Good ol' fox. Is he still the best?

[Strong Badam]

What I am really trying to express is that Fox and Falco set the standard. It would be horrible having a monstrosity like vBrawl Meta Knight in Project M. I just think everyone should be as good as falco and fox or below.

this is an arbitrary and opinionated standard, and you should not be surprised if people disagree with you.

having said that, you'll produce more constructive discussion if you choose to talk about the game as is, strategies, the current metagame, match-ups, techniques, etc. as they are now than to theorize about how the game could or should be. a public forum discussing PM is the last place the PMBR is looking for insight on game design, let alone a social-ish thread within that forum.

 

[DrinkingFood]

this is an arbitrary and opinionated standard, and you should not be surprised if people disagree with you.

I like arbitrary opinions
I think it's arbitrary and an opinion that fox and falco should be nerfed when everyone else can just be buffed
hell, we could make EVERYONE better than the spacies for all I care
I still haven't heard a good argument for why we shouldn't do that instead of nerfing the spacies

 

[GHNeko]

this is not the thread for that.

so please stop.

 

[RomeDogg]

Everyone has opinions and to me the standard was simply set by Melee not me. But to anyone who disagrees with the statements I have made here I have something I am sure everyone would agree on. Basically if there were an actual tier list in a completed version of Project M then ideally the game would be perfect if all the characters fell in-between Fox and Captain Falcon on this tier list. Or if some characters were tied with fox at the top or tied with Captain Falcon on the bottom which would be ok. That way the entire cast would be able to win tournaments. Think about it of the characters brought back from Melee that are almost identical In Pm(Fox, Falco, Marth, Shiek, Jigglypuff, Peach, Falcon) Falcon is the lowest on the Melee tier list. In Melee good Falcons still could beat good Foxes Marths or whatever. Plus CF got minor buffs so yeah even if CF was on the bottom he would still **** just as hard as he did in Melee and everyone would pretty much be Top tier and High tier that way.

Also back on topic Fox is still the best in PM.

 

[Sync8699]

Imo, if we see a tier list for P:M then characters at the bottom should have randomly good match-ups against higher-tier characters. It's hard to balance the entire cast, so it might be easier to have certain match-ups in mind when buffing worse characters. My first thought when I tried out Zelda was how royally screwed I'm going to be against her with Fox... I used to play Cosmo's Zelda and get owned, and that that was BEFORE P:M buffed her up like crazy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS4HBUJZcik
...And now she's like twice as good...you're welcome, Cosmo.

She'd make a great counter for spacies, even if she's obviously not the best character in the game.

Conversely, Fox seems a little more difficult to use in P:M, despite not getting buffs like other characters. I'm having a harder time reverse-edgehop-lasering, reverse-shine-to-firefox edge-grabbing, and grabbing from an l-canceled drill kick. It might just be the change in graphics, but performing these was basically effortless for me in Melee and is now extremely difficult. Idk, as long as Fox remains one of the hardest characters to use (and most punishable) I say P:M should strive to keep him at the top of the tier list.

Oh, and we should never talk about nerfing characters (with the exception of possibly Meta Knight). Instead of weakening good characters, strengthen bad characters. It makes for more fast-paced, chaotic gameplay...which is what Melee was all about!

 

[G13_Flux]

i just think people are too stuck in melee and havent looked deep enough into how other characters have changed into PM. its far too early in the metagame for people to really see who actually plays well against fox, and what things fox has difficulty with. in the fox MU thread, i posted several points about attributes fox could have trouble with, and detailed at least 3 characters that fit the bill. it was not to say "fox loses against these people" but it was to promote the possibility and try to get people to think constructively and without bias. EVERYONE in that thread ignored it, and continued on about how fox wins versus everyone, and without any reasoning. in fact, i havent seen a single person in this thread reason their way as to why fox is still #1. This is probably the most shallow thread on these boards, just for the fact that there is no discussion that includes any form of analysis. Id like to see people start to try to discuss what can counter fox, so that maybe, it can be proven that he is number one. maybe, with proper analysis, we will see that there are others that can easily compete with him. but its getting the metagame nowhere with people making one sided remarks. am i like the only person who feels this way or what?

 

[tripwire]

But Fox can only be Number One.

 

[foshio]

I agree with G13_Flux especially with fox. What fox has is a very quick shine and a super upsmash in PM (like in melee). But he gets edge gaurded and combo'd by many characters. I have already seen Chillin and Silentwolf's wolf smashing the old spacies. Old Ikes were also doing it, I think it is a matter of time before melee fox players will start to have plans vs the new characters.

