Is Brawl more balanced than melee? **Take 2**

[Titanium Dragon]

Anyone who says wavedashing is a "skill move" is exactly like the people who think dragon punches are "skill moves" - someone who doesn't understand skill. Sure, its technical skill, but technical skill doesn't make for a good game, and often makes for a bad one if it is unnecessary. Wavedashing is a great example of unnecessarily complex technical skill. Another good example is the incredibly poorly designed L-cancelling, which was removed for similar reasons.

When people complain about their removal, you can tell they're not good at designing games or even understanding them on some level.

@Roager: the problem with point number 2 is that its well wrong. Going in to Melee, the competitive 64 scene was almost completely unheard of. Brawl is no closer to being a casual game than Melee because both games can be played casually without any problems whatsoever. Brawl however fails (by a long shot) to match Melee's level of competition and depth in large part because the Competitive Melee scene was huge. Sakurai and the designers went out of their way to take out competitive elements in Brawl even before nerfing the game after E for All. Therefore both games worked great casually but only one works so well competitively.

What evidence is there of this?

Answer: none whatsoever. Indeed, Brawl incorporates competitive features Melee lacks, including the ability to switch off containers so tournaments can be run with items on (as opposed to Melee, which lacked that option).

 

[Oracle]

Wavedashing is skill. Though very little, as it takes about as much time to learn as anything in barwl.
Roager: Please separate my arguments into quotes as I did yours, so it's easier to quote them and respond to your individual arguments.

Not a glitch. An unexpected side effect of the airdodge system. Technically an exploit. Doesn't really matter, I'm just splitting hairs.

As for number 2: I believe they removed it not because they changed their stance on it. (that is, I don't think they put it in, then didn't like it and took it out) I don't think they ever meant melee to have that much in-depth focus. Brawl was built to be what melee was supposed to be, but Brawl is closer to the goal: A more or less casual game, for players of mid-range skill.

Brawl was not made to be what melee was supposed to. Brawl was made to discourage competition. They purposely put combos in melee, yet took them out in brawl. Why? Because if someone good played against someone bad, the bad person would get combo'd and then whine that the good person was playing cheap, and then not buy the game, losing them sales.

Peach was high because of her float, unless I'm mistaken. True, she is not speed-based, but I didn't mean that ALL high tiers were speed characters, or that speed was the single most important aspect of a character.

Well you seemed to be implying that speed was nessecary to be top/high tire.

DK is currently mid-high tier, correct? He's still one of the better counters to MK. More importantly, I don't mean that an equally skilled match between Falcon and MK would likely end in Falcon winning. I just mean that given any random melee match between, say, Fox and Bowser (very high and very low) would have X% possibility of Fox winning. And any given, say, Snake v Falcon (very high and very low) match would have Y% of snake winning.

Wrong. Lets take your example. Bowser vs. fox, assuming they were both top level players, lets say DJN and MikeHAZE. Sure, haze can shine him at early percents and combo him well, but DJN has 0-death cg on fox on final destination, as well as good cgs on other stages. Furthermore, as bowser's main aspect is edgeguarding, djn would basically win the stock as soon as he got haze off of the stage at least above 30% because of fox's recovery.

CF has nothing against snake.

What evidence is there of this?

Answer: none whatsoever. Indeed, Brawl incorporates competitive features Melee lacks, including the ability to switch off containers so tournaments can be run with items on (as opposed to Melee, which lacked that option).
Reply With Quote

Good lord, don't get yuna started with the items debate. You will be *****, just like everyone at srk last summer.

Evidence? They took out stuff that was ridiculously easy to learn and helped a ton, like l canceling. You sweetspot the ledge from ridiculous ranges with all recovery moves automatically. Almost all characters don't even need up b's because the game has so little gravity, they just float back, taking all of the strategy out of getting to the ledge. They made a nigh unpunishable airdodge. You need me to find more, or is that enough?

 

[AlphaZealot]

Even if Melee has a -best- character (untrue) it doesn't compare to how unbalanced Brawl is ROFL people are way off topic especially AZ with his unnecessary melee hating these days.

