Brawl - More balanced than Melee? Lie or truth?

[isomorphism]

You can punish MK's tornado. IIRC DK has at least two moves that can break through it, his F-tilt and his fully-charged punch (he may have others). I think both actually hit MK too, not just stop the tornado.

 

[adumbrodeus]

Have you ever played a metaknight that spams neutral and up b effectively? It's **** near impossible to touch or approach him. You have to work so hard just to get a hit or two in and there's always the chance he'll up b you right after you do it.

You bait him into ^b and powershield, or airdodge or spotdodge, ect. Now he has limited options so you can respond.

Neutral does too little damage after a bit of move degradation, and clinks with or is beaten by too many attacks.

First of all, explain how DK has an advantage over metaknight. Actually do that for the other characters as well because I'm not familiar with those matchups. All I know is that you can't really punish metaknight's tornado and he can do that against big characters like DK and ROB more effectively.

DK has a lot more attacks then even most characters that can stop or go through the tornado, and DK is powerful enough to kill MK quite easily given half a chance. Overall, MK just doesn't have any attacks which provide solutions to DK's raw power, weight, and recovery.

 

[thumbswayup]

You bait him into ^b and powershield, or airdodge or spotdodge, ect. Now he has limited options so you can respond.

Neutral does too little damage after a bit of move degradation, and clinks with or is beaten by too many attacks.



DK has a lot more attacks then even most characters that can stop or go through the tornado, and DK is powerful enough to kill MK quite easily given half a chance. Overall, MK just doesn't have any attacks which provide solutions to DK's raw power, weight, and recovery.

I hope to god that's all true cause I'm picking up DK as a secondary. I'm tired of my diddy losing to a metaknight at every single tourny.

 

[Kirby M.D.]

There are a lot of Snakes Samo, and he doesn't win every tournament ever (see also: Metaknight). He's good, but not unstoppable. Think of him as Brawl's version of Fox or Falco.

In fact, the competitive balance of Brawl compared to Melee makes some more sense if you draw allegories between Brawl characters and their Melee counterparts. This is comparing the 2006-2008 Melee tierlist Top-Middle tier and general character sentiments in Brawl (with some help from Ankoku's Character Ranking list). My Melee metagame knowledge is a tad rusty, so if someone in the know could back me up/clarify things, that would be great.

Snake = Fox: Great projectile game and many tricks up his sleeve in close combat. Has somewhat of a learning curve, but is hands down one of the best characters in the game.

Meta = Shiek: An incredibly quick ball of priority and **** that can rack up damage to an insane degree. One of the best as well, just like Shiek in the olden days.

R.O.B = Peach: Great air game and annoying projectiles, coupled with a steep learning curve and general degree of WTF. In a class by himself really, not quite **** tier, not quite general High tier.

Falco = Falco: The more defensively minded Spacie, able to play good keep away until an opening for big rewards open up. Slept on in the beginning as well, but with enough jank for an ascension to his old spot to be plausible.

G&W = Captain Falcon: Mad rushdown abilities and air control making for a combo-happy character. ZSS is basically Melee Falcon with **** and some range to her as well.

DeDeDe = Samus: Floaty bruiser who's hard to use and harder to kill. Good at spacing and adept in the air. Lucario might fight this designation as well.

Wolf = Dr. Mario: A powerful character who's game is built around a versatile projectile, but is hosed off of the stage. Has to be played smart and defensive against the higher echelons.

Wario = Jigglypuff: Quirky character that has advantage over someone higher up in ranking, with arguably the best air game around.

Marth = Marth: The second character that the nerfbat missed, still got range, comboability, great air, pretty much everything that made him good in Melee is back in slightly different fashion.

Donkey Kong = Ganondorf: Big nasty mofo who is nimble in air and hits like a bus full of fat people. Might have advantage over higher ranked characters, might not.

Pikachu = Mario: The sleeper hit. A surprising entry who might not be quite as good as his peers, but is still a contender. Makes his bones with combos and general speed.