 

[G13_Flux]

i just think its very possible that it could go either way. with a whole new cast of characters and even buffed up veterans, i dont think that fox is going to be as dominant in PM. maybe MU spreads and metagame analysis will say that hes still #1, but were definitely going to (and already are to an extent) see a much more even spread of characters winning tournaments. maybe in due time people will notice something that they never saw before, and all the sudden fox will have a few disadvantageous MUs. its all subjective, and nothing is concrete yet. just want to see people putting some care into there statements is all. but yeah weve already seen fox players (mango vs metroid was a perfect example) lose to new characters. granted you have MU experience to factor in, but that still goes both ways.

either way, it will be very interesting to see how fox unfolds in PM down the road.

 

[Bl@ckChris]

to me, fox was the best primarily because his movement was better than everyone elses. squirtle's movement options seem...rather varied, although probably not as fast as foxes. squirtle might be able to weave in and out of peoples space a little bit better than fox can, and that could pose a problem even to fox himself. thing is, killing potential and shield pressure aren't likely to be much of a thing for squirtle, so i can't directly imagine him being better overall.

 

[GeZ]

pikachu dominated 64,Fox dominated melee, and metaknight dominated brawl sooo what of it. Metaknight is a badass and fox is not so metaknight deserves to stay number 1. How would a character that deserves to stay number 1 will make pm a laughing stock? Fox had a good 12 years to be number 1 now let metaknight have its time.

I think the difference is that Fox takes a hell of a lot of technical ability to really "shine". Like he's got all the tools to succeed and on top of that he's hella powerful, but he was played less than Falco because his tricky **** was a bit tougher to use. I didn't play too much Melee when it first came out and never played Smash 64 but I still get the feeling that as a top tier monster, Fox takes a lot of work, while Metaknight was more obnoxious because he had almost no gaps in his game, and his tools worked better than a lot of other characters. I think that's why the term "x is the Metaknight of (Project M, Street Fighter 4, MvC3, etc)" is a more valid term. It less means that character is a Promethean ****wrecker, and more means he's so fantastic he can elevate alright players to be able to compete with killer players. Hence 2.1 Ike was the Metaknight of P:M. If I'm just straight up wrong in any regard, I'd appreciate hearing why, since i'm semi new to the competitive Smash community.

 

[himemiya]

I think the difference is that Fox takes a hell of a lot of technical ability to really shine (lol). Like he's got all the tools to succeed and on top of that he's hella powerful, but he was played less than Falco because his tricky **** was a bit tougher to use. I didn't play too much Melee when it first came out and never played Smash 64 but I still get the feeling that as a top tier monster, Fox takes a lot of work, while Metaknight was more obnoxious because he had almost no gaps in his game, and his tools worked better than a lot of other characters. I think that's why the term "x is the Metaknight of (Project M, Street Fighter 4, MvC3, etc)" is a more valid term. It less means that character is a Promethean ****wrecker, and more means he's so fantastic he can elevate alright players to be able to compete with killer players. Hence 2.1 Ike was the Metaknight of P:M. If I'm just straight up wrong in any regard, I'd appreciate hearing why, since i'm semi new to the competitive Smash community.

Not gonna lie I'm a brawl tourneyfag and like most people I'd hate to see my main get stupidily nerfed. If you noticed that when ike and lucario got on fox's level they got nerfed (for ike they could of just changed his fsmash and there was nothing wrong with lucario at all). That why I made that crackpot conspiracy thread not so long ago. Yeah fox may require reaction speed but has stupid/broken traits (up-throw to up-air). And to fair mk isn't easy to pick-up himself, like you can't just mash the b button to victory you'll get punished.

 

[GeZ]

Not gonna lie I'm a brawl tourney*** and like most people I'd hate to see my main get stupidily nerfed. If you noticed that when ike and lucario got on fox's level they got nerfed (for ike they could of just changed his fsmash and there was nothing wrong with lucario at all). That why I made that crackpot conspiracy thread not so long ago. Yeah fox may require reaction speed but has stupid/broken traits (up-throw to up-air). And to fair mk isn't easy to pick-up himself, like you can't just mash the b button to victory you'll get punished.