Melee bashing? I don't think you can find a single quote where I have ever talked down about Melee.

Unless pointing out that Marth won substantially more national tournaments than any other character is "bashing".

And since Yuna ignored this, I'll ask again:

If Marth isn't the only character that is capable of winning major tournaments consistently then do you have an example of a stretch of tournaments where someone broke the reign of Marths (IE Ken/Azen/M2K) consistently (ie by taking first)?

 

[Yuna]

If Marth isn't the only character that is capable of winning major tournaments consistently then do you have an example of a stretch of tournaments where someone broke the reign of Marths (IE Ken/Azen/M2K) consistently (ie by taking first)?

No. But it doesn't mean it was impossible to do so.

 

[The Halloween Captain]

No. But it doesn't mean it was impossible to do so.

...?

What is your argument? That it is possible for other characters to win consistently in spite of no other characters winning consistently?

 

[ShadowLink84]

Anyone who says wavedashing is a "skill move" is exactly like the people who think dragon punches are "skill moves" - someone who doesn't understand skill. Sure, its technical skill, but technical skill doesn't make for a good game, and often makes for a bad one if it is unnecessary. Wavedashing is a great example of unnecessarily complex technical skill. Another good example is the incredibly poorly designed L-cancelling, which was removed for similar reasons.

When people complain about their removal, you can tell they're not good at designing games or even understanding them on some level.

So you are saying they were removed due to their design?
Because they did have L canceling in 64 and even spoke of it in the handbook.

As for design what supports this idea? I am asking you a valid question.

What evidence is there of this?

Answer: none whatsoever. Indeed, Brawl incorporates competitive features Melee lacks, including the ability to switch off containers so tournaments can be run with items on (as opposed to Melee, which lacked that option).

There is plenty of evidence some of which is in Sakurai's blog. He stated "I wanted to bring players of differentt areas together" something along those lines. He intentionally designed the game so that regardless if you are competitive or casual, there would not be much of a difference.

Let alone that being able to turn off containers, isn't adding any competitive because items in themselves are not competitive due to the method of which they are used.

 

[Fade016]

Brawl was not made to be what melee was supposed to. Brawl was made to discourage competition. They purposely put combos in melee, yet took them out in brawl. Why? Because if someone good played against someone bad, the bad person would get combo'd and then whine that the good person was playing cheap, and then not buy the game, losing them sales.

I have played random scrubs at game crazies and game stops before and they were bad little kids that I usually 4 stocked sure they complained but most if not all kids already owned their own copy of melee. Combos can't really be considered cheap even by a scrub, 80%+ would be like wow your good nice combo. yes some would complain I had some scrubs complain that didn't have the game but they really had no intention of buying the game in the first place. Sure it could hurt sales, but not really that much of an impact to prove it could.

If I wanted to be cheap I could just play MK and spam tornado that would piss any person off. Play bridge of eldin with DDD and walk off chain grab, projectile camp with various characters, Ledge camp with game and watch. Or just camping in general is more cheap than comboing would ever be. So if they tried to make the game less cheap by taking out combos they didn't do a very good job, by giving better ledge techniques like auto snaps. and more spamable projectiles.

It is impossible to be a counter to someone when you have a disadvantageous match-up against them. Meta Knight has zero counters

What he is trying to say is that DK is a better option and has more of an advantage against MK than most other characters would stand against him. Not a counter but a better option to use.

Anyone who says wavedashing is a "skill move" is exactly like the people who think dragon punches are "skill moves" - someone who doesn't understand skill. Sure, its technical skill, but technical skill doesn't make for a good game, and often makes for a bad one if it is unnecessary. Wavedashing is a great example of unnecessarily complex technical skill. Another good example is the incredibly poorly designed L-cancelling, which was removed for similar reasons.

I consider the way you use wavedashing a skill move. Like how you would use it to space or to chain combos. Alone wave dashing Isen't very skillful. As for Dragon punches you can't really compare that to wave dashing because, dragon punches dont have as many various uses you can implement wavedashing into your game. It takes skill to use it to space correctly, use it as mind games, out of shields to counter, and so many other reasons. Technical aspects usually makes for a faster game which then by most people can be considered a better game.