Pit = Ice Climbers: This one's a bit of a stretch, he's got some good parts, several helpful ATs, and noobs who face a good one cry "broken". Hasn't had that one player push him over the top yet, but is considered a strong choice. If people outside Corner-Trap and Void play ICs, they might get their spot back.

Toon Link = Link+: A good character with many projectile tricks and general ability that has not done well for whatever reason. The potential is there, but it's just not been tapped yet. Diddy Kong is in this boat as well, he's seen to be good but just can't get it done at this point.

Sonic = Donkey Kong: A character that nobody is really sure as to their ability level. When he's considered good, he gets stomped; when he's bad, Lucky wins a tournament. A character with good and bad in equal measure and possibly the hardest viable character to use.


Also lol@Captain Falcon being Dan Hibiki. The sad thing is that it's more or less true, and this is coming from a dedicated Falcon main. He's like Melee Game and Watch, to keep the allegories going.

 

[Sliq]

People in this thread have obviously never played a MK that shuttle loops to glide attack to shuttle lopp indefinitely.

Furthermore, if he so chooses, he can just GLIDE away from you and land safely way to up b again. You'd have to be insane to try and hit him out of his glide attack, since he's like ****ing INVULNERABLE during it.

 

[SummerObsession]

People in this thread have obviously never played a MK that shuttle loops to glide attack to shuttle lopp indefinitely.

Furthermore, if he so chooses, he can just GLIDE away from you and land safely way to up b again. You'd have to be insane to try and hit him out of his glide attack, since he's like ****ing INVULNERABLE during it.

Falco/wolf laser, TL bombs, pit arrows, Etc. You could also hit MK from under when he's gliding or you can always block.

According to the match up chart Metaknight and Snake are both countered by DK. So the question is, who character-wise in Melee can counter Fox?

 

[Pink Reaper]

So the question is, who character-wise in Melee can counter Fox?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=A5WSDwqGDxA

DK

 

[Zankoku]

According to the matchup chart Snake is a lot worse than he really is. So the question is, why bother referencing it when it's wrong?

 

[RDK]

According to the matchup chart Snake is a lot worse than he really is. So the question is, why bother referencing it when it's wrong?

It's not that the matchup chart is necessarily wrong--I just think tournament results are more indicative of a character's standings in a possible tier list.

 

[SummerObsession]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=A5WSDwqGDxA

DK

That was a good friendlies , but lets see how that match would have turned out in a tournament http://youtube.com/watch?v=zw20gY1RYh8

Whether the character matchup chart is accurate or is always up for interpretation.

 

[Zankoku]

Let's indeed see how that match would've turned out in a tournament.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=E3vE_Ec0q5s

 

[Pink Reaper]

Apparently Link does too

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ISc5fKGc43g&feature=related

 

[SummerObsession]

DK[/QUOTE]

It's not that the matchup chart is necessarily wrong--I just think tournament results are more indicative of a character's standings in a possible tier list.

I agree, tourny results are more indicative of a characters standing in a possible tier list. DK has recently risen in the Tier list probably due to his advantages over Snake and Metaknight. Wario has also risen which didn't surprise me too much as well.
http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=165954

We can go back and forth Ankoku. Honest question, do you truly think Dk has a advantage over the likes of Fox?

 

[Stroupes]

the reason that Brawl feels less balanced than Melee, was that Melee wasn't balanced at all, when you think about it.
once you get used to Brawl, it becomes much more balanced, as it appeared to me.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

We can go back and forth Ankoku. Honest question, do you truly think Dk has a advantage over the likes of Fox?

No.

But the fact of the matter is this: In Melee, there were certain intrinsic properties to the game engine that bestowed lesser characters with certain abilities (l-canceling, wavedashing, SHFFLing, just to name a few) that enabled them to keep up with the high end characters (who can, likewise, do the same thing in exploitation). In Brawl, those traits are alarmingly absent and as such create an even wider gulf between those characters that are viable and those that aren't.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Pink Reaper]

DK has an advantage over Fox. Its called Cargo Uthrow to Uair.