It's understandable that you'd like to see the characters you got good with playing stay good. But I think the changes to those two characters were less necessary than everyone stressed, but still needed. I played a lot of different characters against my friends Lucario and the character had a few tricks that were vicious. Being able to cancel any attack into side b (or down b for mixups and pressure), chaining his normals, into tilts, into smashes, into b moves, and being a character that gets better and better the more technical ability to amass. I know plenty of characters work like that, and it makes sense that they do but it was really too much with Lucario. I'd not have played with this guy for a week and when he got back to me he'd have discovered all these new ways to stay in my ass with whatever character I was playing. I think Ike really didn't need half of the nerfs they gave him. He made sense as a really good character, he just needed the more powerful portions of his hitboxes moved to the center of his moves. And while that did happen, they also made a lot of perfectly alright parts of the character, a lot less versatile. And lastly, the problem with MK was really his complete dominance of all the strategies. He took some work, but not as much as some other characters in brawl, and he had the same strengths as them along with all his other tools. He was really good, and easy to get into, and fit almost too well into the game. I don't think he needs nerfs when coming into Project M besides the usual ones they give a lot of the brawl new comers, being the retooling of some recovery moves so they work better in the new engine while not granting infinite recovery, and maybe a bit more endlag/ less priority on some of his moves? He more needs to be reconfigured so he fits into this new game. With all the new tech and physics he wouldn't port too well if he was mostly unchanged, so the struggle in programming him right now is probably making him work like he did in brawl, while repurposing most of his moves to make him work like that.

 

[himemiya]

It's understandable that you'd like to see the characters you got good with playing stay good. But I think the changes to those two characters were less necessary than everyone stressed, but still needed. I played a lot of different characters against my friends Lucario and the character had a few tricks that were vicious. Being able to cancel any attack into side b (or down b for mixups and pressure), chaining his normals, into tilts, into smashes, into b moves, and being a character that gets better and better the more technical ability to amass. I know plenty of characters work like that, and it makes sense that they do but it was really too much with Lucario. I'd not have played with this guy for a week and when he got back to me he'd have discovered all these new ways to stay in my *** with whatever character I was playing. I think Ike really didn't need half of the nerfs they gave him. He made sense as a really good character, he just needed the more powerful portions of his hitboxes moved to the center of his moves. And while that did happen, they also made a lot of perfectly alright parts of the character, a lot less versatile. And lastly, the problem with MK was really his complete dominance of all the strategies. He took some work, but not as much as some other characters in brawl, and he had the same strengths as them along with all his other tools. He was really good, and easy to get into, and fit almost too well into the game. I don't think he needs nerfs when coming into Project M besides the usual ones they give a lot of the brawl new comers, being the retooling of some recovery moves so they work better in the new engine while not granting infinite recovery, and maybe a bit more endlag/ less priority on some of his moves? He more needs to be reconfigured so he fits into this new game. With all the new tech and physics he wouldn't port too well if he was mostly unchanged, so the struggle in programming him right now is probably making him work like he did in brawl, while repurposing most of his moves to make him work like that.

I know the melee mechanics alone gets rid of his priorities and uair x4 to nado. I just saying pmbr seems to go overboard with nerfs while they do nothing to fox/falco which is gay.

 

[GeZ]

They've gone overboard in some regards. I don't think anything besides the Ike nerfs and some of the Link nerfs have been too unwaranted so far. But, who knows? Maybe Metaknight makes the movement really well and becomes a god tier rival for fox. It'd be interesting to see two S+ tier chars from different gens duke it out.

 

[himemiya]

I sure hope so.

 

[Nausicaa]

Fox game-play is awesome. As everything else is tweaked in the game, Fox has to learn to deal with it. That's the fun of the character, and that depth of development will always be a very key aspect to a character that has all the tools for everything, and has to make them work without mistakes in decision making or being tricked by the opponent.
He's still 1, always will be because of this, but it's not like he's alone there, and it's not like those who aren't with him are far off/can't handle it or anything.
Those pivots and turn-arounds and foot-stools! If you want 'more' tools to play with. haha

Did Shine have some property changes in 2.6? I heard someone said Shines (for all spacies) were tweaked somehow...

On-Topic
If Fox fought Fox, Fox would win.

 

[Nemiak temp]

I also heard about shines being tweaked as well as lasers. I'm fairly certain that they did in fact change some properties of lasers. It seems like if you laser from across the stage it does less damage than if you were close to the opponent. (Fresh lasers now do 1% damage as opposed to 3 or 4 if you are far away). I don't know for sure but it seems that way. Laser camping no longer as rewarding but still safe I guess

 

[wza]

can anyone help me? i can't connect the jab in the thunder's combo, the shine sends them too far for me to connect it.

