Chasing tiers vs. natural selection regarding character choice

[Conda]

Chasing tiers (especially so early in this game's life) is not only detrimental to you and your enjoyment of the game, but also isn't helping to discovering character's potential.
I used to play a lot of League of Legends and the same problem happened there, where people would deem certain characters to be "the best" and everyone would blindly believe it, resulting in a stale and repetitive pick-ban process where all the same characters are being used. All because of one tournament or word of mouth. It's funny because it'd only be a matter of weeks before another round of "OP characters in the meta" are discovered and the cycle continues.

If winning tournaments is what you want, I'd say give the game at least a year to develop. We don't even know if regular patches are coming, which if they are... Means you can main anyone in hopes that they'll be buffed in the future.

I understand your predicament though, in fact I'm in a similar situation. Although I've decided to play who I want/have the most fun with to see how far I can go. So little is known about this game and especially under-appreciated characters so I'm willing to put the work in to see if my mains can stack up in the future.

Just look at Trela showing recently how good Charizard can be (when everyone I saw was saying he was terrible). Or ESAM's Pikachu. Or Earth's Pit in the recently Umabera 10 Japanese tournament. I'm willing to bet there's a lot of characters in this game that are significantly better than people are giving them credit.

Lastly, personal opinion here... I think it's a lot more hype to be the "best G&W" than "29th best Sheik" or something of the sort. If you want people to cheer for you, play an under-appreciated character and reap the rewards of being the "underdog".

Any footage on the pit mentioned?

 

[JmacAttack]

So I'd like to hear everyone's opinion on character choice. Do you chase high tier characters to reduce any advantage an opponent has going into a match? Or do you use whatever character you are naturally good at?

My goals are simply to be the best I can be. I started out maining zero suit samus and did alright. Had major issues getting punished and landing killing blows. I decided to switch to rosalina and fixed the punishment issue in my game but still had problems landing hits/Kills. So being completely frustrated I started using my old main, G&W. Across the board, my skills improved but he is low tier. So now I wonder if I have a ceiling ill never be able to break in tournaments due to my character

I can't play characters I don't like. I just can't. No drive to get better, no drive to discover. If I picked a high tier character just because they were the best, I'd do worse than if I'd stuck with my natural main.

I doubt there's a ceiling you'll never break. Just the opposite; high tier characters are so commonly picked that many players study only those matchups. Here's the catch though: you need to study those matchups yourself, figure out what works, why their options are effective, and how best to counter them with the tools you have.

Don't worry about tiers this early in the game's life. As far as anyone is concerned, the tiers are still in the process of being discovered. Players like Trela came out of nowhere maining Robin, Shulk, and Charizard, and put those characters on the map when everyone thought they were bad to mediocre. Ganon was low tier in Melee until BizarroFlame and Kage showed everyone he was viable. Everyone thought Ike was terrible in Smash 4 until Ryuga reaches Grand Finals with him. Diddy Kong was mid tier when Brawl first came out. With no changes whatsoever, he became top tier because people like Zinoto figured him out. Matt Hazard knocked Mew2King out of a tournament with Ganon, even though M2k was using a "high tier" like Sonic. Stick with the main you like. Worst case scenario, a balance patch will bring them up. Chances are, though, you might find some hidden potential that no one else knew about.

 

[chipndip]

So I'd like to hear everyones opinion on character choice. Do you chase high tier characters to reduce any advantage an opponent has going into a match? Or do you use whatever character you are naturally good at?

Answer: Dabble in top/high-tiers, but if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. I main Yoshi, but my secondary is Pit, and if I had to pick a "3rd best", it'd be Palutena. It really just depends on my play style, and I like Yoshi's air speed and Pit/Palutena's grab combos and roll speed, so I got better with them.

I use tier lists as a guide, not as my answer, which I believe is the best way to go about it. Persisting on a blatantly bad character is just as bad as persisting on a character you don't click with, but to be fair, this game has very few (if any) legitimately bad characters.

 

[ewic]

Any footage on the pit mentioned?

