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Bad frame data is something I've always wondered about Link. Sure, he has frame 7 jab, not much GTFO option, yadda yadda yadda... But do you know frame data is more than just attack speed?
For reference, Link's U-tilt is 1 frame faster than Mario's U-smash, but apparently it has roughly similiar KB to Mario's U-smash at 100% rage, 100% Mario. It also has far superior KBG, and Link is more likely to thrive off rage due to better survivability. Not to mention it has meatier and farther hitbox from Link while having less FAF and ending lag.
Link's F-tilt is frame 15, okay. But move is disgusting AF on the ledge. Simply spamming F-tilt near the ledge provides you a situation where the opponent has to respect the move hard. Its range means most ledge attacks won't reach you. Low FAF and ending lag overall mean you're getting a 13%, meaty killing hitbox out with like, half a second interval. Its power means that get hit at 100%... yeah. It also hits below the ledge. Yay I guess?
U-air is frame 11, but it screws airdodges to hell and back. D-air at the ledge nets you a free 15% and with its long lasting hitbox most non-teleport recoveries can Up-B and pray as they inevitably get hit by a move with almost one second of hitbox. You can also say the same thing with F-air since it's double hit, and it kills btw. Look out for that D-tilt lmao.
Also D-smash is bonkers. Frame 9 and it either semi-spikes or kills. It deals 14/16/17% too. Can be used out of jab for lulz because what the heck they can do aside from jumping away?
Link's attack speed is quite bad, but his range is respectable at worst. Some things he throws out sometimes are BS due to hitbox duration and/or killing power. He is also good at forcing approaches with his projectiles too. Obviously no one in their sane mind would give this man a good mobility or attack speed. If he isn't winning in agility and swiftness, he's winning in range and hitboxes. If we were to take into account his forever lasting hitboxes, his attacks suddenly become quite decent in rankings.
Tbh when people complain about Mario's U-smash, I wonder when are they going to complain about Link's tilts because they are clearly even more stupid than what Mario's U-smash can ever be.
Utilt is a great move, it usually kills around 130-140%. Like Ghostbone said though, smash and tilts function different and smashes have more mobility. The reason I think Mario's Usmash is complained about is not the move alone but how well it works with Mario's speedy kit. He's a speedy character with a long lasting DA, good burst options with grab and a good SH game; add in an invincible anti-air smash and it's scary.
Spamming Ftilt, a frame 15 move with 22 frames of lag that's -6 on shield drop anywhere is going to get you punished hard by anyone worth their salt. Link's best ledge getup coverage in terms of effectiveness and safety is Nair and at some %s he can true combo Nair>run off stage>Fair. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GaDXAPQJlz0AiIYSSOWFwy_dg04Rrq4a-YF9-VDOhZI/edit#gid=0
The problem Link has isn't that his attacks are bad but that he completely lacks any quick GTFO options. A frame 5 jab and Nair would have been nice.
When you think about it from that perspective, that what he values is like an iron, impenetrable neutral where damage is avoided as much as humanly possible, I think it even makes sense why he would put Rosalina on top. While I don't think she's #1, just the fact that Rosalina has such a tough walling style means that she probably appeals to ZeRo's senses, even if her actual play style doesn't suit him.
This would make sense, but it doesn't explain his ridiculously optimistic assessment of Ryu, a character that has to rely on a fairly honest neutral and disadvantage state, (midair FADC is nice but doesn't magically fix all of Ryu's issues.) He doesn't have good mobility, unpredictable recovery, strong walling or camping abilities, a scary grab game, or a get-out-of-jail-free card like Flip Jump, DABK, or Bouncing Fish, he just has high damage, good frame data, and up-close kill confirms, (something to be admired about his design, by the way.) Ryu seems like a character that embodies the exact opposite values that ZeRo prioritizes, and I can only conclude that the extent of knowledge he has with the character is from the friendlies with Trela he supposedly lost.
This would make sense, but it doesn't explain his ridiculously optimistic assessment of Ryu, a character that has to rely on a fairly honest neutral and disadvantage state, (midair FADC is nice but doesn't magically fix all of Ryu's issues.) He doesn't have good mobility, unpredictable recovery, strong walling or camping abilities, a scary grab game, or a get-out-of-jail-free card like Flip Jump, DABK, or Bouncing Fish, he just has high damage, good frame data, and up-close kill confirms, (something to be admired about his design, by the way.) Ryu seems like a character that embodies the exact opposite values that ZeRo prioritizes, and I can only conclude that the extent of knowledge he has with the character is from the friendlies with Trela he supposedly lost.
The only way you're going to be able to reliably leverage his extremely good punish game is if you have a partner on hand to negate his extremely bad landing options. That and the chaos of doubles lends itself better to landing his very unsafe on shield kill moves (side b, back air, smash attack's).