 

[AbstractLogic]

Shine no longer has invincibility on startup

 

[Problem2]

Shine no longer has invincibility on startup

Is this actually true? At the last tournament I went to, a Falco and Fox player shined at the same time and traded hits. Falco went down and away and Fox was shot upwards.

 

[Mr.Pickle]

All the space animal shines got their invincibility on frame one removed, that is completely true. Because of this, there are some people that highly disapprove of project m, which is honestly just shameful imo.

 

[leelue]

There are people who disapprove of PM due to that?
"people"

 

[~Frozen~]

I wouldn't want those sort of people playing this game anyway. Talk about a whole new level of salt.

 

[AbstractLogic]

It is certainly true, it's hard to time but if you can, try to grab them. You will notice you can get grab armor threw them. Also, attacks that do 13% or more will now trade/beat them. Honestly anyone that feels that the game is diminished significantly by removing that invulnerability should just go back and play their sacred melee. I won't miss them one bit.

 

[GMaster171]

http://www.twitch.tv/gmaster171/c/2755644

Thought I'd leave this here.

Ps. this is a joke, we aren't Fox or Falco mains.

 

[Nguz95]

Also "because Melee" is like the best argument you must not like that argument because you know no rebuttal can debunk it.

This made me laugh so hard.

How hard is it to get the grab off the shine? I know framewise it's very difficult, but in practice is it so crazy? I feel like if you know when Fox is going to shine you can place your grab out there at the right moment much easier than if it were random. I don't know, I haven't played a good Fox or Falco in a while (my friends and I, we love them low tiers).

 

[Viceversa96]

Fox doesn't dominate Melee at all.

64 is a different bag of worms.

MK makes Brawl look bad because of his lol design and the game itself, and having him be top in P:M is not a good thing because it can be considered contradictory when you take how PMBR balances into mind.

Because to usurp fox from his throne, you have to be better than Fox in every way possible, if not, most ways. Meaning, he'd have to intentionally be made more ridiculous than Fox.

You see why this wont shine well on P:M?

People will just start going, "WOW. They made MK more broken than Brawl! wtf?"

Also, no one, and i mean no one deserves to stay #1 at all. If Fox does lose his #1 spot, he wont be buffed back into it. :V

Brawl is just not a very good game. Balance is ****.

 

[Viceversa96]

You, son, don't understand tier lists.

What you say does make sense, but it's false.

Two players of same skill, one Fox one DeDeDe, who do you think will win?

The answer is goddamn obvious.

You're just adding fuel to the fire that brawl is an unbalanced mess

 

["Shion"]

I think by now we all know how unbalanced the game is, no?

 

[The_NZA]

Falco is not that technical a character. He might be the least technical of the top 6...or at least the easiest to pick up. Only one easier is probably Jiggs...or maybe shiek.

 

[Doser]

And the top 6 characters are? And why are they more technical than falco?

 

[GMaster171]

http://www.twitch.tv/gmaster171/c/3293677

Guys... it happened again.

 

[Doser]

I've noticed that I cannot shine turn around up-b ledge grab with near the same consistency as in melee (i.e. over 99 percent compared to less than 50 percent). I end up either not jumping out of shine or not facing the right direction while up-bing.

While I can still waveshine it doesn't seem as quick and it seems to be harder for me to have wave shine turn around up-smash or grab be a true combo in training mode. Is this caused by the brawl engine?

Also when I try to waveland onto platforms from the edge in battlefield, yoshi's, etc. the timings don't feel the same and the height of my jump seems to be lower. I'm guessing this is because the character models are larger?

I've done comparisons with the same controller and t.v. etc. while of course this isn't scientific it does make fox feel worse to play as.

 

[TheJedi]

personally i think fox is also worse in P:M, his shine priority seems much lower, when attempting to shine falcos up b, i just get burned. and its totally legit, because i see the shine hit boxes touch the flame hit boxes, yet instead of bumping him to hell with shine, i simply get burned. They shouldn't have nerfed him at all from melee. fox wasn't some crazy god tier character, there isn't really any in melee. people win tourneys with sheik,marth,cfalcon,falco, and even ICs, and the brackets are often shaken by good luigi players.

not to mention Fox's tech skill is hard as hell anyway. (dash, shine, turnaround, back wave slide, grab ledge, i haven't completed this in a match ever)

Fox isn't to be taken seriously in P:M :/ better off with Zelda and Bowzer. (both broken imo)

 

[dRevan64]

not to mention Fox's tech skill is hard as hell anyway. (dash, shine, turnaround, back wave slide, grab ledge, i haven't completed this in a match ever)

That's not that sort of thing people are talking about when they say fox is easier. His shorthop is easier (making SH nair, SHDL, all of those things easier) dashing is easier, and upsmashing out of anything is easier which makes him MUCH faster to get into for a new player, as those fundamentals are far more important than being able to waveshine turnaround ledgehog.

