Brawl - More balanced than Melee? Lie or truth?

[Smooth Criminal]

Don't forget Magnum or Caotic.

OSHI---

I totally forgot about Magnum.

*facepalm.*

And I didn't even know a "Caotic" existed. *GOES TO YOUTUBE.*

Thanks, Fletch.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Pierce7d]

Wow. As a PT main it's kind of annoying for me to see so many people overrating Squirtle. Why does everyone consider Squirtle good? He's like a Pichu that doesn't hurt himself. Seriously. He's got no range. Yeah, he's great with aerials...but in a game like Brawl, abusing aerials is just begging for you to be shield grabbed. Not only that, but because Squirtle needs to be an offensive character he will get tired a LOT quicker than if you are to use Ivysaur and Charizard. At least Ivysaur and Charizard have moves that work on the defensive. What does Squirtle have? Nearly useless B moves. His quick neutral A is probably the best thing about him. Hydroplanning is okay, I guess.

Honestly, Charizard is the best of the group. Even though he's big and he can get chained, Flamethrower and Rock Smash are awesome moves to have. Fly is quite a reliable recovery move, and fair is awesome for edgeguarding. Even if you don't send them far away with it you can still spike with dair. Fatigue isn't as bad with Charizard as it is with Squirtle and Ivysaur because of his weight and power. If Charizard's out, there's no need to switch to Squirtle. Squirtle and Ivysaur cannot say the same thing because of their weight and Ivysaur's fear of being off the stage.


Ivysaur...I like Ivysaur. I won't lie. She lacks reliable kill moves, but she can tank and space pretty well...and much love for Bullet Seed.

So yeah. I love Pokemon Trainer. I love Squirtle, Ivysaur and Charizard. Each of them are useful in their own ways, and they are also flawed. But I beg of you...if you don't even use PT, stop overrating Squirtle. He's not the best of the three.

Sorry to make my entry post off topic, but I LOLed at this. Squirtle is BY FAR the best Pokemon. My brother plays around with PT (he knows what he's doing, how to play each Pokemon, etc) and I main Marth and 2nd Falco.

I have NO DIFFICULTY whatsoever owning Ivysuar and Charizard ever, and I generally lose the first stock first when he starts with Squirtle.

Manuveurablility + Mindgames + Speed and ability to land solid hits + Moves that come out quick + ANY SQUIRTLE PLAYER THAT KNOWS SPACING AT ALL SHOULD NOT GET SHIELD-GRABBED BECAUSE OF HIS AMAZING WEAVING + pseudo combos + HE CAN KO if not tired (He has a finisher throw) + a win Dsmash

Ivysaur is jugglable, and all you really have to do is toss him off the side and hog that edge.

Charizard is viable, primarily because of Rock Smash, but the sheer ease in hitting him, and the fact that it's so easy to see everything he's about to do makes him not great, and FLY IS HORRIBLE RECOVERY, which means that you have to recover high which Charizard, and it's retardedly easy to bat him out the sky/edgeguard him.

All of that being said, PT will always be less than good because ALL PT pokemon have horrible recoveries. Waterfall needs more range, Fly . . . needs more range, lol. And tether recoveries are just second rate at best.

Both Snake and Metaknight have awesome recoveries btw. Actually, Metaknight has 4 awesome recoveries, (Tornadoing to land safely, Dimensioning to Edge or Land semi safely w/mindgames, Drilling to Land w/super armor, Shuttle Looping to Edge or Land w/Gimping & Gliding/Glide attack) and that's not even counting his multiple jumps and natural glide.

Snake's UpB gives him suoer armor, has great vertical range, and has great vertical range, and that's besides C4 to give him is UpB again is just a win. Offensively, Snake and Metaknight own pretty much everything PT can do.

I'm sorry, but just because of hypothetical versatility, doesn't automatically make PT the best character in the game.

Now, to get on topic, I'd say Brawl is more balanced than Melee, simply because . . .
A) There are few combos. This means few 0 to death KOs, and characters are not simply at a disadvantage due to lack of combos

B) As proven by the "pseudo tiers" both heavy and lightweight characters can prevail. Top characters include Snake and D3 (heavyweights) Rob, Falco, and Marth (Midweights), as well as G&W and Metaknight (lightweights)

C) Brawl is defensive, as opposed to Melee's hyper offensive playstyle. Shield is almost always one of your best options, and every character can shield very effectively. While it is true that you can get retardedly campy in Brawl, this is nothing in comparison to the hyper offensive advantages some characters had in Melee.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

The result matters, not the way how that result came to be.