I don't understand this at all. Never did he imply that ZeRo isn't entitled to his opinion. He specified top players (you did not have to change it to "one player") because many newer players are far too obedient to the opinion of a better player. That isn't to say top players are always wrong, but rather that their opinions aren't the final word and that you should try to come to your own conclusion.
I don't understand this at all. Never did he imply that ZeRo isn't entitled to his opinion. He specified top players (you did not have to change it to "one player") because many newer players are far too obedient to the opinion of a better player. That isn't to say top players are always wrong, but rather that their opinions aren't the final word and that you should try to come to your own conclusion.
While I do for the most part agree with you that we shouldn't just listen to top players and treat their opinions as fact (think for yourself, make your own opinions), I do think it is important that we do listen and consider their opinions. There do seem to be people, even within this forum, that just write off what ZeRo or other top players say simply because they haven't agreed with them in the past. It seems rather silly to me to just ignore the opinions of the people who are actually winning tournaments or placing very well in them consistently just because their thoughts don't line up with our own narrative. If you're not going to listen to some extent to the people who are actually good at the game why do you bother with this forum full of 'lesser' (for lack of a better term, I've seen fantastic discussions here in the past) players with ultimately less experience? To me, that seems almost as narrow minded, if not more, as some of the things top players say.
While I do for the most part agree with you that we shouldn't just listen to top players and treat their opinions as fact (think for yourself, make your own opinions), I do think it is important that we do listen and consider their opinions. There do seem to be people, even within this forum, that just write off what ZeRo or other top players say simply because they haven't agreed with them in the past. It seems rather silly to me to just ignore the opinions of the people who are actually winning tournaments or placing very well in them consistently just because their thoughts don't line up with our own narrative. If you're not going to listen to some extent to the people who are actually good at the game why do you bother with this forum full of 'lesser' (for lack of a better term, I've seen fantastic discussions here in the past) players with ultimately less experience? To me, that seems almost as narrow minded, if not more, as some of the things top players say.
Oh of course, I fully agree with that. Keeping your mind open to multiple viewpoints is the key to greater knowledge.
I was arguing that it's close minded to take other people's opinion as fact, but I also agree that to take your own opinion as fact is just as harmful. All sides must be considered in the end.
Except Lucina doesn't feel like a top tier threat. She's so much more different than Marth that the two are, while in essence the same character, extremely different. Match-Ups that Lucina definitely loses are what Marth will have a better time in or even win, for example, and you simply can't justify putting Lucina close to Marth because "the two are just about the same character". That is not how it works. The two are very similar, yes, but one is simply better for many match-ups than the other is, and will thus be used much more often and leave the other one behind.
In my very honest opinion, Marth can be a part of top 15, but Lucina just doesn't feel like she even cracks top 20. She might be around 22nd to 27th place, but nowhere close to Marth.
Except Lucina doesn't feel like a top tier threat. She's so much more different than Marth that the two are, while in essence the same character, extremely different. Match-Ups that Lucina definitely loses are what Marth will have a better time in or even win, for example, and you simply can't justify putting Lucina close to Marth because "the two are just about the same character". That is not how it works. The two are very similar, yes, but one is simply better for many match-ups than the other is, and will thus be used much more often and leave the other one behind.
In my very honest opinion, Marth can be a part of top 15, but Lucina just doesn't feel like she even cracks top 20. She might be around 22nd to 27th place, but nowhere close to Marth.
This again. At the rate we are going this topic will get banned. For real talk, Marcina MUs are basically the same. Let's pick some example. Fox. Who does better? None. Both get rekt by Fox because he is always in their face and they cannot do much about out, they are walking sandbags for Fox. "But tipper can KO Fox early" So does Lucina's mixups and KO confirms into Foward Smash (this move is busted). Diddy. Who does better? None. Both have to respect Diddy's options at any range and never try stupid things. "Marth can get a tipper edgeguard and kill Diddy". Lucina has the same edgeguard plan. Tipper doesn't matter if Diddy dies to a touch offstage. Any character that gets walled out by disjoints. Both have disjoints, they are going to wall out those characters the entire game. "But the tip" Can Lucina wall those characters out with her disjoints yes or yes? The big difference the characters have is the kill ranges, they don't matter much because we don't live in a perfect world where everyone is 100% safe and inmune to reads, and Lucina has the tools to not only rely on reads like low tiers do, she will eventually edgeguard, Bair, rage Fair, read or have you at Up Throw dead %. Or kill with rage tilts. And going by numeric value, 27/58 is a much better number than , roll the dice, 43/58. As always, just my humble opinion.