 

[TheJedi]

That's not that sort of thing people are talking about when they say fox is easier. His shorthop is easier (making SH nair, SHDL, all of those things easier) dashing is easier, and upsmashing out of anything is easier which makes him MUCH faster to get into for a new player, as those fundamentals are far more important than being able to waveshine turnaround ledgehog.

i know what you mean about the running up smash thing. i kinda hate that they made that so easy in P:M every character can running upsmash for days now.
but short hopping and dashing were never really hard with fox in the first place. shdl is easier true, but really how useful is that anyway? is someone really gonna tack on even 15% in one shdl? why wouldnt you shield if fox is so far away to have enough time to press B twice? even though they made him more "kid" friendly. he's still not as good as he was in Melee(which he isn't the best in anyways)


Fox's tech skill is what often separates good foxes, from great ones. So how can it not be fundamental? not to mention alot of Foxes shine gimmicks depend on his tech options at that current moment.

P.s. instead of wave-shine ledge hogging i usually just wave turnaround ledge hog and save myself the input.

 

[dRevan64]

Fox's tech skill is what often separates good foxes, from great ones. So how can it not be fundamental? not to mention alot of Foxes shine gimmicks depend on his tech options at that current moment.

Have you ever watched m2k play fox? In PM or melee. He plays a very basic style most of the time, and he wins with it because fox's simple stuff is really really really good.
Complex and difficult series of inputs aren't what make a player good at the game. They make them good at tech skill, sure, but not at actual competition, which is why Dark, Silentwolf, Lovage and anyone else with a cool tech skill video are not the best players in the world.
Another example is mango who is probably the best fox currently (sort of) playing. He very rarely ledgedashes–considered one of the best ledge options any character has–and has commented before on shield dropping saying he doesn't want to take the time to learn it because it would add another thing to think about that's unnecessary (or something along those lines, I can't remember exactly what it was). Technical prowess–or in another sense, making use of difficult options–isn't what makes mango good. What makes him good is that he applies the options he does have extremely effectively and intelligently.

Not making the case here that fox is or isn't the best in PM incidentally, I really don't even enjoy playing him in PM since wavedashing feels bad and the tiny physics lag is irritating. Point is just that complicated tech skill isn't what wins games. It can definitely help, but it is VERY far from the difference between a good fox and a bad one. Ditto any other character.

Also you can still shine falco out of his upb I'm fairly sure, the timing is probably different since the model/animation is different.

 

[♡ⓛⓞⓥⓔ♡]

He wasn't the best character in SSBM.

I'm curious...who do you think is the best in Melee?

 

[TheJedi]

Not making the case here that fox is or isn't the best in PM incidentally, I really don't even enjoy playing him in PM since wavedashing feels bad and the tiny physics lag is irritating. Point is just that complicated tech skill isn't what wins games. It can definitely help, but it is VERY far from the difference between a good fox and a bad one. Ditto any other character.

I agree with you mostly. M2k fox makes very good decisions whether the be the most tech heavy or not they are effective. Mango doesn't even use all tech with fox, but he applies the best tech he needs at that moment. HOWEVER Mango's fox tech is crazy. He does things that no one thinks to do or tries to do because of difficulty, or knows that works, depending on the situation of course.

usefulness of tech depends from Fox to Fox, if a lesser fox with good tech doesn't have good decision making he will lose. If a decent fox has basic (lets say wave shine upsmash) tech he can win based on his decisions.

Who makes decisions better then m2k? and even if he doesn't always use the craziest tech, he still can if he needs to, he may not have needed to, and instead switches to Sheik or Marth to save himself the trouble of having to use the higher execution ends of Foxes tech.
Those super tech foxes just may not know when to use their tech skill at the right times, if they were better they'd be much more of a problem. (not saying there bad by any means!!)

And this flows into, im 90% sure sheik is the best character in the game.
that other 10% is falco
fox is fighting for 2nd/3rd place in my book. Now fox CAN be the best character in the game, but between his high tech ceiling, and not many people being able to really apply all his tech in a pro match puts him not at first. He's def one of the best for sure. plus marths whole 0 - death advantage puts him at a disadvantage.

He could do it, but at the skill level were at in smash, he's not there quite yet.