Using Gimpyfish's Bowser as an example is just plain stupid, cos everyone knows, that he's the best Bowser out there. The fact that he never got higher than top10 rankings in tourneys and that he even admits himself that Bowser is bad, tells us a lot about Gimpys skills, not about Bowsers possiblities. Otherwise he'd have won in tourneys against pros, who used - well - better characters. On the other hand, we all know that Gimpy would win against a vast majority of players. That doesn't prove Bowsers quality in the slightest. It only shows, that only a tiny fraction of players can keep up with Gimpy's skills.

In Brawl it's just the same, just in a much higher qualily. There are lots of pros, who don't win with their mains (unless it's Sbake or MK) in tourneys, no matter how good they are.

It was proof anyone can be played well, but the value of each character is still weighed differently.

I'm not arguing there is no tier list or that Bowser is godly amazing using Gimpyfish as proof. I'm stating any character has the potential to be played well, it's up to the players to get them that far.

Is Bowser a poor character in Melee? Yes. Does that mean no one can play him well, no.

You don't top 8 with Captain Falcon in Brawl? then you either practice and try again or pick up another character.

 

[The Halloween Captain]

- Yuna

adjusting to a character is not about knowing the potential of a character, and having experience battling said character. Rather, it is about learning the specific style of your opponent, and responding to how that individual plays the character. However, most pros will have 1/3 the experience battling each PT pokemon, because each pokemon is only out 1/3 of the time, as compared to other characters who remain for the entire battle (such as Snake). Also, the PT AI is terrible, and while probably viable at the "battling level 3s" tactic, is totally useless when it comes to form, as the AI only switches because it is forced to or its pokemon are tired.

- For everyone else

Pokemon Trainer is a very difficult character to learn, by far the hardest in the game. Its like trying to learn Zelda and shiek at the same time by swapping between them 6 times a battle. Only PT is harder because there are three characters, not two. A good Charzard uses Glide for recovery more than fly, and quite a few Charzards will use F-air. But that is not the important point.

Because PT is the hardest character in a few month old game, it cannot be assumed that pros took serious time to learn him. All that is known is that PT does bad in tournaments. However, few intelligent players could assume themselves to have the experience to bring PT into a tournament at a viable level, even in five months. That is because learning PT is like learning 3 mains at the same time. It cannot be expected that PT will be taken seriously at such an early point in the game's metagame, because he is too difficult for anyone to truely main and be best at currently.

 

[Fawriel]

A) There are few combos. This means few 0 to death KOs, and characters are not simply at a disadvantage due to lack of combos

B) As proven by the "pseudo tiers" both heavy and lightweight characters can prevail. Top characters include Snake and D3 (heavyweights) Rob, Falco, and Marth (Midweights), as well as G&W and Metaknight (lightweights)

C) Brawl is defensive, as opposed to Melee's hyper offensive playstyle. Shield is almost always one of your best options, and every character can shield very effectively. While it is true that you can get retardedly campy in Brawl, this is nothing in comparison to the hyper offensive advantages some characters had in Melee.

A) I will just say that it is completely the other way round. Try thinking about it. It's a pure issue of logic.

B) ...so?

C) I'm sure that makes the game a lot more fun.
But that's not the issue right now, so. The defensiveness makes the game more unbalanced. Why? Because any character who has landing lag on his aerials will get shieldgrabbed and any character who has lag after their attacks will get shieldgrabbed, unless they have range all over the place. Guess why Captain Falcon is often considered the worst character.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Tell me, how much of this **** was just "novelty"? Bum is a great player, sure. I've seen some of his stuff. But how much of this "****" which everyone feared and screamed about occured early on in his career and kinda ebbed out as people learned to deal with Donkey Kong as fastfallers?

Novelty? So, when a player does good, its "novelty"? Is that really your entire defense, that eventually people should have figured out DK? Bum beat Chu/PC/Isai in tournaments between spring-summer 2007, and basically stopped going to tournaments after the summer of 2007, and in his entire career his lowest placement IIRC was 4th or 5th. A career that started prior to 2007. Saying "Bum is a great player, sure" is just humoring the argument, you don't actually believe he was a great player if you believe his success was "novelty", I'm calling you on this one.