This again. At the rate we are going this topic will get banned. For real talk, Marcina MUs are basically the same. Let's pick some example. Fox. Who does better? None. Both get rekt by Fox because he is always in their face and they cannot do much about out, they are walking sandbags for Fox. "But tipper can KO Fox early" So does Lucina's mixups and KO confirms into Foward Smash (this move is busted). Diddy. Who does better? None. Both have to respect Diddy's options at any range and never try stupid things. "Marth can get a tipper edgeguard and kill Diddy". Lucina has the same edgeguard plan. Tipper doesn't matter if Diddy dies to a touch offstage. Any character that gets walled out by disjoints. Both have disjoints, they are going to wall out those characters the entire game. "But the tip" Can Lucina wall those characters out with her disjoints yes or yes? The big difference the characters have is the kill ranges, they don't matter much because we don't live in a perfect world where everyone is 100% safe and inmune to reads, and Lucina has the tools to not only rely on reads like low tiers do, she will eventually edgeguard, Bair, rage Fair, read or have you at Up Throw dead %. Or kill with rage tilts. And going by numeric value, 27/58 is a much better number than , roll the dice, 43/58. As always, just my humble opinion.
Alright, you got me to agree with you. But still, Marth's tipper itself is something to take note about, since it's not something that can easily be brushed off. While the two would otherwise have very similar MUs, Marth's tipper is what makes his MU spread better, and add results to the mix and you've got yourself the reasons why Marth would almost always be considered a tier or half a tier ahead of Lucina.
But let me be truthful, I was going to talk about my thoughts on how Roy could actually be underrated, but then I wanted to talk as to why Ike is overrated, but since I couldn't seem to choose which one, I just went with Marth and Lucina's tier placements. I might end up talking about Ike next, then Roy. Maybe another day.
Marth is still a notably more threatening character at high- and top level play than Lucina is. And yes, Tipper is the reason for that. Why wouldn't it be? You get some sick bonus reward for playing a character to what are already his natural strengths anyway. Both characters, Marth and Lucina, want to engage their opponent in a position from where they can hit them with the tip of their sword for maximum safety. In every matchup. Since Marth gets additional reward for playing like this he is more threatening to his opponent than Lucina. In every matchup. Even against somebody like Fox who supposedly is always "in their face" [which isn't actually the case at all but seems to be the prevalent opinion just about everywhere] Marth's ability to land tippers makes him the better choice.
So while it's good that people don't just dump Lucina somewhere in low tier she's still not as good a character as Marth. Nor is she actually close to him. She's worse. By a good bit. Maybe not a whole tier but certainly a couple of spots.
Also, neither character is a top tier threat. Marth maaaay be, like, low high tier but anything beyond that sounds like wishful thinking. Looks like 2012 Brawl all over again where people put Marth at like top 3 or something when he was maybe 7th best in the game or so.
A weird trend I notice at high/top level is that people seem to respect Marth a bit too much. They usually play safely against him, but that only allows him to have more room to breathe and recalculate his position, hence, landing more tippers. That even happens at matchups where people shouldn't give him that much room, like Sheik, Diddy Sonic and Fox.
But they don't respect Lucina at all, they outspeed her and her (relatively) bad frame data (which is the exact same as marth's) and properly abuse her disadvantaged state (both characters have an equally terrible time at resetting the neutral).
idk, maybe the meta will eventually shape well enough to reflect Marth's weaknesses better.
Summer of Smash 2016 Data Analysis + August Results: A long write-up by Das Koopa/Zero_Destroyer/BarnardsLoop
SUMMER OF SMASH 2016 FINAL RESULTS
Over the last several months, I and others have compiled tournament data that is currently sitting in a topic on Smashboards. My system is noteworthy because I have a high amount of discretion: On entrant #s, skill pools, regions, and so on - and I account for a few of these things in the scoring system I made to go along with the raw results that have been cataloged by the community.
The purpose is simple: Create numerous models, see where things align, and examine the discrepancies and study them to get any idea as to why they certain things are unusual. I've maintained 6 different systems using similar scoring systems and criteria with various tidbits that separate them. Top 16, Top 8, unweighted methods for both, a system using only high-level tournament results, and a long-term list.
Here's the Top 16 variant and the % changes, as per usual:
-Mario up 1%
-Mewtwo up 0.5%
-Diddy Kong up 0.5%
-Sonic up 0.2%
-Zero Suit Samus up 0.2%
-Meta Knight up 0.2%
-Greninja up 0.2%
---
-Villager down 0.1%
-Peach down 0.1%
-Marth down 0.1%
-Toon Link down 0.1%
-Fox down 0.2%
-Bayonetta down 0.2%
-Sheik down 0.3%
-Rosalina & Luma down 0.3%
-Cloud down 0.3%
-Ryu down 0.4%
-Other down 0.4%
OFF: Lucario
NEW: Mega Man
SAME: Captain Falcon (2.2% share of results), R.O.B (1.9% share of results), Ness (1.9% of results)
There's little in the way of changes over the last month, little worth commenting on. Here are the chart for other formats:
As this has gone along, the story has generally remained the same, and the so-called "top characters" seem consistent in all formats, with the following 9 common to all methodologies as the Top 9, except the August Unweighted, where Bayonetta places 10th behind Meta Knight:
The numbers after this begin to vary greatly with certain characters dropping off or making significant gains. I go into many of these quirks later in the post, but a significant statistic is that Mega Man reaches substantially higher in the ranking when the system is made only to use C2+ tournies, going from 21st to 11th from the Top 16 Weighted to Top 16 Weighted Upper Category. This is indicative of a problem or a quirk in the model, and many exist, so I shall address them:
The primary flaws with using this data list as a tier list are very clear.