Mario/Dr. Mario/Luigi have advantages over Fox. Its called CG

Jigglypuff has Uthrow to Rest

Lots of characters have simple ways to gimp Fox/Falco. They're the easiest characters to combo in the entire game, as such they will never be unbeatable.

 

[Fletch]

the reason that Brawl feels less balanced than Melee, was that Melee wasn't balanced at all, when you think about it.
once you get used to Brawl, it becomes much more balanced, as it appeared to me.

What the hell does this even mean?

 

[Smooth Criminal]

DK has an advantage over Fox. Its called Cargo Uthrow to Uair.

Mario/Dr. Mario/Luigi have advantages over Fox. Its called CG

Jigglypuff has Uthrow to Rest

Lots of characters have simple ways to gimp Fox/Falco. They're the easiest characters to combo in the entire game, as such they will never be unbeatable.

There is that, too.

Pink Reaper is too pro for me. He's like a big pink Pez dispenser of Smash trivia.

/absenteeism johns

Smooth Criminal

 

[RDK]

No.

But the fact of the matter is this: In Melee, there were certain intrinsic properties to the game engine that bestowed lesser characters traits to keep up with the high end characters that could also exploit these properties. In Brawl, those traits are alarmingly absent and as such create an even wider gulf between those characters that are viable and those that aren't.

Smooth Criminal

It's not even that, it's just that some characters have incredibly buffed properties that just give them a distinct advantage over other characters (Snake's power + projectices + hitboxes, MK's shuttle loop + speed, Marth's shffled F-airs, DDD's super-long reach + chaingrab, etc.). The list goes on and on.

What do characters like C. Faclon (a.k.a. Dan Hibiki) have? Absolutely nothing.

But that point aside, the Power 5 are still a lot better than the rest of the cast.

 

[Pink Reaper]

Smooth Criminal is too sexy for me, too sexy for me, too sexy you see~

queue dancing gay bald men with no shirts

 

[Zankoku]

We can go back and forth Ankoku. Honest question, do you truly think Dk has a advantage over the likes of Fox?

It's not an advantageous matchup, but it's certainly not one of DK's worst and definitely a very dangerous one for Fox.

Actually, several matchups are dangerous for Fox because of his physics.

 

[RDK]

Fox is a fastfaller; he's extremely easy to pull combos on.

However, by no means does this mean that a DK will always beat a Fox indefinetely. Advantages =/= a better character overall. Fox is still higher on the tier list, but DK still has some advantages in that particular matchup nonetheless.

 

[IrArby]

But the fact of the matter is this: In Melee, there were certain intrinsic properties to the game engine that bestowed lesser characters with certain abilities (l-canceling, wavedashing, SHFFLing, just to name a few) that enabled them to keep up with the high end characters (who can, likewise, do the same thing in exploitation). In Brawl, those traits are alarmingly absent and as such create an even wider gulf between those characters that are viable and those that aren't.

So your saying that Mewto got just as much out of L canceling as Fox? The ATs did alot more for the chars at the top of the tiers. Even the collective ATs that apply to everyone. Top tiers gained more from the collective ATs. This widened the gap. How on earth do you figure that it would close that gap?

Seriously, the game is meant to be pretty balanced and no one is doing a crap load of stuff thats not already meant to be part of the game. I'm pretty sure they took into account MK's UpB and Snakes F-tilt before release. Chars who are better have a natural advantage (in some matchups) but they aren't shoe ins to win it.

BTW Marth no longer shffls but his SHFairs are no longer the spacing ownage they used to be due to no l-cancleing and easy perfect shielding. Also, Melee DK can get shine comboed pretty easily, has a bad recovery, is comboed easily in general, etc against fox. Melee fox has arugably no bad matchups and very few even ones. I've never heard Fox mains gripe about matchups against DKs. Mostly just Marths, Falcos, Shiek, C. Falcon you know people high on the tier list.