 

[Yuna]

...?

What is your argument? That it is possible for other characters to win consistently in spite of no other characters winning consistently?

Yes. I'm saying that AlphaZealot's proof is not proof of that Marth is the only character who is capable of winning consistently, merely proof of that three different Marth players happened to win (with him) consistently.

 

[Oracle]

If Marth isn't the only character that is capable of winning major tournaments consistently then do you have an example of a stretch of tournaments where someone broke the reign of Marths (IE Ken/Azen/M2K) consistently (ie by taking first)?

Eventually it will happen. Marth and the spacies are the most popular right now, and since marth ***** spacies, marth should win. We need to see more top level sheiks winning tournies, but that may not happen for a while because of the popularity of spacies. But sheik is great against everyone else (other than ic's)

The examples will happen. Melee is still alive and well, with a quickly evolving metagame (albeit slower due to the smaller amount of competitive players)

I have played random scrubs at game crazies and game stops before and they were bad little kids that I usually 4 stocked sure they complained but most if not all kids already owned their own copy of melee. Combos can't really be considered cheap even by a scrub, 80%+ would be like wow your good nice combo. yes some would complain I had some scrubs complain that didn't have the game but they really had no intention of buying the game in the first place. Sure it could hurt sales, but not really that much of an impact to prove it could.

If I wanted to be cheap I could just play MK and spam tornado that would piss any person off. Play bridge of eldin with DDD and walk off chain grab, projectile camp with various characters, Ledge camp with game and watch. Or just camping in general is more cheap than comboing would ever be. So if they tried to make the game less cheap by taking out combos they didn't do a very good job, by giving better ledge techniques like auto snaps. and more spamable projectiles.

It still discourages competition with the lack of advanced things to learn that are very useful. A lot of scrubs call combos gay.

 

[Fade016]

It still discourages competition with the lack of advanced things to learn that are very useful. A lot of scrubs call combos gay.

I agree Brawl does discourage competition but, not for the reason you stated before.

 

[IrArby]

@Fade016: The fact that they took the combos and other good competitive gameplay out of Brawl is the reason we have lame "cheap" competitive gameplay instead. We've got CGs, grab releases, and other infinites because they spent more time postponing the release date to take out DashDancing than looking for more obvious gaming flaws like that. Many of the infinites are only possible with the dumbed down engine. Impaled on their own sword as it were but everyone hoping for something on par with Melee got the shaft too. Theres even some evidence that they had a slight competitive intention or at least intended combos to be possible in Melee. Just watch the Special Movie clip thingie which has a lot of psuedo-combos in it, allbeit simpler ones compared to what we know now like Falcon's Raptor Boost to Falcon Dive.

@Titanium Dragon: There is a sh*t ton of evidence to support Brawl purposefully being dumbed down and having competitive elements removed. I once again point to E for All where we still had Dashdancing, CC, some other ATs carried over from Melee I can't recall off the top of my head. As you should know, they removed those before the release. There were lots of Sakurai quotes floating around about how he wanted the game to be fun and purely fun.
Also, if you don't think the competitive 64 scene was small, ask AZ. The competitive Melee scene was once very small also. I'm also willing to bet that everyone here played Melee or 64 for fun before they later learned how to play it competitively. That would seem to indicate that it worked fine casually.
Also, ShadowLink84 in no uncertain terms named just a few ways in which the depth that was Melee was dumbed down for Brawl to be anti-competitive. Need I name more? Sorry I didn't put any stats in there but I didn't think I needed proof of what we take to be common sense or common knowledge about the games. Really what part of my post were you disagreeing with?

And since Yuna ignored this, I'll ask again:

If Marth isn't the only character that is capable of winning major tournaments consistently then do you have an example of a stretch of tournaments where someone broke the reign of Marths (IE Ken/Azen/M2K) consistently (ie by taking first)?