1: Scores do not account for brackets.
A prime example of this would be EVO 2016, comparing ZeRo's top 32 bracket to Ally's.
ZeRo: Hyuga (2-0), Komorikiri (2-0), KEN (2-0), Earth (2-0), Larry Lurr (2-0), Abadango (2-0), VoiD (2-0), Kamemushi (0-3)
Ally played 14 games, won 12, lost 2
ZeRo played 17 games, won 14, lost 3
ZeRo's pool of players was additionally harder than Ally's and ZeRo did better vs. Abadango than Ally. By most accounts, ZeRo had a near objectively better run than Ally did, but Mario gets the greater score than Diddy even though the latter went farther as a character. This is the problem with using strict placements.
*Side note; both Ally and ZeRo had uncharacteristic near-misses. NAKAT and Salem came dangerously close to beating them in their respective top 32 qualifiers.
Seeding can determine elements like these, and we don't see any shortage of bizarre instances where bad seeding has led to things like Ally vs. ZeRo for 13th, Larry vs. ZeRo for 9th, and so on. Japan is particularly bad when it comes to this, arguably having some of the absolute worst seeding I've ever seen in brackets. This may partially be responsible for some of the various absurd placements we see, with the skill pool only further adding problems.
This stresses that seeding needs significant improvements.
2: Regional biases.
A large number of regional tournies creates bias in favor of them, albeit stringent entrant # qualifications often deter this to never include outright bad regions. Foreign countries can be argued, namely South America and the Caribbean, as it's hard to compare skill pools when players from these countries rarely cross paths with established greater regions, such as U.S.A, Japan, or various European countries like The Netherlands or France.
In this case, C1 tournaments have the highest point share. Part of the purpose of this and the inclusion of 9th-13th is to examine the mid-low tier spectrum, as this does a very good job of tracking lower-tiered results, and good regions should naturally conform to meta expectations where the characters with the best tools naturally do the best.
As a result of this, the factors that cause major discrepancies between the Upper Category system and standard Top 16 Weighted is likely because the latter is more regionally-inclined as a system. This results in certain characters getting higher scores than top placements indicates. Ryu may be the best example of this.
3: Matchups are seldom considered.
While the statistics are extremely important, it's worth noting that (like a lack of bracket context) the actual ordering is likely to be flawed due to a lack of matchup data. This problem gets increasingly worse the less developed a character's meta is, as is often the case with lower-tiers. While this list is indicative of certain things like what general category a character belongs in, placements aren't gospel.
4: Certain characters have extremely small playerbases, depressing a score in comparison to the results that character obtains. 5: Certain characters have extremely large playerbases, inflating a score in comparison to the results that character obtains.
Examples:
Underscored: Pit
Overscored: Cloud
Pit's placements in the Summer of Smash area are as follows:
13th, Kuro, Umebura 23 (Category 2)
1st, Earth, Sumabato 10 (Revised to Category 2 albeit not scored as such)
5th, Earth, Sumabato 11 (Category 2)
9th, Earth, EVO 2016 (Category 4)
7th, Kuro, Umebura SAT (Category 3)
4th, Earth, Sumabato 12 (Category 2)
9th, Kiraflax, Smash at Church (Category 1)
9th, Chompy, Smash at Church (Category 1)
Pit has a demonstrably strong track record in Japan and in America when Earth attends, and there are other tournies I didn't quite reference - a pre-EVO tourney where Earth went 2-1 vs. Komorikiri across 15(?) games is a prime example. He has occasional stumbles, but it's very difficult to deny his track record, including a near-miss vs. Kamemushi and numerous wins over good Japanese and American players (e.g. Pugwest and Tweek).
Despite this, his score is rather dreadfully low, ranking 31st, below characters like Yoshi, Bowser, Luigi, etc, many of whom don't have the same consistent track record. Lucas and Robin are more arguable, as both rank above Pit and have almost-consistency in their accomplishments, but need more time, tournies, and attendance from players like Dath, Skorpio, Taiheita, etc.
Meanwhile, Cloud is a more complicated case.