 

[MysticKenji]

stuff about PT

You do know that Marth has the advantage on PT, right?
Also, your personal experience doesn't count since we don't know how good you are.

Now, to get on topic, I'd say Brawl is more balanced than Melee, simply because . . .
A) There are few combos. This means few 0 to death KOs, and characters are not simply at a disadvantage due to lack of combos

No.
I shouldn't even have to explain why this is wrong.

B) As proven by the "pseudo tiers" both heavy and lightweight characters can prevail. Top characters include Snake and D3 (heavyweights) Rob, Falco, and Marth (Midweights), as well as G&W and Metaknight (lightweights)

Your point is?
There are characters in all those classes who are at the bottom as well.

C) Brawl is defensive, as opposed to Melee's hyper offensive playstyle. Shield is almost always one of your best options, and every character can shield very effectively. While it is true that you can get retardedly campy in Brawl, this is nothing in comparison to the hyper offensive advantages some characters had in Melee.

All this means is that characters now have hyper defensive advantages, instead of offensive ones.

 

[gantrain05]

just so im clear on this, how the hell does personal experience not count? if nobodys personal experience counted we wouldn't have tier lists, rankings, or any sort of system, it would be all, ZOMG GANON LOOKS SO KOOL and **** like that which would determine character strengths and weaknesses, and nobody could ever argue about game balance, thats just stupid to say personal experience doesn't count when that is really the only way to find anything out.

 

[Yukiwarashi]

Sorry to make my entry post off topic, but I LOLed at this. Squirtle is BY FAR the best Pokemon. My brother plays around with PT (he knows what he's doing, how to play each Pokemon, etc) and I main Marth and 2nd Falco.

I have NO DIFFICULTY whatsoever owning Ivysuar and Charizard ever, and I generally lose the first stock first when he starts with Squirtle.

Manuveurablility + Mindgames + Speed and ability to land solid hits + Moves that come out quick + ANY SQUIRTLE PLAYER THAT KNOWS SPACING AT ALL SHOULD NOT GET SHIELD-GRABBED BECAUSE OF HIS AMAZING WEAVING + pseudo combos + HE CAN KO if not tired (He has a finisher throw) + a win Dsmash

Ivysaur is jugglable, and all you really have to do is toss him off the side and hog that edge.

Charizard is viable, primarily because of Rock Smash, but the sheer ease in hitting him, and the fact that it's so easy to see everything he's about to do makes him not great, and FLY IS HORRIBLE RECOVERY, which means that you have to recover high which Charizard, and it's retardedly easy to bat him out the sky/edgeguard him.

All of that being said, PT will always be less than good because ALL PT pokemon have horrible recoveries. Waterfall needs more range, Fly . . . needs more range, lol. And tether recoveries are just second rate at best.

....The fact that you have a problem with Squirtle using Marth is the most LOL worthy thing here.

 

[ShadowLink84]

Personal experience=one person's experience
Collective experience=everyone else's
personal=/=useful during tierlist making, rankings, anything
Collective experience=useful


Simply because working with only 1 piece of data is not enough.
Not only that but even when we have that collective experience it has to be put tot he test.

If Character A can counter Character B with X,y,Z
But in a tournament Character B ***** character A with Q,R,S, then the knowledge acquired may have been off, or simply the skill factor was too great a difference.


There is alot more than just personal experience.

 

[gantrain05]

Personal experience=one person's experience
Collective experience=everyone else's
personal=/=useful during tierlist making, rankings, anything
Collective experience=useful


Simply because working with only 1 piece of data is not enough.
Not only that but even when we have that collective experience it has to be put tot he test.

If Character A can counter Character B with X,y,Z
But in a tournament Character B ***** character A with Q,R,S, then the knowledge acquired may have been off, or simply the skill factor was too great a difference.


There is alot more than just personal experience.

collective experience is nothing more than putting everyone elses personal experiences together, like i said, w/out personal experience there is nothing, thats the basic building block of all of this stuff.

 

[Digimonkey]

likes < dislikes
brawl is unbalanced

 

[RDK]

collective experience is nothing more than putting everyone elses personal experiences together, like i said, w/out personal experience there is nothing, thats the basic building block of all of this stuff.