Really, did everyone totally ignore my huge post a 2 pages back? I think I described pretty well why. The lack of high level Shieks, Foxs, and Falcons is one major compenent as to why they went mostly unchallenged. I gave you very legitimate reasons why they play Marth. The lack of characters to counter them gave them little reason not too. I think I explained pretty well why three players dominated the Melee scene for so long. No one seems to be picking holes in that post and I invite anyone to try. Sorry no stats.

 

[AlphaZealot]

IrArby: that is because you are mostly talking theory. The best of each one of the characters you mentioned lost to the best Marth players. You can say "well no one really pushed these characters" but that would be a lie and an insult to Isai/KDJ/M2K (before he switched to Marth)/Darkrain/PC Chris (he used Fox/Falco)/etc.

 

[Fade016]

@Fade016: The fact that they took the combos and other good competitive gameplay out of Brawl is the reason we have lame "cheap" competitive gameplay instead. We've got CGs, grab releases, and other infinites because they spent more time postponing the release date to take out DashDancing than looking for more obvious gaming flaws like that. Many of the infinites are only possible with the dumbed down engine. Impaled on their own sword as it were but everyone hoping for something on par with Melee got the shaft too. Theres even some evidence that they had a slight competitive intention or at least intended combos to be possible in Melee. Just watch the Special Movie clip thingie which has a lot of psuedo-combos in it, allbeit simpler ones compared to what we know now like Falcon's Raptor Boost to Falcon Dive.

I already said this in my last post and AGREED that brawl does discourages competitive gameplay. I never argued that brawl never got nerfed in the competivie scene or wasent "cheap". I just stated they did not make brawl less competive, for the reason of people that were whining about combos and calling them "gay". Also Melee has more or at least the same amount of chain grabbing there is in brawl. Even though by more respected players chain grabing can be considered "cheap". This is why you see less chain grabing in brawl only a few characters can chain grab compared to melee. This was obviously not what the creators of Brawl had intended to rack up damage quick by simply, u throw-> stand->u throw-> stand. This is also why they couldn't nerf all of the chain grabs because we found techniques that make chain grabing possible which they couldn't find out in the time they had, like Warios d throw grab boost infinite on various characters.

 

[Deleted member]

I think I described pretty well why. The lack of high level Shieks, Foxs, and Falcons is one major compenent as to why they went mostly unchallenged. I gave you very legitimate reasons why they play Marth. The lack of characters to counter them gave them little reason not too. I think I explained pretty well why three players dominated the Melee scene for so long. No one seems to be picking holes in that post and I invite anyone to try. Sorry no stats.

lol? are you ****ing kidding? Marth had fewer pro players than any of those characters.

 

[IrArby]

I think its more of an insult to say that M2K, Ken, and Azen couldn't win a tournament without playing Marth.

I don't know the whole record of their matches but I do know Isai beat Ken in a least one Major tournament. From what I've gather Isai stopped playing Melee or at least played it inconsistently not showing up to every event. Both him and Darkrain, had to compete with a compeitive scene over saturated with Spacies. Both Spacies whom have the advantage in that matchup. Its only theory yes but it makes perfectly good sense that Pro Falcons have a hard time reaching the finals against a bunch of Nairhopping Fox's and Laser camping Falcos. We've seen Pro Falcons verse Pro Spacies and know who usually wins.

As to PC we know he was up to the challenge of beating Ken. He did it. I in no way insulted him at all. I gave you evidence to support that PC himself felt M2K will usually win against him. Once again no offense intended at PC, a beyond great player, but he said himself on the Fox Boards that he picks PK Stadium against M2K because its about the only stage he can beat him at. Evo2k7 he won the first match at PK Stadium. He lost the set playing on YS twice in a row. And honestly, I don't know of any PC Azen matches off the top of my head so I won't theory craft anything.

I know that on at least 2 occasions KDJ took sets off of M2K. In fact he beat M2K's Marth and his Fox in one set using Shiek. I've further stated that from my knowledge it would seem that KDJ simply didn't go to many major tournaments as M2K and Azen. KDJ definetly beat Ken but from what I know, Ken stopped playing so actively in tournaments in the last 2 years of Melee. Everyone was way behind Ken as a player for a long time not because he played Marth.