Earth ended up placing 4th/186 entrants at Umabera 10
Here's what I could find:
http://www.twitch.tv/shi_gaming/b/591875813
00:52:30 (vs Zero Suit Samus)
02:38:39 (vs Diddy Kong)

Also some older videos of him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4MjrTxHDVY (vs Captain Falcon)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXJ2R71ljL0 (vs Little Mac)


Bonus, I found some Pink Fresh Pit games from the last few days. He placed 13th/160 entrants at KTAR XI:
http://www.twitch.tv/vgbootcamp/b/591724938
02:40:08 (vs Luigi)
05:58:51 (vs Sonic)

A video from Xanadu tourney yesterday:
http://www.twitch.tv/vgbootcamp/b/592822158
02:48:00 (vs Fox)

Sorry most of these games are losses lol, these are the only matches I could find.

 

[KlefkiHolder]

I just play characters that feel good to me.

As a kid I always played Kirby in Melee. I was dominating my friends and family who also played with just Kirby. Years later though, once I got interested in competitive, Kirby just felt terrible. Weak, frail, etc. Then I looked at tier lists and said "I want to play Marth!" I did for quite some time, but my Marth was baaaad. I always thought spacies were too quick and hard for me to play, but one day I played as Falco and just loved him. So fluid, powerful, just what I like in my characters.

So yeah, feel is huge. The reason why I play Kirby in 64 is because he felt right after all my melee time. Falco I already detailed. I don't play much Brawl but MK just feels great (in the Smash documentary M2K said MK was the only Melee-like character in Brawl. I agree. Being the Melee fan I am I gravitated towards him). PM Mario is such a fluid character, and my Falco transfers over.

Smash 4 Yoshi, Jiggs (who feels nice in Melee to me), Falco, and ZSS all feel great and are some characters I'm spending time on.


tl;Dr: Chase for how a character feels to you, not their placement on a list.

 

[Undrdog]

With me, I tend to pick a character that matches my personal play-style. Which is usually the jankiest thing I can find.

64 - Fox (game was still very basic)
Melee - Ice Climbers (janky chaingrabs)
Brawl - Pit (Pioneered Pit's arrow game)
Wii U - Diddy / Duck Hunt (jankiest characters I can find)

It also depends on why you play the game. If you want to win and nothing else matters? Get good with two of the high tiers. If you like pushing a character to it's limits, pick your favorite main and go to work. If you want to be famous, pick a low tier and break it. Heck, I still remember watching Caveman, Eddie, and I think Ricky at "Getting Schooled: 2nd Semester" rocking the low tiers to high placings.

 

[New_Dumal]

I'm a very competitive person.So I use the character I like the most I can. If I start to think he is slowing me down, I try someone else that I like, at least, the playstyle.

In Braw, Pit and Metanight were my first and second pick at the game. I just like them.
I had no idea of the competitive scene at that time, but I liked MK voice and think he is stylish, so I start to playing him. At a point, I start to look at the competitive scene and was happy to play the most powerfull character, until he got banned.
I returned to play Pit, who I liked almos the same and he is my Brawl main until now.
But when I started to have problems with some Pit MU's, I returned to train my MK (now unbanned).
I'm used to play with Pit almost every single game, but if I know I will be in disadvantage, I pick MK with no regrets.
Its play to win, if you play in a competitive scenario.

In SSB4 , I'm playing mostly Pit too.
But I like Mario and Sheik combo-ish playstyle, and pick MK and Ike to train sometimes too.
I'm thinking I will main Pit with a secondary top tier (who I like, like Sheik) again to erase the bad MU problems.
Hate me , but that's my choice

 

[Undrdog]

I'm thinking I will main Pit with a secondary top tier (who I like, like Sheik) again to erase the bad MU problems.
Hate me , but that's my choice

This is a very solid approach to any fighting game and there's nothing at all wrong with it. We've seen some of the best players in Smash do exactly this.

 

[LyonDRC]

I don't let tiers decide which characters I play. That said, though, if there's a character I've been interested on trying out on the high tiers then I'll probably give it priority over other characters.