The problem is that collective experience tends to be believed more than when one person comes into an online forum and claims that his Captain Falcon destroyed a bunch of Snakes at a tourney, and went on to take 1st place.

The point is how VIABLE said personal experience is. The collective data isn't simply everyone and their mother's experience all thrown into one--it's a bunch of verified, credible information all thrown into one. Information from tournies.

Besides, using Azen Zagenite as an example to say that Lucario destroys MK in every possible matchup is not a sound argument at all. When conducting things like tier lists and matchup charts, it helps to be as clinical as possible.

The fact remains that Azen, and a few other people, are the minority when it comes to doing things like this (placing well in tournaments using Lucario). People forget that other things factor in, too (how big was the tournament? who else was there? what other characters were used?).

 

[Yuna]

And I didn't even know a "Caotic" existed. *GOES TO YOUTUBE.*

Caotic is Australian, maybe that's why. Nobody ever expects the Australian Inquisition.

adjusting to a character is not about knowing the potential of a character, and having experience battling said character. Rather, it is about learning the specific style of your opponent, and responding to how that individual plays the character. However, most pros will have 1/3 the experience battling each PT pokemon, because each pokemon is only out 1/3 of the time, as compared to other characters who remain for the entire battle (such as Snake). Also, the PT AI is terrible, and while probably viable at the "battling level 3s" tactic, is totally useless when it comes to form, as the AI only switches because it is forced to or its pokemon are tired.

Having experience against a character and knowing about their potential has you know about what styles one can play said characters in. You can't just randomly make up a style nobody's ever heard of even thought of unless the game just came out.

A few years into the game, people will know how one can play Lucario. There will be no "Surprise Style!" coming out of Lucario are 2 years against good players because most things will already be known. And if there are surprises, then it will stop being a surprise once it's been used and people know about it.

Using the same logic, what's to stop me from being "creative" with Zelda and ****** everyone after pioneering a new Zelda-combo that guarantees a Lightning Kick from every single move Zelda has? I mean, it probably won't happen, but I can just go "But it can! If they're unfamiliar with the matchup/if I find something no one's thought of!" and according to that logic, Zelda should be Top Tier and the game is really balanced since you could maybe make up "creative" ways to play everyone in order to win...

Most pros will have the intelligence to learn how to face all three. Your entire argument is still based on unfamiliarity with the matchup.

Nobody cares about people who are unfamiliar to certain matchups. No, stop using this as an argument now.

Novelty? So, when a player does good, its "novelty"? Is that really your entire defense, that eventually people should have figured out DK? Bum beat Chu/PC/Isai in tournaments between spring-summer 2007, and basically stopped going to tournaments after the summer of 2007, and in his entire career his lowest placement IIRC was 4th or 5th. A career that started prior to 2007. Saying "Bum is a great player, sure" is just humoring the argument, you don't actually believe he was a great player if you believe his success was "novelty", I'm calling you on this one.

I asked how much of the **** was part of the novelty. **** implies winning by a large margin. Did Bum consistently 2- and 3-stock credible fastfallers for over a year? Did the **** levels stay the same or did they go down more and more as people had more time to devise counter-strategies?

My "defense" is Donkey Kong is a good character to use against the fastfallers. But it's not a "****" matchup. Eventually, Isai would've figured out how to not be forced to suicide his last stock against him.

 

[ShadowLink84]

collective experience is nothing more than putting everyone elses personal experiences together, like i said, w/out personal experience there is nothing, thats the basic building block of all of this stuff.

Ecept that one individuals experience means nothing.

It is the collective, the whole, the entire data set that matters most.


If the collective disagrees with the individual, there is a pretty **** good reason why it disagrees.
one can say personal experience is the building block, but in truth by itself it means nothing and must be a whole in order to matter.


This whole is even stronger when the tourney results agree.

 

[The Halloween Captain]

- Yuna
You know how a player's style is much better against someone they've played 100 times than someone they played once? The Pokemon Trainer gets more time to learn the opponent's style than the opponent gets to learn each pokemon's style individually.

You can also make the human assumption that when one person overhauls their method of play six times in a match, even if their opponent have the matchup well known, it will throw off the opponent's playstyle. People almost always set up certain patterns for facing opponents. Every time the Pokemon Trainer swaps, the old pattern needs to be overhauled to face the new pokemon's playstyle. If the mental swap is anything less than completed instantaneously, the Pokemon Trainer is given an advantage for at least a few seconds in which the other player is changing their method of fighting to face the new pokemon's style. A good Pokemon Trainer will be well trained in changing his style immediately, however, because he is expected to do so about seven or eight times a match.