 

[Pink Reaper]

Fox is a fastfaller; he's extremely easy to pull combos on.

However, by no means does this mean that a DK will always beat a Fox indefinetely. Advantages =/= a better character overall. Fox is still higher on the tier list, but DK still has some advantages in that particular matchup nonetheless.

Thats the entire point. People keep bringing up Fox in Melee like he's unbeatable unless you pick another top tier character. But every high tier character in Melee has a very exploitable weakness, Fox/Falco can be comboed to holy hell and basically every character has a CG against them(except kirby v.v) Marth has trouble with spammy characters like Link and, oddly enough, DK due to his huge priority Bair. Sheik is also one of the easiest characters to combo in the game and her CG isn't as dominant as it used to be as people have learned the wonders of DI. Her recovery is also gimpable if you actually know what your doing(if you don't its probably the best in the game) Peach falls to range/spam, Falcon's in the same boat as the Spacies except he's even more vulnerable to spam+range(lol, G&W >>>>>>>>>> Falcon)

Edit: Did the guy above me just say that DK has bad recovery in melee?

/Facepalm

 

[Smooth Criminal]

So your saying that Mewto got just as much out of L canceling as Fox? The ATs did alot more for the chars at the top of the tiers. Even the collective ATs that apply to everyone. Top tiers gained more from the collective ATs. This widened the gap. How on earth do you figure that it would close that gap?

I'm too verbose for my own good. Sorry.

Let me put it simply:

ATs that were universally shared by the whole cast made things a little more balanced because certain characters were given traits that enabled them to be played efficiently at a high level of play. I never said that it created perfect balance between the whole cast. **** noooooooooooooooo. A high-end Fox with all of the right tools is arguably the deadliest force in all of Melee, hands down. There's just so much that Fox can do with these ATs---combine that with his intrinsic character abilities and HIYAAAAAAAAAAA MOTHERHUMPIN' HIGH TIER.

I'm just saying lower tiered characters can compete because they have similar options. In Brawl, it appears that these sort of options (exploits to bolster existing traits) are very limited or nonexistent. As a result, things become a little more skewed.

Sorry if I confused you.

Smooth Criminal

 

[ShadowLink84]

I wish smooth criminal would have my babies. He just states everything so eloquently. ^_^

 

[Zergum]

EDIT-O: Zergum, if you're gonna knock Melee, at least know what you're talking about. To be perfectly honest, competitively Melee and Brawl are similar in balance at this point. Melee had two characters above the rest, three about a level under them, and then another eight that comprised the tournament viable characters. That makes for 5 Top Tier out of 26 characters, and 13 tourney viable out of 26. Brawl has two characters above the rest, about five slightly under them, and anywhere from 5 to 13 more tournament viable ones. That makes for 7 out of 39 and 13 to 20 out of 39. The ratio of top tier characters to the rest of the cast is similar between Brawl and Melee.[/QUOTE]


Congrats, you know the *LATEST* tier list for melee. WTF? Ken dominated with marth for years, isai beasted CF. The only character i didn't include that you could make an arguement would be ice climbers, but they are sort of an enigma since chillen was a monster. Anyways, brawl is no where near where melee is in terms of development, and saying that 2 characters are above the rest (in brawl) at this point is completely wrong. Way off. Pulling out numbers based on previous tiers that were highly developed after years of play and comparing them to a game that hasnt been out for more than a few months just promotes your ignorance. If you want to say that snake and MK are the best characters because they have won so many tournaments go ahead, but it has no credibility. The game is still fresh, maybe those characters are more attractive to decent players because of their abilities? Regardless of why they are winning tournaments, they are being played at an EXTREMELY UNCOMPARABLY LOW LEVEL OF SKILL compared to melee. Until Evo2k8 goes by and we watch falco demolish snake and marth abuse autocancels you can't claim that 2 characters beat the rest.
Don't go out of your way to correct me if you are going to blurt obvious ignorance.
PS. speaking of tournament results IC used to be mid tier, and shiek used to be at the top.(until the very latest one, from which are you basing your entire arguement)

 

[Zankoku]

Fox-Falco-Sheik has practically always been in the top tier, in varying order. Evo2k8 proving something? So are their items and counterpickable stages supposed to be counted as part of the character balance, or something?