Cloud consistently garners top 3 on all lists despite having no significant tournament wins from mains, and despite the very mixed bag of pocketing Cloud. Tweek and Mew2King were both rather brutally denied landmark wins by Salem and ZeRo respectively, though Tweek kept it viable and didn't fall apart at Collision. This extends past Summer, but it's no doubt relevant.
The most significant result with Cloud comes from ANTi, where a secondary slot allowed him to defeat Zinoto at CEO. However, ANTi used Mario for the majority of the tourney, and the biggest question towards Cloud's continued failure to garner wins as opposed to characters that score lower than him (See: Fox, Sonic, Mario, Zero Suit Samus, Rosalina & Luma, Bayonetta, etc.) is often attributed to potential consistency issues that maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay relate to his recovery or a very bad matchup in Sheik that's quite prevalent.
However, Cloud, like Bayonetta in 1.1.5 before him, has a high density of results to make up for a lack of wins. After all - a second place spot is only one point less than a win since it's merely a set's difference, and Cloud has little trouble making the top 6-4 range. Despite this, his results at supermajor and major level events are abysmal compared to most other characters.
Semi-majors, majors, and Supermajors during the SoS 2016 period:
-Get on My Level 2016
-2GGT KTAR Saga
-Umebura S.A.T
-Shine 2016
-CEO 2016
-EVO 2016
-Super Smash Con 2016
Out of these, the Clouds that garnered results...
GOML: Mew2King (5th), MKLeo (5th, secondary) ANTi (7th, secondary), PikaPika, (13th, secondary)
2GGT KTAR Saga: N/A
Umebura S.A.T: Komorikiri (13th, secondary)
Shine 2016: Mew2King (5th)
CEO 2016: ANTi (1st, secondary)
EVO 2016: N/A
Super Smash Con 2016: Tweek (13th), ANTi (13th, secondary)
...The main conclusion here is that Mew2King is the most successful Cloud user at the moment, also garnering a pile of good results at regionals, including Clutch City Clash (4th), Endgame (2nd), Momocon (5th), Smash n' Splash 2 (5th), Apex 2016 (4th), and WTFox 2 (5th). Tweek's are more mixed and stagnant, with his 2nd at Collision being his best performance in months.
Cloud effectively has a greater falloff the more and more discriminatory you become against lower levels of play. He maintains an impressive set of results at category 2 tournaments, thus maintaining a strong repertoire even in the upper category chart, despite having a falloff in the C3/C4 area in comparison to other characters that rank below him in less discriminatory data set.
Less complex examples of this occur. I refer back to the Ally/ZeRo conundrum at EVO where ZeRo arguably looked much better, yet his character received a lower score due to a lack of bracket context. It'd take too long to go over all of these examples, but the differing scoring systems reveal overestimates in the Top 16 system for characters like Ness and Ryu, who fall significantly in top 8 and upper category systems, while unweighted variants heavily benefit Olimar in large part due to Dabuz's success with him over the summer. These are all worth extensive posts, but you get the idea.
BOTTOM LINE
This data I've conjured up since March is undoubtedly useful in helping determine where certain characters rank. However, it is not an end-all-be-all, and it's simply a system in which I score characters the better they do and find ways to scale scores with better players in attendance. There are numerous variables that I can't account for with the models I run, so the best I can do is shed light on the issues so people understand the flaws.
If you'd like to see another model, I've kept in contact over the months with @CervidKing, who has this spreadsheet he's maintained:
From the PMs (edited and compiled together to get an idea of his methodology)
I noticed (or, at least, thought. I still believe it has an impact, but not a major one.) that your methodology tends to favor popular characters. So, I decided to see how assigning characters' points with an exponential function, rather than a linear one, would affect results. I figured it would favor characters who actually win more, while still providing some points for popular ones who tend to cap out at 9th or so.
I settled on 2^(category+(9-placement-4)). In the case of secondaries, I added 1 to the character's placement. Using your definition of categories and your documentation of results this function provides the following list:
Obviously, this method has issues, such as Mewtwo ending up in 8th mostly because of Abadango's win at Pound, and Donkey Kong ending up in 13th almost entirely because of Larry Lurr secondarying him. But I feel like it's pretty interesting to see how a change in methodology can affect some results pretty drastically, and some not at all.
----
Just thought I should let you know, I'm changing my methodology slightly.
Instead of using 1/2/3/4/5/7/9/13 to determine scores, I'm using 1-8, with 6/7/8 corresponding to placements of 7th/9th/13th. I still want to reward characters for winning tournaments, over just making top 16, but scores from 7th down are a bit low for my liking.
Placing 13th at a tournament like CEO shouldn't only give a character .0625 points imo.
Thankfully, this doesn't change character order significantly, and it makes scores much prettier.
Thanks for reading & stuff. I will be updating the results thread soon™ and moving the 1.1.6 results off the main post to make way for Phase 3 while I transfer the final scores. This will take some time, as I'll also need to create a mass of new spoiler folders for Phase 3. I won't be listing scores for Phase 3 for another week or two, as the scores will be very erratic and inaccurate with the low amount of data to begin with. I took my time with updating the results thread due to this rather long writeup.