I flatter myself that I know a good portion of Melee history but my knowledge is as it were second hand. I've immersed myself in alot of matches, commentary, discussions, and so forth but I wasn't there first hand for alot of it. If the conclusions that I've drawn are wrong, like maybe KDJ showed up to almost every tournament and lost terribly except for a few he did great at, than tell me thats the case. For what I've gather he didn't go to a lot of tournaments, M2K and Azen definetly did. From what I've gathered, Ken stopped placing when M2K started perfecting Marth. From what I've gather, Isai also showed up inconsistently to major tournaments and stopped showing at all around the same time that Ken did. If any of these are wrong, please tell me.

What I've said is not theory but very logical conclusions drawn from factual evidence that I did provide. I gave very good reason why 2 of the 3 dominate players used Marth. I also said not many people used counter characters to Marth which you now contest.

KDJ is one Shiek, PC is one Fox/Falco, and Isai and Darkrain are two Falcons. I gave very legitimate reasons why they didn't take over. At least 4 of those players did beat Ken. Then Ken was sort of replaced by M2K. M2K lost to KDJ, beats PC (as PC has said), and as far as I know, Isai left the scene around this time. That leaves Darkrain. M2K will be the first to tell you that Falcon counters Marth on stage and Marth counters Falcon off it (really Marth counters everyone offstage more or less). The last tournament where M2K played Darkrain, he went Shiek NOT Marth. Are we going to hold it agianst M2K that his Sheik and the plethora of tournament Spacies weed out good Falcons?

This isn't theorycrafting is logical conslusion drafting (great rhyme right?). Please tell me if my Smash history is off but I think its mostly accurate.

@Umbreon: Other characters may have been heavily represented by Semi Pros at tournaments, but AZ only listed 5 true Pros that didn't play Marth. Your right, there aren't many high level Marths. But it only takes one to win. Popularity doesn't neccesarily equate to whos winning. Theres more decent Marths getting their *sses handing to them by equally decent Spacies. This doesn't factor in to the discussion. Falco being popular amonst people good enough to place but not win doesn't apply. Were talking about people who win tournaments exclusively.

 

[Fade016]

I think its more of an insult to say that M2K, Ken, and Azen couldn't win a tournament without playing Marth.

If you look at the aim chat log with M2K in it a number of posts back you will read that M2K him self said that he would like to play shiek and raise her up on the tier list but in order to win money instead of risking the chance he would play Marth to secure his money making spots, it's not really an insult if he pretty much clarified it himself.

And what you said about Isai disapearing around the same time as Ken. Isai doesn't really like melee too much except for doubles. There is numerous matches were he just stands and does nothing or knees and then taunts when he could of secured the kill, he just doesn't care too much. He droped out of singles in a tourny because he went to go play friendlies in smash 64 with someone else. Once ken didn't play isai had no motivation to play melee doubles.

 

[Yuna]

If you look at the aim chat log with M2K in it a number of posts back you will read that M2K him self said that he would like to play shiek and raise her up on the tier list but in order to win money instead of risking the chance he would play Marth to secure his money making spots, it's not really an insult if hepretty much clarified it himself.

He said that Marth is a better character, not that he's the only character capable of consistently winning tournaments. There's a huge difference.

 

[Fade016]

He said that Marth is a better character, not that he's the only character capable of consistently winning tournaments. There's a huge difference.

I wasent pointing out he was the only character capable of consistently winning tournys. I never stated that. I stated that If M2K wants to win hes going to pick marth. Also while showing that he would lower his chances greatly if was to use a differnt character for the whole tourny to win it.

 

[Yuna]

I wasent pointing out he was the only character capable of consistently winning tournys. I never stated that. I stated that If M2K wants to win hes going to pick marth. Also while showing that he would lower his chances greatly if was to use a differnt character for the whole tourny to win it.

But that is the only point in contention. AlphaZealot (and a few others) are arguing that Marth is the only character in Melee capable of consistently winning tournaments.

I (and a few others) are in opposition. No one is debating whether or not Marth is good, won the majority of tournaments is or isn't one of the best if not the best character in the game. Those things are not the things being debated.