Before you say pros are well trained to do this instantaneous mental alteration, I will point out that it is hard to get practice to do this, because PT is used by very few people well and a terrible AI is used for CPU Pokemon trainers, an AI that disreguards the competitively-viable timings for Pokeswap. It is also not something that has ever been necesary to learn in melee, as you were given time prior to the match to decide what to do against every opponent. Sheik battles don't really count, as so few people considered her down-B a viable option. Also, before informing me what pro players would do in this situation, consider the fact that they are as human as you and me, and while they possess a vast knowledge of Smash, it is obtained through matches, in which properly used Pokemon Trainers have been rare finds.

 

[Dastardly Dylan]

Hmmm..... Well, by "balanced" do you mean how much smoother it is in Brawl than Melee? or how it's better? I can get a better understanding if I could just figure out what you mean.

 

[IrArby]

How is learning PT's three different (****ty, kinda ****ty, and ok) characters at all a difficult feat? How many characters do you play in Brawl? Picking up a new character in Smash has never been easier. And instead of mentally preparing themselves for the not-so-near instanteous change of playstyle, Pros could just charge a Fsmash and crush Ivy/Char/Squirt as soon as they change. Even if PT did have the advantage of having 3 distinct styles, once PT mains started doing well, everyone would figure out how to fight those playstyles accordingly since niether of the characters are by themselves impressive. They aren't very good characters and the style change would be their only advantage. Otherwise, their crappy compared to the tops.

Also, Brawl is not about combos. Its about who can punish (hopefully with one large hit or a few powerful jabs) and not be punished in return. As Fawriel said slow/laggy characters aren't made more viable they are just more susceptible to being shieldgrabbed or else shielded and punished during their lagtime.
The best characters are able to get their one, two, or three hits in without being hit back (because they have insane priority) and aren't KO'ed unless they hit the wall or ceiling because their recoveries are that good. Thus. those characters wouldn't include the slow or large.

 

[The Halloween Captain]

Why do you think that there is a difference in the level of viability between the three Pokemon? They play almost at exactly the same level. I am going to try to respond to your points, but you really need to brush up on your Pokemon Trainer, IrArby.

Normally when picking up three characters, you pick three that you like, and who's playstyle you have a lot of potential to learn. With Pokemon Trainer, you are stuck with three mediocre characters with radically different playstyles that together are superior to any one of them by itself. What adds another level of difficulty is that Pokemon Trainers need to learn how to switch pokemon without being F-smashed. This is probably their single greatest concern, and they are not going to just let Snake RPG their faces off. Instead, a Pokemon Trainer waits for the best moment possible for a switch, and can often end up spending more time trying to knock their opponent far enough for a switch than time spent actually trying to KO an opponent. Their change tactic is a huge advantage, and is the reason why the PT as a whole is a much higher tier than any individual pokemon. The right pokemon for the right situation - That is how the Pokemon Trainer plays.

While I agree with most of you second paragraph, IrArby, D3 and Snake are both quite large and do well in their matches.

 

[Endless Nightmares]

Also, Brawl is not about combos. Its about who can punish (hopefully with one large hit or a few powerful jabs) and not be punished in return. As Fawriel said slow/laggy characters aren't made more viable they are just more susceptible to being shieldgrabbed or else shielded and punished during their lagtime.

I beat Metaknights by shieldgrabbing. But then again I use Dedede so maybe it's not the best example lol

 

[AlexX]

Also, Brawl is not about combos. Its about who can punish (hopefully with one large hit or a few powerful jabs) and not be punished in return. As Fawriel said slow/laggy characters aren't made more viable they are just more susceptible to being shieldgrabbed or else shielded and punished during their lagtime.

Can't characters at least somewhat avoid this by spacing properly?

The best characters are able to get their one, two, or three hits in without being hit back (because they have insane priority) and aren't KO'ed unless they hit the wall or ceiling because their recoveries are that good. Thus. those characters wouldn't include the slow or large.

So how does Dedede factor into this?

