Character Competitive Impressions

[RedCap-BlueSpikes]

Final 1.0.7 Tier Guess List

1v1, no customs, ordered within each level:

:'c

I've noticed that Palutena has slowly been falling down your tier-lists (that includes your customs -on lists) over the months. I'm curious, why is that? Her results in customs-off tourneys seem to be improving and I remember you saying "there's no way she's bottom 5" not too long ago.

 

[Luco]

The way I see things, Ganon's customs help him in select MUs where they can be used against an aspect of the opponent's kit effectively, whereas in other MUs it's more just an experience factor. I've really struggled with WD before for instance (thanks @ adom4 ), but Ness' gameplan against Ganon (at least in neutral) doesn't necessarily get screwed by WD being in, and so it's more just if Ness doesn't expect it he gets hit and if he does then he punishes it like he would normal WF.

I'm a bit tired so I think I'm conveying this more simplistically than I'd like. Maybe I'm horribly wrong. Any ganon main can feel free to correct me.

Oh also Thinkaman I must say I'm more than a little sceptical of Luigi as #2. I feel he has certain difficult match-ups and generally may not be as good as Diddy or Rosa. Also are his results as consistent as the others in top 5 in various regions?

 

[LiteralGrill]

Technically tierlists aren't even supposed to be posted here (unless your name is Capps).

#shotsfired...? I do understand I have a very special case for my lists, and I figured this is as good a time as any to thank the mods for understanding and continuing to let me do these here.

Anyways, on the subject of the thread a bit more, Mii Swordfighter rant rant rant. I do get that Trela is one of the only reasons people were looking at the character now, it just bothers me it took so long. I don't think he's in the top lier levels but he really isn't some junk character either. It was awesome to see him against Aerolink to show some of those tools he has to deal with strong contenders, and I really want to get my fingers in shape to start performing myself. We'll see if I can.

 

[bc1910]

I used to think Mega Man was a top 15 character without question. After the initial "Mega Man is bad" stuff at release, and the buffs he received in the 1.0.4 patch, it became apparent to me and tons of others players how good MM could actually be. His long range isn't as good as we expected yet his mid-range is top notch, and he can be a nightmare MU for a lot of characters including good ones like Luigi.

Lately though I've just been really underwhelmed by some of Mega Man's qualities. He seems to struggle to kill without powershield Utilt, which in fairness is an excellent option but it'll get harder to land as people respect it more at high percent. I don't think lemons zone every character particularly well, and his damage output is a bit on the low side. Perhaps most importantly, MM's results aren't as good as I thought they would be at this stage.

I still think ZeRo put MM laughably low on his tier list, but MM seems like a probably-top-20 character to me now, rather than definitely-top-15.

 

[TTTTTsd]

#shotsfired...? I do understand I have a very special case for my lists, and I figured this is as good a time as any to thank the mods for understanding and continuing to let me do these here.

Anyways, on the subject of the thread a bit more, Mii Swordfighter rant rant rant. I do get that Trela is one of the only reasons people were looking at the character now, it just bothers me it took so long. I don't think he's in the top lier levels but he really isn't some junk character either. It was awesome to see him against Aerolink to show some of those tools he has to deal with strong contenders, and I really want to get my fingers in shape to start performing myself. We'll see if I can.

I think he meant it literally as in your stuff is community voted and stuff, and isn't just like, out of the blue. It's regularly updated/reevaluated and all that, and it's promoted good discussion.

At least I think so.

 

[adom4]

The way I see things, Ganon's customs help him in select MUs where they can be used against an aspect of the opponent's kit effectively, whereas in other MUs it's more just an experience factor. I've really struggled with WD before for instance (thanks @ adom4 ), but Ness' gameplan against Ganon (at least in neutral) doesn't necessarily get screwed by WD being in, and so it's more just if Ness doesn't expect it he gets hit and if he does then he punishes it like he would normal WF.

