Flattened Tiers & Numeric Tier Predictions

[Lunaretic]

First off, THIS IS NOT A TIER DISCUSSION THREAD. Arguments about whether tiers exist or who is in what tier are -NOT- welcome in this thread, that said, onwards and upwards.

Now, I don't have Brawl, but I've been keeping a close eye on all the competitive videos I've seen mentioned, and it -seems- that the tier based system, at least at the current level of play, is much more flat than the Melee tier set. As an example to what I mean, roughly 25% of the characters in melee were high or above tier, however, in Brawl, it seems like the balance is much more fluid. The result being it seems like most characters are 'roughly' 1:1 with any other character, and something like ~50% being high tier or above, and the others not much behind.

Obviously as we get farther along and perfect techniques and skills more the Brawl tiers will stretch out some, but at least for the moment, it seems that Brawls tiers are much closer together/flatter than Melee's; with many more possible play-styles due to higher character variation at middle tier and above.


If anyone who has brawl would like to chip in here and toss in their 2cents that would be awesome.

Now, as a bit of interest in the topic, even if you don't have brawl, I'd like people to estimate how characters will fall into each tier, for the sake of simplicity and pushing across the idea of tiers being closer, I'll use a numeric system for tiers rather than the 'top/high/mid' system

My guess:

Tier +2: ~5 Characters
Tier +1: ~12 Characters
Tier 0: ~10 Characters
Tier -1: ~5 Characters
Tier -2: ~3 Characters

 

[Metallic_Igloo]

I've never payed any attention to tiers but this seems about right. Good observation, I'd almost put more in the top than the +1.

 

[veil222]

Okay, I'll bite on this one... but I feel there are only three tiers in brawl, upper mid, mid, and low mid. I'll refer to them from now on as +1 0 and -1. I'll explain why I put who where after the listing.

+1 tier: Diddy, Link, Sheik, Marth, WW link, pit, Wolf, Falco, Fox.

0 tier: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Metaknight, Yoshi, Zelda, Ice Climbers, samus/zss, Kirby, pikmin/Olimar, Pikachu, Lucario, Game and Watch, pkmn trainer, C. Falcon, Ness, Lucas, Jiggs, King DDD, Sonic, Wario, and Snake.

-1 tier: Bowser, DK, Ike, ROB, and Ganondorf.

Keep in mind, the -1 tier doesn't mean they aren't as good characters, they just take a bit more effort/expierience to be as good as a 0 or +1 char.

+1 Tier: These guys are fast, strong, combo well, and have pretty formidable recoveries, that's why they're here.

0 tier: Every single character here is a perfect example of the average character and how they should be balanced. The characters here have a strength for every weakness.

-1 Tier: These guys are a bit slower, don't have good enough recovery, or are at some other slight disadvantage.

We're not talking about pichu disadvantage, the difference between the +1 tiers and the -1 tiers to me is the difference between a tournament young link and a tournament marth, the marth has outright better stats, but a good young link has as good a chance as anyone.

This list is from 3 days of watching live feeds, talking on the boards, and watching pro 1v1's for every character.

 

[Metallic_Igloo]

I'm surprised you put Pit in +1, and Diddy too, especially since Metaknight, Samus, and DDD seem more like +1, just my thoughts.

 

[Miller]

TBH Ike is one of the better characters in this game and Im not just saying that. After playing every character, Ike is definatly up there. The reason he has bad recovery is because he doesn't need a good one. Ike barely ever gets knocked off the stage far enough for him not to be able to recover using >B

 

[TaurToph]

veil222 gives me faith.

Go go Toon Link!

 

[veil222]

Miller, remember, I'm not saying Ike is bad, he's just gonna take more skill to pull off well in 1v1. Actually, he has a pretty good recovery using his side b, the only time he gets screwed is if he gets knocked diagonally down.

 

[The Hypnotist]

Sonic will be top 5 just because of his speed. Quote me on that one.

 

[sHy)(gUy]

lucas,olimar,and samus/zamus should be +1 from what i hear and link and ww link should be at 0

 

[veil222]

I'd agree with you if speed was as big a deal in brawl as it was in melee Hypnotist. Thing is, sonic is only the fastest *on the ground*, in the air he's quite floaty and doesn't have a lot of side to side movement. That's why I put him middle of the road.

@ShyGuy, from what I've seen played they aren't terribly great, and in order for their potential to shine you've gotta work at it a bit more than the +1's. About half of the +1's are there because they have redily availiable power that doesn't take much to impliment into strategy. That's why to me, those characters are in 0. WW link is in +1 because of his speed, power, and range, I've seen quite a lot from him that is really promising.

 

[Metallic_Igloo]

So, does anyone know if Zero Suit Samus...hinders Samus. I mean do Samus mainers who have played as Samus in Brawl wish she didn't turn into Zamus with the Final Smash, or is it a positive thing?

 

[veil222]

I'd say most tournament samus players won't care because they're going to disable FS's in tournament play.

 

[Losnar]

Well you can start as Zero Suit Samus I believe so you don't need to transmogrify.

 

[Metallic_Igloo]

But is Zero Suit Samus like Samus except for weight and B moves, like same aerials, is she any good at all.

 

[veil222]

She's pretty good, lots of range and speed, completely different character.

 

[Metallic_Igloo]

hmm, Samus' Final Smash is soo good, but I don't think I can get used to two characters, but no worries if Final Smashes will be off in Tournaments

 

[chaos_zero]

Where did you see pro Sonic videos?

 

[residentevilrulz]

From what I've seen, my man Bowser actually looks more like a "0" rather than a "-1". He seems to be quick enough and his only move with really bad lag is his back air.

 

[Vividice]

Nice thread Lunaretic!
I wanted to start a thread about rating impressions for the characters on my own but I discarded the idea.
I thought most people won't understand that tierlists are only a way of show someone’s character impressions.

I hope we can emphasise on that in this thread and not start a flame war about the usefulness of tierlists.

To any skeptics, please read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_intelligence

Melee example: If enough people post their serous impressions and we create an average value from that we could get a tierlist which is comparable to tierlists of a few "pros".

Brawl relation: Until the game is released this will be a better source than the impression of only one guy who has got the game.
Even if our impression is based on the movies we watch.

 

[veil222]

I've been watching about 5 different people, 2 of which know what their doing. That, and my listing isn't really a tier list like melee had... people in the -1 catagory just look like they are on the low end of the middle spectrum. Resident, I can see what you mean about bowser, but I haven't seen good vids of him facing off against a good marth falco or any other +1 people to see how he stacks up, that's why I put him there.