Mr. E put Marth in mid tier on his recent tier list. While I don't think he's quite that low, he's definitely not a top tier threat. His states of gameplay aren't dominant enough, strong as his neutral may be.
Cosmos (the Corrin main from Dallas, TX) posted his overall thoughts on the meta. His "tier list", if you will.
Overall I find this quite agreeable, nice to see a tier list from a high level player that gets to the point. Although / being in the category of "solo viable characters that can win a national" is a bit suspect considering their and matchups respectively, even if Abadango did win Pound with M2 albeit using MK in one set to take down Dabuz.
Das Koopa
regarding the inflation/depression of character rankings due to over/under representation, have you considered using some sort of math magic to normalize their ranking with respect to the number of data points for that character? Is that even a thing that would make sense?
Cosmos (the Corrin main from Dallas, TX) posted his overall thoughts on the meta. His "tier list", if you will.
Overall I find this quite agreeable, nice to see a tier list from a high level player that gets to the point. Although / being in the category of "solo viable characters that can win a national" is a bit suspect considering their and matchups respectively, even if Abadango did win Pound with M2 albeit using MK in one set to take down Dabuz.
A weird trend I notice at high/top level is that people seem to respect Marth a bit too much. They usually play safely against him, but that only allows him to have more room to breathe and recalculate his position, hence, landing more tippers. That even happens at matchups where people shouldn't give him that much room, like Sheik, Diddy Sonic and Fox.
But they don't respect Lucina at all, they outspeed her and her (relatively) bad frame data (which is the exact same as marth's) and properly abuse her disadvantaged state (both characters have an equally terrible time at resetting the neutral).
idk, maybe the meta will eventually shape well enough to reflect Marth's weaknesses better.
I think the reason people play careful against Marth is because he has a lot of stuff that flows off of his jab as of now, and a lot of it doesn't even require Tipper Jab. There's Jab > Uair (easy to do once you practice and learn the % window since rising tipper Uair is free), Jab > Ftilt, the list goes on. Jab > Utilt which kills off the top, etc. Bum rushing Marth with afrormentioned characters is usually a strong idea but the reason you see players falter with it at high % is the threat of getting jabbed and killed from it. The plethora of options that stem from Marth's jab is quite frankly, ****ing terrifying. Tipper FSmash isn't even the most nonsense thing about the character, it may kill you early but it's far from what you're actually going to die to a lot of the time against Marth, which is usually his Fair, his Ftilt, his Utilt, or his Uair. I also can't wait for Marth players to start abusing Rising Uair as it pretty much auto-tips on anyone in front of him with no spacing requirement whatsoever. It's a decent surprise option, not really overpowered but it's good when thrown in unpredictably. Rage makes it much stronger, as per most of Marth's killing attacks. Realistically though, right now a large part of the reason Marth is even good is because his jab is so damn effective now, going from a horrid garbage move to what it is now.
I also feel like an often glossed over aspect of Marth is how good his attack speed is for his current range. A lot of his aerials, while lacking in active frames and being somewhat commital, all come out rather fast for the distance they cover (and as of now they kill as well! Very nice.) This creates a sort of "Mario" effect, where you can play moderately reactively with aerials because of their speed.
Also Marth is one of the few characters with a move that's invincible on Frame 1 with a significant amount of invul to boot! Air Dolphin Slash, namely. Grounded version is good enough too (F3 invul though, not quite the dazzling star his air version is.). Oh, did I mention Jab > Up+B can work as well, albeit a bit strangely?
I also feel like noting Cloud's drop off in results at large events basically mirrors every character that isn't Sheik or Diddy Kong right now, with the exception that his results at essentially every other level are massively inflated in contrast to say, Mario or Fox. That's really the only difference, his lower level results are disproportionate to his top level results which stands out when compared to Sheik or Diddy but not many others.
Cosmos (the Corrin main from Dallas, TX) posted his overall thoughts on the meta. His "tier list", if you will.
Overall I find this quite agreeable, nice to see a tier list from a high level player that gets to the point. Although / being in the category of "solo viable characters that can win a national" is a bit suspect considering their and matchups respectively, even if Abadango did win Pound with M2 albeit using MK in one set to take down Dabuz.
Cosmos (the Corrin main from Dallas, TX) posted his overall thoughts on the meta. His "tier list", if you will.
Overall I find this quite agreeable, nice to see a tier list from a high level player that gets to the point. Although / being in the category of "solo viable characters that can win a national" is a bit suspect considering their and matchups respectively, even if Abadango did win Pound with M2 albeit using MK in one set to take down Dabuz.