I'm a bit tired so I think I'm conveying this more simplistically than I'd like. Maybe I'm horribly wrong. Any ganon main can feel free to correct me.

The more i play against Ness the more i'm starting to prefer default kick over dropkick for him, the faster start up & the fact that it doesn't have that weird angle helps a lot against Ness.

 

[Ikes]

hypothetical question, but what would the game be like if landing an aerial/being hit by an aerial gave you your extra jump back?

How different would tier lists look?
characters like jigglypuff would obviously be able to manage infinite WoP if timed properly, so I imagine that'd bump jiggly up a huge margin, especially considering her strong aerial game and mobility, Kirby would probably get a big boost, but how hard would this impact the game?

 

[Thinkaman]

:'c

I've noticed that Palutena has slowly been falling down your tier-lists (that includes your customs -on lists) over the months. I'm curious, why is that? Her results in customs-off tourneys seem to be improving and I remember you saying "there's no way she's bottom 5" not too long ago.

Tbqh, it's really that my impressions of other "bottom" characters have been improving. People are also adapting to Super Speed slightly better than I originally expected

#shotsfired...? I do understand I have a very special case for my lists, and I figured this is as good a time as any to thank the mods for understanding and continuing to let me do these here.

Lists are only as good as the discussion they generate. I'm hoping that this discussion is an example of how to do such properly. (Capps's community-driven lists are also quite good at this, as are Shaya's topical lists that tend to confront particular questions.)

I see it like a thesis defense, of sorts. You don't get to just, say what you think and wander off. You have to stand tall, and let the world take punches at you.

hypothetical question, but what would the game be like if landing an aerial/being hit by an aerial gave you your extra jump back?

How different would tier lists look?
characters like jigglypuff would obviously be able to manage infinite WoP if timed properly, so I imagine that'd bump jiggly up a huge margin, Kirby would probably get a big boost, but how hard would this impact the game?

 

[Gawain]

hypothetical question, but what would the game be like if landing an aerial/being hit by an aerial gave you your extra jump back?

How different would tier lists look?
characters like jigglypuff would obviously be able to manage infinite WoP if timed properly, so I imagine that'd bump jiggly up a huge margin, especially considering her strong aerial game and mobility, Kirby would probably get a big boost, but how hard would this impact the game?

Can't imagine why anyone would want this lol. It would be cool to see Falcon able to walk people off the top like in 64 again though.

Personally for an extreme change Id rather that characters be able to cancel jabs into tilts into smashes or specials (and aerials into ground move. The smash version of the magic series. The defensive game would be a million times more interesting. Just buff shield strength a little bit.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Tbqh, it's really that my impressions of other "bottom" characters have been improving. People are also adapting to Super Speed slightly better than I originally expected

It occurs to me that if Super Speed didn't have that 5 second cooldown it would be absolutely insane. Like, when I first saw Aerolink using Palutena I was all agog at the move but after a month or two of watching him, it's a non-trivial amount of time. Granted he's usually far enough away that it's hard to really capitalize on it, but it's there.

 

[GeneralLedge]

A thought occurred, if we're theory crafting universals.

What if, shield simply never regen'd?

 

[Ffamran]

hypothetical question, but what would the game be like if landing an aerial/being hit by an aerial gave you your extra jump back?

How different would tier lists look?
characters like jigglypuff would obviously be able to manage infinite WoP if timed properly, so I imagine that'd bump jiggly up a huge margin, especially considering her strong aerial game and mobility, Kirby would probably get a big boost, but how hard would this impact the game?

Characters with high jumps like Falco, Greninja, and ZSS or characters with really good juggle games like Sheik, Meta Knight, Capton Falcon, and Samus, and Fox and Ganondorf's Uair would all be ridiculous. Oh, and there's Yoshi with infinite super armor jumps if you don't kill him.