 

[IrArby]

Halloween Captain: I think theres a difference between the viability of the 3 Poke's cause there is. Plain and simple. Brushing up on PT would be a waste of my time.
The main point that your missing here is that 3 mediocre chars are NOT better than one (if that one char is high on the tier list). You're not adding 3 chars together to get one good character. Instead, your choosing between 3 crummy-fair characters and fighting them individually. The sum of the whole is NOT greater than the parts becausee their is no sum. You don't add them you just pick one of the three.

You made the point that a PT's huge advantage comes from the different playstyles that you can interchange. However, if the greatest challenge that you face as PT main is being able to even use your suppossed greatest strength, than your opponent has only got to stop your from switching Pokemon or at least punish you if you do which is, as you say, is all to easy for them to do.

Lets do a Walkthrough: PT starts with Char against a Snake. The match starts out ok but Snake quickly figures out your gameplan and slightly (and I do mean slightly) changes the application of his status quo moves (Snake Dashing, Ftilt, jabs, etc.). So, since Snake has now exploited your weaker metagame, you decide to switch (assuming you didn't already get KO'ed which you probably did). You do your best to gain space and transform but Snake knows how to fight you now and has no reason to give you space since he's winning now right? Maybe you miraculously escape punishment, maybe you don't. The cycle then repeats.
Whatever you might say, Snake is a
MUCH better character than any of the Pokemon individually and you can only fight with one at a time. Sorry PT mains but you lose here. Even if you manage to throw the change up, Snake has the luxury of being able to survive numerous mistakes and still win. He's still got more than enought time to figure out how to kill Ivy after owning your Char for the last stock.

As for Snake being large/slow he is neither and he also posseses the other criteria that I described as winning characteristics. The start time for some of D3's moves aren't all that slow nor is he really and his grab replaces high priority attacks as his approach. I honestly don't know much about D3s in general though so I can't tell you exactly while he's still good.

AlexX: I hope to some extent this ^^ answers your query about D3 though as I say I don't play him or know much about his metagame other than his CG, Bair, D3cide, and Goonspam.

56k: If you beat MKs by shieldgrabbing than its obvious that you played defensively where as a smart MK would have made you play offensively by using less punishable and more annoying moves like Tornado, and DrillRush rather than standard aerials. Also, a revolutionary method to avoid shieldgrabbing is to actually land behind your opponent.

 

[Revolutionary1804]

IrArby: you need to stop acting like you know how to play every dam character. i told you soemthing about falcon you refuted it... i doubt you ever touched ffalcon. People are telling you different opinions on PT and no you already knwo that they suck... i doubt you have played PT.
in the same way that you dnt know the fullest extent or even how to you the characters your speaking of (higly probable) many other players don't and so techniques for these characters have yet to be posted or shown or even discovered.
you even answered 56k as though he were plying scrubs, come on now don't try and talk down to everyone because they don't agree with you.
Snake is actually a slow character, name me the moves besides ftilt jab and utilt that are fast.....

 

[Zankoku]

Boost usmash, dash attack, dtilt, grab, bair, uair?

 

[ShadowLink84]

Snip

No one cares for the whole flame thing of yadda yadda your opinion doesn't count, your behavior sucks yadda yadda thing.

MOvingon

Snake is actually a slow character, name me the moves besides ftilt jab and utilt that are fast.....

Bair, Uair, Dair.
Usmash, grenades.


He is not a slow character. He is actually quite quick at times.

And yes what he said true, an MK forces you to be offensive, if they are in range for a shield grab its probably because they are making an error.
not many characters can force Mk into positions for a shieldgrab.

 

[Metà]

@ people defending PT:

Adding three mediocre characters together like that does not make it a good character. This isn't simple arithmetic, it doesn't work like that. At any given point in time you will be playing a mediocre character, and that's what matters. Sure each of them has different strengths and weaknesses, but if one character does better than the others in a given match-up, why would you ever need to switch? If you did switch, you'd be putting yourself at an advantage. PT is a gimmicky character and it's by far the dumbest character addition to Brawl. You might as well go ahead and pick ONE sh*tty character and not be bothered with the switching. Or better yet: play a better character.