I like that this is based off and reflects what we've actually seen in tournament not "potential" or gut feelings about characters. If a character is good and his playerbase backs it up they are viable. not before.
with that being said charizard should be in the tier above where it is
Fantastic analysis as usual, Das Koopa. Rather interesting to see characters whose results don't get that much fanfare (such as the eternal high-tier aspirants, Peach and Yoshi) actually place relatively decently. Ryu's top 10 in results was actually rather unexpected.
All the Greninjas that are something in this game have been going to tournaments and showing what the frog can do. Due to the large cast and people schedule, non-top/bottom 10 characters come and go, the meta is flavor of the month to be honest. Anyone misses Toon Link?
All the Greninjas that are something in this game have been going to tournaments and showing what the frog can do. Due to the large cast and people schedule, non-top/bottom 10 characters come and go, the meta is flavor of the month to be honest. Anyone misses Toon Link?
Not at all, I find him quite annoying actually. I mean hyuga is great at playing him and he is a good character and all, but it's one of the most frustrating MUs for a lot of characters. Good character, annoying play style. I'm more excited about Lucas rising up. I feel like he has always been overshadowed by people always assuming ness is better (which may be true).
This is a little late, but i wanted to confirm that Mega is much better vs Ryu than Diddy. And he still beats Diddy... but poor Ryu. No air accel means uair eats him alive, bair edgeguards the hell out of him. FA doesnt help at all. Pellets stop all hadouken varients so he has to approach. And what does he have vs run away into pivot ftilt?
Anyways, lets talk about c stick nairs. They allow full freedom of movement while nairing. I love this with buster's hitbox, it can hit twice into pellet for 10% and great stage control. This is a big reason mega is terrifying to characters vulnerable to edgeguarding; he is great at setting it up.
Megaman with his back to you, offstage, has incredible coverage. If you opt to fly over with an option like monkey flip, uair is gonna hurt you. Bair is obvious, but ill take a moment to remind everyone it is frame 4 with devastating range and power. If you FF it, a trade will spike ala pika's bair; the efficacy of this varies by MU.
FF past with airdodge into recovery ala marth? You can fall with the AD shooting c stick nairs to stage spike. Finally, dair... if you are unfortunate enough to not have a good answer to dair, it is terrifying. ROB and villager come to mind as fearing this move. Again Ryu is not a fan, its not hard to hit this move on a tatsu or even shoryuken.
For these reasons, fox isnt terrible in my experience. A single well placed nair can put him in a bad situation. Still probably a losing MU.
Fair is honestly a decent move, FF asap to land because it wont AC and its... ok. FH fair to landing uair lines up really perfectly, so thats cool.
Anyways, back to c stick nairs... everyone talks about lucina nair to fsmash... marth has retreating FF cstick nair into tipper fsmash. Harder to land, but infinitely scarier than lucina. So thats why you cant rush in if he is retreating, since nair into fsmash will kill you at way too early.
Speaking of tech... if you RAR by moving the stick back to up and barely past the middle instead of all the way back, you can RAR with almost no momentum lost. This gives mega both dthrow to bair, and metal blade toss into bair confirms (!!!). So, mega's shield should be scary to you, since near the ledge this confirm can kill you outright or lead to the aforementioned edgeguard doom.
So what does your character get from this? I dunno, go check it out. C stick nair is the better one IMHO. It already helps my greninja dramatically, making nair crossups that much easier and available from a longer range.
Just some stream of consciousness mega and tech stuff. I can do more when they come, or you can tell me its too disjointed and not to post. Im curious what you think!
Oh, random extra... mega pressing a all the time is a great for item MUs. I find myself trying to shoot a retreating nair at diddy to pressure lightly and he already threw the naner, but my rapid pressing grabs the banana for me. I dont think anyone can nair nearly as fast as mega, so he has the item snagging perk over everyone, which is sweet. Ok im done now.
All the Greninjas that are something in this game have been going to tournaments and showing what the frog can do. Due to the large cast and people schedule, non-top/bottom 10 characters come and go, the meta is flavor of the month to be honest. Anyone misses Toon Link?
That's a bit of an unfair thing to say. Toon Link is still going strong (12th) and was also top 20 during the 1.1.5 meta.
Compare to Marth and Greninja who were respectively 25th and 28th during 1.1.5 and are now 14th and 16th in terms of raw results, that's a pretty big shift (reminder that the only thing that changed in 1.1.6 was Bayo getting nerfed which, while it was a big change, still makes the two metas be more comparable than normal) and their results have been consistent for a good while now, Marth especially.
And I don't see Greninja players going to tournaments more than usual, just them actually getting better results more which just indicates that they're getting better instead of it just being a "flavor of the month" thing. The only player I see attending more than they used to is Some, while Oishiitofu is a new face (at least in terms of getting noticeable results).