 

[Nu~]

I used to think Mega Man was a top 15 character without question. After the initial "Mega Man is bad" stuff at release, and the buffs he received in the 1.0.4 patch, it became apparent to me and tons of others players how good MM could actually be. His long range isn't as good as we expected yet his mid-range is top notch, and he can be a nightmare MU for a lot of characters including good ones like Luigi.

Lately though I've just been really underwhelmed by some of Mega Man's qualities. He seems to struggle to kill without powershield Utilt, which in fairness is an excellent option but it'll get harder to land as people respect it more at high percent. I don't think lemons zone every character particularly well, and his damage output is a bit on the low side. Perhaps most importantly, MM's results aren't as good as I thought they would be at this stage.

I still think ZeRo put MM laughably low on his tier list, but MM seems like a probably-top-20 character to me now, rather than definitely-top-15.

Mega man received buffs?

 

[Smooth Criminal]

@ Thinkaman , @ TTTTTsd

That's pretty much what I was getting at, yes. No offense to you, @ LiteralGrill , or even @ Shaya or Thinkaman for their brand of guesstimation in their lists. I would just rather discussion of that nature be a little more substantial and broader like that versus "lul, muh list!" You know, the whole purpose of the thread.

Smooth Criminal

 

[Thinkaman]

Personally for an extreme change Id rather that characters be able to cancel jabs into tilts into smashes or specials (and aerials into ground move. The smash version of the magic series. The defensive game would be a million times more interesting. Just buff shield strength a little bit.

Radical engine changes I'd want:

• IASA-except-for-same-move instruction
• Staleness ratio flag
  • Set to zero to set certain moves to non-stale, be it a consistent setup move or a Falcon Punch
  • Set to higher values for extra stale-ing; good for spammable projectiles
  • Set to negative values for anti-stale-ing; good for low-knockback moves we want to let combo into themselves, but don't want to risk pseudo-infinite behavior
• Two separate knockback growth values--one applies to damage below 100%, one applies to damage above 100%.
  • Useful for making strong kill moves have slightly exponential knockback
  • Useful for moves like jab-1s that we want to shift in knockback, but not "break" above a certain %
• Hitstun reset on floor bounce from spikes
  • And no teching grounded spikes!
• Windboxes trigger Counters

Then there's some minor control/buffer changes, including a tiny delay for legal buffering of ledge options and the ability to do up-b OoS natively, like in Brawl.

 

[Wintermelon43]

#shotsfired...? I do understand I have a very special case for my lists, and I figured this is as good a time as any to thank the mods for understanding and continuing to let me do these here.

Anyways, on the subject of the thread a bit more, Mii Swordfighter rant rant rant. I do get that Trela is one of the only reasons people were looking at the character now, it just bothers me it took so long. I don't think he's in the top lier levels but he really isn't some junk character either. It was awesome to see him against Aerolink to show some of those tools he has to deal with strong contenders, and I really want to get my fingers in shape to start performing myself. We'll see if I can.

As a question, where is your tier list?

 

[Gawain]

Radical engine changes I'd want:

• IASA-except-for-same-move instruction
• Staleness ratio flag
  • Set to zero to set certain moves to non-stale, be it a consistent setup move or a Falcon Punch
  • Set to higher values for extra stale-ing; good for spammable projectiles
  • Set to negative values for anti-stale-ing; good for low-knockback moves we want to let combo into themselves, but don't want to risk pseudo-infinite behavior
• Two separate knockback growth values--one applies to damage below 100%, one applies to damage above 100%.
  • Useful for making strong kill moves have slightly exponential knockback
  • Useful for moves like jab-1s that we want to shift in knockback, but not "break" above a certain %.
• Hitstun reset on floor bounce from spikes.
  • And no teching grounded spikes!

Smash would look like a legit traditional fighter with point one. That would be really really cool. You should be able to input your second move during hitlag so that stuff like Ike doing Jab123-->dtilt would be a thing. Man certain character's would be so good with this.