Anyways, that issue aside, I don't really have much to contribute to the discussion of 'balance' really, because I don't care if it's more balanced, the game just isn't as fun to me. If anything we don't even really need to talk much about character advantages and balance as we do general gameplay balance. Being overly defensive, camping, turtling, etc. is one of the most prevalent strategies in the competitive meta-game atm and I really don't think it will change much, because the game itself isn't going to change. We'll still have no L-cancelling, no combos, terrible throws, a lot of sh*tty characters, crazy recoveries, a horribly floaty and glitchy physics/game engine, few approach options, and Snake.

What I'm trying to say is, there isn't a balance between offense and defense in general, push and pull. Brawl has too much defense, 64 had too much offense, and Melee struck the best balance out of all three in that regard, which I think is really what counts, since it applies to ALL characters.

In fact, I enjoy 64 a lot more than Brawl, even though it's horribly broken, know why? Because it's broken in a way that's fun to me; I like intense pressure game and ridiculous combos, and I have fun with it. I could try playing Brawl for a year as much as I did with Melee, get better at it, and maybe even I'd realize it was more balanced than I thought. But I won't.

 

[Falconv1.0]

@ people defending PT:

Adding three mediocre characters together like that does not make it a good character. This isn't simple arithmetic, it doesn't work like that.

^Ehe, this.

Well, now I think the better question is who truly is tourney viable. I'm beyond pissed at the fact that people believe it's nothing but Mk or snake. :/

 

[Metà]

^Ehe, this.

Well, now I think the better question is who truly is tourney viable. I'm beyond pissed at the fact that people believe it's nothing but Mk or snake. :/

I haven't played any of them that much tbh, but I think Charizard or Squirtle could be decent. I mean, we probably won't be seeing a lot of PT's placing high in tournaments, but I'm pretty sure the ones that do will use Ivysaur for as little time as possible. I just don't see much potential in that character.

And of course Snake and MK aren't the only tourney viable characters, but they are quite broken. I hate to admit but atm there definitely are more tournament viable characters than in Melee, but my point still remains that the core gameplay is unbalanced. No matter who people win with, you'll mostly just see the same strategies over and over again, and the videos will still be just as boring to watch.

And we still won't have any real combos besides CG's and infinites. >_<

 

[AlexX]

No matter who people win with, you'll mostly just see the same strategies over and over again, and the videos will still be just as boring to watch.

Maybe it's just me, but I've seen characters played quite a few different ways. For example, I've seen Toon Links that are campy and abuse projectiles, and others that like to get in your face and play the pressure game. Likewise, some Olimars focus on getting you off the edge and then using his tether to protect the edge, while others focus on using their aerials to build up damage, and others still focus on his grabs and groundgame for damage and KOs.

And we still won't have any real combos besides CG's and infinites. >_<

There's still combos, they just won't be dealing more than 30% damage or so at a time.

 

[Metà]

Yes, I'm aware Brawl is a fairly deep game, and everyone plays differently, but at a high level play, it will usually come down to whoever is more defensive and plays the most conservatively. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I find it incredibly boring both to play and to watch. : /

 

[Fawriel]

PT is a gimmicky character and it's by far the dumbest character addition to Brawl.

Now this is something I have to contest. PT is the best character addition... if you see the game not as a fighter, but as a get-together of Nintendo's Allstars. PT is the true protagonist of the Pokemon games and his gimmicky gameplay is a pretty brilliant representation of the games.
The only problem is that Sakurai is a god**** idiot who actively tried not to make the Pokemon too strong individually. >_>
Squirtle needs a longer recovery and Water Gun needs to do some good damage, Charizard needs more horizontal air speed and fair needs to be a better approach against grounded opponents, and voila, you've got some good characters.
... well, and Ivysaur kinda needs a completely rewritten moveset. There's no single thing you can do to make her/him good, the moveset is just too disjointed...

... I'm ranting! The point is, PT good, Sakurai bad. Cookies godly.

 

[Corigames]

There's still combos, they just won't be dealing more than 30% damage or so at a time.

Unless you are Snake or Ike. Then you do more than 30% in two hits.

 

[Dark Sonic]

Unless you are Snake or Ike. Then you do more than 30% in two hits.

16% Jabs FTW.

To bad Ike sucks and Snake is amazing. Startup lag is indeed the worst kind of lag to have.

 

[Corigames]

The very most true there is.