 

[D3w3y]

Well one thing I have noticed which seems to make brawl a bit more equally to melee is that speed does not have as great an impact on the effectiveness of a character.

Fox, Shiek, Falco, C. Falcon and Marth were all the best charaters in Melee and they possesed one major quality and that is extreme speed.

Now in brawl even though no true tier list has be created yet there is no one basic quality that owns all others as speed was in Melee.

Now yes maybe some time in the future certain charaters may rise well above the rest but hopefully they will be more dynamic in play style then in Melee.

In conclusion I feel a Snake vs. Meta Knight fight in brawl is more exciting than a Fox vs. Marth fight in melee due to the extremly different styles of play.

 

[Pink Reaper]

Well one thing I have noticed which seems to make brawl a bit more equally to melee is that speed does not have as great an impact on the effectiveness of a character.

Fox, Shiek, Falco, C. Falcon and Marth were all the best charaters in Melee and they possesed one major quality and that is extreme speed.

Now in brawl even though no true tier list has be created yet there is no one basic quality that owns all others as speed was in Melee.

Now yes maybe some time in the future certain charaters may rise well above the rest but hopefully they will be more dynamic in play style then in Melee.

In conclusion I feel a Snake vs. Meta Knight fight in brawl is more exciting than a Fox vs. Marth fight in melee due to the extremly different styles of play.

Why does no one ever bring up Peach? Ferserious, she's pretty beast in Melee and everyone just ignores her. And Falco's really not that fast horizontally speaking. He just makes up for it by pinning his opponents down with SHL.

Also, Snake Vs. Meta Knight is far from exciting. Its just Snake playing extremely defensively and Meta Knight playing exremely offensively. Sure, they're the polar opposite in terms of playstyle, but it doesn't actually make for an interesting match.

 

[JigglyZelda003]

Why does no one ever bring up Peach? Ferserious, she's pretty beast in Melee and everyone just ignores her. And Falco's really not that fast horizontally speaking. He just makes up for it by pinning his opponents down with SHL.

Also, Snake Vs. Meta Knight is far from exciting. Its just Snake playing extremely defensively and Meta Knight playing exremely offensively. Sure, they're the polar opposite in terms of playstyle, but it doesn't actually make for an interesting match.

lol yeah thats very boring to watch. also why does no one bring up peach?

 

[Miamisportsfan45]

This should have been more of a poll. Though, I do think it's more balanced than Melee. For various reasons.

 

[Smooth Criminal]

This should have been more of a poll. Though, I do think it's more balanced than Melee. For various reasons.

And your reasons...?

Smooth Criminal

 

[D3w3y]

Yes Peach was tough but kinda forgetable when you look at the power houses of melee, idk why though.

 

[Ekaru]

This should have been more of a poll. Though, I do think it's more balanced than Melee. For various reasons.

Counter these points, then:

1. Many characters can recover from almost anything without an edgeguard (horizontally, at least), while some CAN'T, meaning there are essentially three recovery tiers: Excellent, Average, and Sucky.

2. Often, characters with 'Sucky' recoveries are slow. =P

3. There are a few weak, slow characters. A few are powerful, but are slow enough that caution can be used to get an advantage with a quick character, or are screwed if they miss against Snake.

4. It's evident that the Brawl team must've been drunk at times in terms of balance. Nerfing CF = dumb, but even worse? Taking away a huge chunk of Yoshi's Super Armor frames during his double jump. What. The. Hell. Don't get me started on jigg's...