 

[Thinkaman]

Smash would look like a legit traditional fighter with point one. That would be really really cool. You should be able to input your second move during hitlag so that stuff like Ike doing Jab123-->dtilt would be a thing. Man certain character's would be so good with this.

Did you ever play BBrawl? Ground and aerial Falcon Kick could be cancelled into any special but itself. (Cancelling ground <-> aerial versions to the other was legal, and aerial Falcon Kick reliably combo'd into the ground version.)

 

[Luco]

Sorry to ask again (I think the edit was missed) @ Thinkaman but (I'll just copy-paste it again) I must say I'm more than a little sceptical of Luigi as #2. I feel he has certain difficult match-ups and generally may not be as good as Diddy or Rosa. Also are his results as consistent as the others in top 5 in various regions?

 

[thehard]

A thought occurred, if we're theory crafting universals.

What if, shield simply never regen'd?

That would result in way more evasive, scared play.

 

[Gawain]

Did you ever play BBrawl? Ground and aerial Falcon Kick could be cancelled into any special but itself. (Cancelling ground <-> aerial versions to the other was legal, and aerial Falcon Kick reliably combo'd into the ground version.)

Nah i never got into Wii modding. Only modded version I've played is Project M. Sounds like you could get some crazy hijinx going there with kick into boost or dive (lol)

 

[Thinkaman]

Sorry to ask again (I think the edit was missed) @ Thinkaman but (I'll just copy-paste it again) I must say I'm more than a little sceptical of Luigi as #2. I feel he has certain difficult match-ups and generally may not be as good as Diddy or Rosa. Also are his results as consistent as the others in top 5 in various regions?

I mean, I do think those 3 are clearly in the #2-4 spots--and not that far behind Sheik, nor that far ahead of ZSS, Sonic, Ness, and Pikachu. We can debate the internal ordering, but I think it's a rather small difference to debate. (Particularly with a unknown patch in less than 3 days.)

Who does Luigi lose to?

Sounds like you could get some crazy hijinx going there with kick into boost or dive (lol)

Yup, though obviously both are even more unsafe than a landing Falcon Kick, so you are basically just missing a move and declaring "DOUBLE OR NOTHING!"

The timing was such that every character could still (barely) shield-grab the landing Falcon Kick, before suffering those options.

This also applied to the wall-kick jump-flip animation, from Falcon Kicking into walls. You could do it into a reverse Falcon Punch, and would land just as it went off. Too funny.

 

[thehard]

Seems like Luigi is in the position pre-patch Diddy was, just less extreme, where he has weaknesses to exploit and potentially loses some matchups but his reward on grab is so great it might not matter, because he can even out percentages with the same repetitious game plan.

 

[Luco]

As far as I know, Luigi has a really bad MU against and and possibly some others at least.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

As far as I know, Luigi has a really bad MU against and and possibly some others at least.

Little Mac

Realistically I'd say almost anybody with a sword should be beating him as well once people figure out how to stop jumping into his grab range. People don't abuse his lack of mobility (if you take every character's run speed and air speed then averaged them out against each other character, Luigi has the worst mobility in the game), lack of traction, and lack of range enough. Its weird to me. Every time I watch people fight Luigi I'm sitting there going "Don't do that, that's dumb."

 

[LiteralGrill]

As a question, where is your tier list?

It's not actually my list, it's the tier list voted on monthly by /r/smashbros (I just run the poll). Here's the most recent list from June.

 

[Pyr]

As far as I know, Luigi has a really bad MU against and and possibly some others at least.

are all kinda bad for Luigi because of their abilities to keep him out and/or do anything they want on the ground because things that are safe on shield against Luigi wouldn't be if it was another character. They make it exceptionally hard for him to approach.

There are more, but it goes to 55:45 level matchups that I don't feel are dominate enough to get into atm.

Edit: Adding a few other characters based on the discussion below:

 

[Coffee™]

I'd add to that list.

 

[bc1910]

Luigi has far worse MUs than Diddy ever did. Actually he probably has worse MUs than current Diddy.