Not at all, I find him quite annoying actually. I mean hyuga is great at playing him and he is a good character and all, but it's one of the most frustrating MUs for a lot of characters. Good character, annoying play style. I'm more excited about Lucas rising up. I feel like he has always been overshadowed by people always assuming ness is better (which may be true).
This is a little late, but i wanted to confirm that Mega is much better vs Ryu than Diddy. And he still beats Diddy... but poor Ryu. No air accel means uair eats him alive, bair edgeguards the hell out of him. FA doesnt help at all. Pellets stop all hadouken varients so he has to approach. And what does he have vs run away into pivot ftilt?
Anyways, lets talk about c stick nairs. They allow full freedom of movement while nairing. I love this with buster's hitbox, it can hit twice into pellet for 10% and great stage control. This is a big reason mega is terrifying to characters vulnerable to edgeguarding; he is great at setting it up.
Megaman with his back to you, offstage, has incredible coverage. If you opt to fly over with an option like monkey flip, uair is gonna hurt you. Bair is obvious, but ill take a moment to remind everyone it is frame 4 with devastating range and power. If you FF it, a trade will spike ala pika's bair; the efficacy of this varies by MU.
FF past with airdodge into recovery ala marth? You can fall with the AD shooting c stick nairs to stage spike. Finally, dair... if you are unfortunate enough to not have a good answer to dair, it is terrifying. ROB and villager come to mind as fearing this move. Again Ryu is not a fan, its not hard to hit this move on a tatsu or even shoryuken.
For these reasons, fox isnt terrible in my experience. A single well placed nair can put him in a bad situation. Still probably a losing MU.
Fair is honestly a decent move, FF asap to land because it wont AC and its... ok. FH fair to landing uair lines up really perfectly, so thats cool.
Anyways, back to c stick nairs... everyone talks about lucina nair to fsmash... marth has retreating FF cstick nair into tipper fsmash. Harder to land, but infinitely scarier than lucina. So thats why you cant rush in if he is retreating, since nair into fsmash will kill you at way too early.
Speaking of tech... if you RAR by moving the stick back to up and barely past the middle instead of all the way back, you can RAR with almost no momentum lost. This gives mega both dthrow to bair, and metal blade toss into bair confirms (!!!). So, mega's shield should be scary to you, since near the ledge this confirm can kill you outright or lead to the aforementioned edgeguard doom.
So what does your character get from this? I dunno, go check it out. C stick nair is the better one IMHO. It already helps my greninja dramatically, making nair crossups that much easier and available from a longer range.
Just some stream of consciousness mega and tech stuff. I can do more when they come, or you can tell me its too disjointed and not to post. Im curious what you think!
Oh, random extra... mega pressing a all the time is a great for item MUs. I find myself trying to shoot a retreating nair at diddy to pressure lightly and he already threw the naner, but my rapid pressing grabs the banana for me. I dont think anyone can nair nearly as fast as mega, so he has the item snagging perk over everyone, which is sweet. Ok im done now.
I don't think 2 zoning tools that only reach a quarter of the stage is even comparable to 4 zoning tools, 3 of which reach twice as far as Lucas's and 2 of which have adjustable trajectories. That and if you count in toon links disjointed sword he is WAY better at keeping people out than Lucas is. A good toon link can play keep away much better than a good Lucas can. Toon link is the poster boy of annoying campy play while Lucas dables a little.
edit: forgot about PK freeze but how is Lucas even supposed to hit people with that move?
That's a bit of an unfair thing to say. Toon Link is still going strong (12th) and was also top 20 during the 1.1.5 meta.
Compare to Marth and Greninja who were respectively 25th and 28th during 1.1.5 and are now 14th and 16th in terms of raw results, that's a pretty big shift (reminder that the only thing that changed in 1.1.6 was Bayo getting nerfed which, while it was a big change, still makes the two metas be more comparable than normal) and their results have been consistent for a good while now, Marth especially.
And I don't see Greninja players going to tournaments more than usual, just them actually getting better results more which just indicates that they're getting better instead of it just being a "flavor of the month" thing. The only player I see attending more than they used to is Some, while Oishiitofu is a new face (at least in terms of getting noticeable results).
Actually, there is some truth to the "more greninja's coming out to play" theory. Shinjoebi and Keekay for example ave actually started showing up to respecable regionals, along Oiisitohu. Some and Venia came out of retirement this summer, and Elexiao was able to show up to more things after he got out of college for the summer.
But you're still right too. Greninja's player base as a whole has undergone a big level up and have really closed that gap between Dennis and the rest of the playerbase.
We could always hope Trela decides to main him for real instead of just trolling everybody at one tournament.
Swordfighter does have some strong points. UAir is legitimately gross (16% strong, lingers, good vertical range, and autocancels) and DTilt comes out faster and has less cooldown than Marth's, along with better followup potential (AFAIK about the followup though). He also has one of the better grab games of all the sword characters.