 

[Oracle]

IrArby: that is because you are mostly talking theory. The best of each one of the characters you mentioned lost to the best Marth players. You can say "well no one really pushed these characters" but that would be a lie and an insult to Isai/KDJ/M2K (before he switched to Marth)/Darkrain/PC Chris (he used Fox/Falco)/etc.

Of course he's talking theory. This is a theoretical discussion. CAN non-marths win tournies? Not "are they". Tournies are won mostly by marth. But as I have said before, that is because after the second to last tier list being spacies top, everyone else below. Naturally, a lot of people picked up the spacies, and thus, eventually people started picking up marth to counter the huge amount of spacies. Eventually, we''ll start seeing more sheiks and other characters with good matchups against marth.

 

[Deleted member]

I think its more of an insult to say that M2K, Ken, and Azen couldn't win a tournament without playing Marth.

Well, uhh, what you just said was actually true. None of them have won any major tournaments without playing Marth. Not one.

@Umbreon: Other characters may have been heavily represented by Semi Pros at tournaments, but AZ only listed 5 true Pros that didn't play Marth. Your right, there aren't many high level Marths. But it only takes one to win. Popularity doesn't neccesarily equate to whos winning. Theres more decent Marths getting their *sses handing to them by equally decent Spacies. This doesn't factor in to the discussion. Falco being popular amonst people good enough to place but not win doesn't apply. Were talking about people who win tournaments exclusively.

There were only 8 pro players though for MLG.

Ken- Marth
Azen- Marth/Sheik
M2K- Marth/Fox
Isai- Falcon/Sheik
ChuDat- Ice Climbers
KoreanDJ- Sheik/Fox
PC Chris- Falco/Fox
Hugs- Samus

People who win national tournaments exclusively play Marth. Even when they switch to secondaries, they just don't perform as well.

And yeah, popularity does have an impact. Marth is also the most commonly mained character.

 

[TheManaLord]

The best fcking players won the tournaments. Scrub marths dont fcking place you don't see 8 fcking marths in the top 8 this argument is ridiculous in comparison to Brawl Melee is the most balanced game in the world who gives a sht. There are like 1 maybe 2 characters to compete in brawl period and it's not even a competitive game so the comparison is null.

 

[Oracle]

Yeah, marth's popularity is one of the main reasons for his winning of tournaments

Edit: ^^^ Jeez, calm down. Seriously. Besides, people play it competitively, so it can be a competitive game. .

 

[TheManaLord]

Real discussion:

Can m2k be beaten in Melee(Marth)? YES

Can m2k be beaten in Brawl(Meta)? NO

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Can m2k be beaten in Brawl(Meta)? NO

Your obviously stupid. Are you living behind the moon or something? Or are you just trolling as usual?

M2Ks MK had been defeated twice by Ninja Link and once by Reflex. M2K had to counterpick King Dedede in order to win so don't spread BS here. You know nothing about Brawl.

 

[pure_awesome]

The best fcking players won the tournaments. Scrub marths dont fcking place you don't see 8 fcking marths in the top 8 this argument is ridiculous in comparison to Brawl Melee is the most balanced game in the world who gives a sht. There are like 1 maybe 2 characters to compete in brawl period and it's not even a competitive game so the comparison is null.

Melee wasn't supposed to be a competitive game either, so there goes that ridiculous argument.

The best players won the tournaments using Marth. Scrub Metaknights don't place in national tournaments, either.

 

[Turbo Ether]

In my region more people are starting to think that MK isn't clearly the best character anymore, especially after hanging out with and playing Ally at Cata4. MK and Snake are very very close. Imo, Snake may also have zero bad matchups. I think Snake vs MK is 50/50, with Snake possibly only having a few other neutralish(I know it's not a word) matchups. Snake definitely does not lose to DDD at the highest levels of play, for one.

There's Falco, who imo has matchups that are mostly in his favor, with a few close ones. People say he loses to Marth and G&W but imo they're pretty even. For some reason many people think Falco has no range or priority and gets destroyed on the ground.

Than you have a character like Diddy, who clearly has immense potential, similar to Fox in Melee.