 

[The Halloween Captain]

Now this is something I have to contest. PT is the best character addition... if you see the game not as a fighter, but as a get-together of Nintendo's Allstars. PT is the true protagonist of the Pokemon games and his gimmicky gameplay is a pretty brilliant representation of the games.
The only problem is that Sakurai is a god**** idiot who actively tried not to make the Pokemon too strong individually. >_>
Squirtle needs a longer recovery and Water Gun needs to do some good damage, Charizard needs more horizontal air speed and fair needs to be a better approach against grounded opponents, and voila, you've got some good characters.
... well, and Ivysaur kinda needs a completely rewritten moveset. There's no single thing you can do to make her/him good, the moveset is just too disjointed...

... I'm ranting! The point is, PT good, Sakurai bad. Cookies godly.

Ummm... Ivysaur is actually argued to be the best of the three pokemon, with some of the best areals in the game (unfortunately often overshadowed by its awful recovery) and its bullet seed attack to rack up quick damage. Squirtle's uncharged water gun DOES do damage, although it unfortunately doesn't have the full-charge water gun range. While I can't really disagree about charzard's air speed, his F-tilt is an extremely viable approach option.

Also, IrArby, very few PTs actually start matches with Charzard. His heavy weight makes him more appropriate to end a stock with, rather than begin one. Pokemon Trainer users do not rely on luck to prepare for swaps, but rather practice techniques for getting opponents too far away to stop them. These include Squirtle's water gun and up-smash, Ivysaur's smashes (limitedly) and areals, and Charzard's Fair and Rock Smash (though very few people choose to switch Charzard out). While Squirlte's up-smash is rarely a viable option, another common tactic is ledge-hogging with Squirlte's Wall of Pain maneuvers until a swap is viable.

The pokemon DO NOT add together. Sorry if my choice of words is confusing. They TAG TEAM TOGETHER, swaping in a more viable pokemon than the previous to get KOs. Squitle is great at damage, not so much at KOs. Ivysaur is balanced, and was intended to counter air loving opponents. Charzard is heavy, powerful, and intended to KO easily, but not land as many hits necesarily as Squirtle. When used in order, they are superior to only having one option for character choice. The primary reason for the swap is to increase the PT's viable options beyond those of most other characters, and this enables the PT to compensate for the fact that any individual pokemon is not by itself superior to Snake.

 

[Fawriel]

Ummm... Ivysaur is actually argued to be the best of the three pokemon, with some of the best areals in the game (unfortunately often overshadowed by its awful recovery) and its bullet seed attack to rack up quick damage. Squirtle's uncharged water gun DOES do damage, although it unfortunately doesn't have the full-charge water gun range. While I can't really disagree about charzard's air speed, his F-tilt is an extremely viable approach option.

Each of the three Pokemon is argued to be the best by some people... Ivysaur's greatest weakness is indeed the recovery, which is so lousy because of its very nature as a tether... hence in order to become good, Ivysaur would have to have one move at least completely changed, or every other move improved in order to make recovery its only significant weakness...
I dunno, Ivysaur is awkward. The projectile's nice, but also a little too slow and short-ranged, up-smash is strong but slow and attacks that attack above are extremely hard to hit with in this game, Bullet Seed is situational... Ivysaur is pretty cool, but I get the feeling that Sakurai wasn't really sure what he was going for when he designed it.


Also, it could be argued that PT kinda adds up the way you said. Except he doesn't because of all the factors that force a switch, a switch in a forced order. They should have allowed you to hold a direction in order to choose the next Pokemon.

 

[Da Man]

Just to anwser the topic title yes I think Brawl is very balanced.
I just defeted a very good Ike player with Mr Game & Watch twice.

 

[Fletch]

Just to anwser the topic title yes I think Brawl is very balanced.
I just defeted a very good Ike player with Mr Game & Watch twice.

Have you read anything on personal experience in this thread not mattering? Not to mention that G&W is a vastly better character than Ike anyways.

 

[Revolutionary1804]

Just to anwser the topic title yes I think Brawl is very balanced.
I just defeted a very good Ike player with Mr Game & Watch twice.

...what does this mean?

 

[The Halloween Captain]

Just to anwser the topic title yes I think Brawl is very balanced.
I just defeted a very good Ike player with Mr Game & Watch twice.

Have you read anything on personal experience in this thread not mattering? Not to mention that G&W is a vastly better character than Ike anyways.

Fletch? Da Man was being sarcastic. He was pointing out how he beat someone who was really good with a top tier character almost entirely because his character was better.