you.

 

[JOE!]

The "keeping up with" may also be MU unfamiliarity where we don't realize it affecting how the top Foxes play a set making it seem much closer.

Edit:

@ Strong Badam , I posted my above thing about stale moves before you stated multihits stale differently. How do they stale exactly?

 

[OHrigby]

Yeah but its also the PM players that suck at the fox MU.. A clear example between top players would be lucky vs sethlon at iaB. The next few times they played sethlon did a lot better at dealing with shine pressure/mixups and neutral in general.