Olimar, DDD, G&W are also extremely solid, gay characters.

Marth can also hang with these characters pretty well.

 

[metaXzero]

Melee wasn't supposed to be a competitive game either, so there goes that ridiculous argument.

The best players won the tournaments using Marth. Scrub Metaknights don't place in national tournaments, either.

Just going to say this. 64 and Melee were designed with NO thoughts to it possibly becoming a competitive game. Brawl however was designed with the thought of SUPPRESSING the chances of it becoming a competitive game.

That is all.

@ the "Marth is the only character capable of winning big tourneys" argument. If that's true, you are also saying even if you disregard M2K, Azen, and Ken, a Marth player will STILL win the tourney. Do you say yes to that too?

 

[~ Gheb ~]

In my region more people are starting to think that MK isn't clearly the best character anymore, especially after hanging out with and playing Ally at Cata4. MK and Snake are very very close. Imo, Snake may also have zero bad matchups. I think Snake vs MK is 50/50, with Snake possibly only having a few other neutralish(I know it's not a word) matchups. Snake definitely does not lose to DDD at the highest levels of play, for one.

There's Falco, who imo has matchups that are mostly in his favor, with a few close ones. People say he loses to Marth and G&W but imo they're pretty even. For some reason many people think Falco has no range or priority and gets destroyed on the ground.

Than you have a character like Diddy, who clearly has immense potential, similar to Fox in Melee.

Olimar, DDD, G&W are also extremely solid, gay characters.

Marth can also hang with these characters pretty well.

I agree with a lot of this.

Snake and MK are about equal. None of them has a truly bad match-up and I agree with D3 vs Snake being 5/5 as well. The CG isn't as effective if the Snake uses his Nades smart (kinda like Ally did vs Atomsk, even though m2k said that Atomsk did bad) and his dthrow tech chase is easily as effective in this match-up. D3 may even have slight roubles to KO Snake since Snakes utilt is easier to hit with than D3s utilt. Similar weight, similar dmg potential, similar range and power on their tilts...5/5 seems about right. Snake also doesn't lose to Falco and ROB either if he plays it right. Both are 5/5 to me. I all comes down to who's more effective against the other characters but I think Snake is a bit better.

I agree on the Falco part, especially after m2k mentioning that Falco is the 2nd best character. I disagree with this (Snake and MK are both better) but he has a point - Falco is an extremely gay character and he has no truly bad match-up either. His worst is a 45/55 in the opponents favour (G&W, Luigi and Sheik imo) and he goes even with both MK and Snake. Most people don't actually realize it but Falcos SHL/SHDL is probably the best move in the game. It's by far the safest thing to do and as long as Falco runs away into a safe distance he can use it whenever he likes. He has phantasm to get away asap and he can use Reflector for spacing. If he CGs the opponent he has an instant ~60% lead. If Falco really reduces his game to laser + running away/phantasm ther's nothing really safe to use against him.
I still believe that he's worse than MK and Snake but whoever came up with the idea to put him two tiers under MK most have been on crack. He's clrearly a completely broken character most people just don't pllay gay enough.

Inui once said that any character who has no worse macth-up than 4/6 in the opponents favour is perfectly tourney viable, since a 4/6 is still a realistically managable match-up. That means that at least MK, Snake, Falco, Diddy, D3, Marth, Lucario, G&W, ROB and Kirby are perfectly viable and able to win tourneys while going solo. I'd also like to add Wario to that list as well as Olimar, although they both have a really bad match-up (Wario has D3 and Olimar has Peach). Since basically all these characters have been proven to be tourney viable it seems like Inui was right about that although Snake and MK are obviously more succesful, since they are just so much better. It also looks like some "weird" characters like Peach, Luigi and Zamus can do very well in tourneys all ba themselves.

I think MK is overrated atm, his metagame is just more aadvanced but if Snake catches up it'll become very interesting, hopefully...

 

[TK Wolf]

Lucario vs DDD is more like 65:35, though some players would disagree with me, myself and many others feel that D3 is a soft-counter to Lucario.