 

[Luco]

You guys have a nice MU against us though. Most Ness mains think the MU is even at this stage and most of our top players believe you win it. So, that's something I guess?

 

[Nu~]

are all kinda bad for Luigi because of their abilities to keep him out and/or do anything they want on the ground because things that are safe on shield against Luigi wouldn't be if it was another character. They make it exceptionally hard for him to approach.

There are more, but it goes to 55:45 level matchups that I don't feel are dominate enough to get into atm.

I would add pacman because trampoline and our smash attacks are all safe on his shield.

 

[Pyr]

Luigi has far worse MUs than Diddy ever did. Actually he probably has worse MUs than current Diddy.

I'd like to expand on this a little, because I feel it is 100% true. He suffers from "others are faster then me" syndrome for well established reasons. He also suffers from "I can't get in-itis" really bad if people play it right. I still have no idea why people are putting him in the top 5, let alone top two now.

Like 50 pages ago I didn't want to believe a post that said that "Luigi had no where to go but down." I've changed that opinion and now agree with that statement. A slow-moving, short-ranged character can only progress so far with good frame data and easy-to-pick-up abilities.

I would add pacman because trampoline and our smash attacks are all safe on his shield.

I didn't include him because I don't have much experience against him. I haven't heard good things for Wigi for the matchup, though.

 

[Yonder]

Little Mac

Realistically I'd say almost anybody with a sword should be beating him as well once people figure out how to stop jumping into his grab range. People don't abuse his lack of mobility (if you take every character's run speed and air speed then averaged them out against each other character, Luigi has the worst mobility in the game), lack of traction, and lack of range enough. Its weird to me. Every time I watch people fight Luigi I'm sitting there going "Don't do that, that's dumb."

Mac is no more than 60:40. Perfectly manageable. As for swords, none of them have advantages on Luigi except Toon Link due to sheer mobility + projectiles in addition to sword range, Luigi's fireball can't keep up with them, bu his fireballs shut down all the other swords. For mobility wise, Doc and Kirby seem close, at least Luigi can rectify ground speed with cyclone. And fireballs being amazing and all. But yeah, he can be camped out, Falco actually does decent against Luigi...and ROB.

are all kinda bad for Luigi because of their abilities to keep him out and/or do anything they want on the ground because things that are safe on shield against Luigi wouldn't be if it was another character. They make it exceptionally hard for him to approach.

There are more, but it goes to 55:45 level matchups that I don't feel are dominate enough to get into atm.

I don't agree on Wario being tough, his range is actually worse overall and gets walled by fireballs. More of a 50:50 to me cause Wario is still faster and can gimp cyclone with bike.

 

[Pyr]

Mac is no more than 60:40. Perfectly manageable. As for swords, none of them have advantages on Luigi except Toon Link due to sheer mobility + projectiles in addition to sword range, Luigi's fireball can't keep up with them, bu his fireballs shut down all the other swords. For mobility wise, Doc and Kirby seem close, at least Luigi can rectify ground speed with cyclone. And fireballs being amazing and all. But yeah, he can be camped out, Falco actually does decent against Luigi...and ROB.

I forgot completely about ROB. So, could someone tell me why a character that has like 10 60:40s peppered across all the tiers is a #2 ranked character?

 

[Yonder]

I forgot completely about ROB. So, could someone tell me why a character that has like 10 60:40s peppered across all the tiers is a #2 ranked character?

The world shall never know...I think it's maybe the Sonic,Diddy, and Pika matchups he has may bring that impression. I think he'll never fall out of top 15, but is bound to drop from top 5 soon.

 

[Greward]

Mega man received buffs?

His leaf shield was slightly buffed and they solved some RCO lag issues, not really important tho.
Actually Mega has been slightly nerfed every patch. Rush cancel was (altho a bit toxic) a super good tool to have, definitely helped Mega overcome the fact he's as easy to combo as Falcon (heavy + fast faller).
Last patch they got rid of the ability to use pellets with MB in hand which was useful.