5. I doubt SJR and ISJR were intentional. But, I won't use that yet, since we won't find out if it's useful or not for quite a while. This is just to bring it up, but don't bother using this to argue yet. It may just be useless (though so far, it isn't for me. =P)

6. Aside from that, reducing hit stun by a LOT made quick land speed even MORE important when playing aggressively, heck, just quick speed in general, or another way to pressure (minds, anyone?).

7. Aside from speed being important and recoveries and other things out of whack, there's the fact that if a character doesn't have a way to maintain pressure after getting after a camping spammer, the spammer can run away easily, unshaken, at all, meaning a few characters are screwed. Pressure can be maintained by quick attacks, projectiles, ect.

So I say the balance at this point in the metagame is just a little bit above Melee as a whole. But it can go to either more balanced or the same balance IMO. We'll see.

 

[Fawriel]

Quoting two of my posts because I'm too lazy to repeat the points. In short, innate speed is more important in Brawl than it is in Melee. ( I know Snake isn't THAT fast, but the combination of range and strength is ridiculous enough to completely compensate for that. Pichu was fast, too, you know. )

I think anyone who followed this thread for a while should be able to agree with this. If Brawl isn't less balanced, it's still just about as balanced at best.

I'll try to come up with brief ways of summarizing what most people should be able to agree on, because it's apparently a hobby of mine to come up with exciting ways of making known how disappointed I am in a game that I wasted half a year of my life waiting for!


1) The difference between the lowest and top characters both in Melee and Brawl are ridiculous. Melee had one guy who's fast as lightning and kills before you know what hit you, while the lowest is slow, light and weak. Anyone who thought that these are balanced must have a few screws loose. And Brawl has a guy who's just absurd in every single respect and a guy who's absolutely lousy at everything and is still weaker than all the other faster heavyweights. Anyone who thinks that these are balanced must have a few screws loose.

2) L-canceling. Both games have a ridiculous difference in the usefulness of the top and bottom, but advanced techniques, available to everyone, evened it out in Melee. Especially l-canceling. Since useless characters are generally considered such due to slowness, it's simple math: If Fox's lag is 2, his l-canceled lag is 1, if Ganondorf's lag is 8, his l-canceled lag is 4.
In Brawl, Metaknight's lag is 0.2 and Ganondorf's lag is 120 and that's that.


... I forgot what I was going for here.

For now, that's probably true. People are still learning and all. There used to be a time when Ike was considered broken by many who kept walking into his fsmash. Now people got down the timing on that attack, the timing on their own attacks, and now Ike is considered a subpar character in the competitive scene.

In Brawl, the only things you can learn is timing and spacing along with the couple of techs that a bunch of characters have, and that's all. The metagame will quickly solidify, and soon the human factor will be largely eliminated. Once people get even more time to train with Metaknight, they will find the moves that will leave them open for practically no time at all while allowing them to combo and kill. Any and all Metaknight who gets this timing and spacing down will only be touched by either extremely fast and surprising attacks or fast attacks with a ton of range.
Captain Falcon has only slow attacks with little range, with few exceptions that will require him to hit MK hundreds of times to damage and knock back MK sufficiently to win the match...

Shortly put: I believe that once we really get the timing and spacing down on the good characters, it will for the first time in the series happen that a low tier character has practically no chance at all to defeat a sufficiently good god-tier character, no matter the skill gap.

 

[samai]

the infinite dodging and broken perfect sheild defensing makes combos almost non-existant except for the few that exist

Nice quote however I agree that in melee you didn't have much chance without a top tier character and in brawl you have a better chance but still not a great one

 

[TehBo49]

It's difficult to say, but I think Brawl is less balanced. I think in Melee, Pichu stood a better chance at beating Fox than Captain Falcon has of beating Snake in Brawl.

 

[JigglyZelda003]

It's difficult to say, but I think Brawl is less balanced. I think in Melee, Pichu stood a better chance at beating Fox than Captain Falcon has of beating Snake in Brawl.

poor CF is he really that bad now? and i miss pichu

 

[thumbswayup]

Captain Falcon is the worst character in Brawl.