Not really agree with Mega beating Luigi.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Radical engine changes I'd want:

• IASA-except-for-same-move instruction
• Staleness ratio flag
  • Set to zero to set certain moves to non-stale, be it a consistent setup move or a Falcon Punch
  • Set to higher values for extra stale-ing; good for spammable projectiles
  • Set to negative values for anti-stale-ing; good for low-knockback moves we want to let combo into themselves, but don't want to risk pseudo-infinite behavior
• Two separate knockback growth values--one applies to damage below 100%, one applies to damage above 100%.
  • Useful for making strong kill moves have slightly exponential knockback
  • Useful for moves like jab-1s that we want to shift in knockback, but not "break" above a certain %
• Hitstun reset on floor bounce from spikes
  • And no teching grounded spikes!
• Windboxes trigger Counters

Then there's some minor control/buffer changes, including a tiny delay for legal buffering of ledge options and the ability to do up-b OoS natively, like in Brawl.

Wait, would anti-staling mean a move does more damage and knockback as it's used repeatedly?

EDIT: On a related note, how does staling as it currently exists interact with the standard "more knockback vs. high %" mechanic? That is, if you hit someone with the same move twice in a row, what values/combination of values for knockback (base and growth), %, and staleness combine so that the two hits produce the same net knockback?

 

[Pyr]

The world shall never know...I think it's maybe the Sonic,Diddy, and Pika matchups he has may bring that impression. I think he'll never fall out of top 15, but is bound to drop from top 5 soon.

I think he will. Other characters are developing forced jab-reset games with footstools, but Luigi just cannot do that. He goes too high off of the footstool and can't follow up. I honestly think that, a year down the line, he's going to be mid because even his reward off of grab will be lesser then most characters rewards on half their moves (Falcon's footstool off of 1 hit of nair makes me lol).

And that makes me sad, but hey... Gotta be honest.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Mac is no more than 60:40. Perfectly manageable. As for swords, none of them have advantages on Luigi except Toon Link due to sheer mobility + projectiles in addition to sword range, Luigi's fireball can't keep up with them, bu his fireballs shut down all the other swords.

Only if the swords aren't play correctly.

I'm sorry, Fireball ain't going to shut down things like MK's multi-jumps, Link's Hylian Shield, Shulk's Monado Arts of Speed or Jumping, or Ike's/Marth's/Lucina's sheer range and vastly superior air or ground speed.

Yes I'm over simplifying things, but there is no reason why Luigi should be winning those MUs. As long as the swords are hitting with the max amount of spacing and force Luigi to shield or at least stop approaching, he's going to get pushed back and not gain ground. They all have ways to maximize spacing with little to no ending lag, and all of their attacks swat out Fireballs. The reason why Luigi is currently winning those encounters is because the swords aren't abusing their advantages. Link might end up being 50/50 because his projectiles are slower and his mobility specs are less compared to the others, but the others? No.

Once people stop being stupid against Luigi, he's going to be losing those MUs. Not saying they're going to be 70-30 blow outs, but they ain't going to be 50-50 or better for Luigi.

 

[Thinkaman]

Wait, would anti-staling mean a move does more damage and knockback as it's used repeatedly?

Yes. This would only be done to a very, very low magnitude, and rarely. Imagine if DDD Brawl d-throw has -0.1x staling; it would let it be largely the same, while breaking the chaingrab.

I'm just pointing out that having an adjustable stale moves ratio does allow for this unusual edge case as an option.

EDIT: On a related note, how does staling as it currently exists interact with the standard "more knockback vs. high %" mechanic? That is, if you hit someone with the same move twice in a row, what values/combination of values for knockback (base and growth), %, and staleness combine so that the two hits produce the same net knockback?

If the damage you are dealing relative to their total damage is roughly equal to the differential between the staleness multipliers in question, then yes, the two forces will largely cancel out.