And unfortunately, I can't see Luc ever rising up in the rankings. He's got nothing to surprise an opponent who has decent Luc experience (other than an occasional pseudo-sticked auraphere), and none of us Luc mains have been able to fnid anything new to use for the last 5-6 months. D:

 

[IrArby]

Melee wasn't supposed to be a competitive game either, so there goes that ridiculous argument.

The best players won the tournaments using Marth. Scrub Metaknights don't place in national tournaments, either.

But, Melee works much better competitively than Brawl since the designers didn't competitively nerf Melee on purpose.

@Fade016: What M2K actually said was he uses Shiek for most people except Spacies whom he has a good CG game on. He said trying to raise Shieks tier position just because he can, isn't worth it if it risks money. "money>tiers" right? That does't at all mean he couldn't win with Shiek, just that he likes Marth better against Spacies. He is in fact the Gayest of Grabbers so why stay Shiek if his Marth ***** Spacies harder.

I already gave examples of his Shiek being used to defeat potential Marth counters like Darkrain's Falcon. The fact that the other best Falcon didn't give a **** about Melee especially after Ken left, speaks more to my point. Isai, potentially huge threat to M2K and Azen, stopped playing left them an even clearer field for them to dominate with Marth. If you guys haven't already figured it out, M2K likes playing 2 key characters so that he can counterpick or at least not be counterpicked by people. He's done it beautifully in both games and it works.

Also, if anyone would care to go back and read the FIRST LINE of M2K talking he says "tourney results dont show how good a character is" which pretty much negates this whole argument. Like I've said from the beginning, whose winning tournaments isn't neccessarily using the best character. Tournament results don't decide tiers or shouldn't. Thats what tiers are meant to show, every character's potential versus everyone elses.

@Umbreon: the 8 people you listed are not Semi Pros. They are Pros. Like I said, if theres alot of Semi Pros playing Spacies that doesn't matter. You said they're more popular. Yea, they are but not amongst the top players. Its not like those Spacies are being held down entirely because of M2K/Azen's Marth. If they're good enough, they'd still place but lose to those two in the quarter or semifinals. Thats not the case. They're not even placing so their even more irrelevant.

@metaXzero: Good point btw. I subscribe to that train of thought.

 

[Turbo Ether]

I actually think Snake beats DDD 55/45. Optimal camping makes it extremely difficult for DDD to safely approach and grab. Lol, I actually think MK is more difficult for Snake now, since he does a much better job of getting inside Snakes camping and harassing him in the air and offstage.

 

[IrArby]

@Snake vs. DDD: Either way its got to be an extremely boring match to watch.

 

[Turbo Ether]

@Snake vs. DDD: Either way its got to be an extremely boring match to watch.

Pretty boring to play too.

 

[Fletch]

Just going to point this out.

BRAWL TIERS
SS Tier
Meta Knight 15.00

S Tier
Snake 13.91

A Tier
Falco 13.03
King Dedede 12.94
Mr. Game & Watch 12.50
Marth 12.09
Diddy Kong 11.94

MELEE TIERS
Top
Fox 9.9
Marth 9.9
Sheik 9.7
Falco 9.2

High
Peach 8.4
Captain Falcon 8.0
Jigglypuff 8.0
Ice Climbers 7.9

Since the Melee tiers were made using the same method, just with a point difference (using a 10 point scale versus a 15 point scale), simply multiply the difference in overall rating by 1.5 to find the differences between the characters. MK is about 1.09 points better than the next best character, who is then better the next best character (Snake versus Falco) by .88 points. Compare this to Melee, where there is virtually no difference between the top two characters, and even then, these 2 are only better than the next best character by about .3 points (taking account for Brawl adjustments). Difference between MK and bottom of high tier is 3.06, where difference between Melee Fox and bottom of high tier is about 3 points, this is where Brawl I think catches up although this does account for an extra Melee character. If you could eliminate both Snake and MK from Brawl, I think there could be an argument for it being as balanced or more balanced than Melee, but the fact remains that Melee's top tiers are much more balanced in regards to each other when compared to Brawl's top.

If you believe that overall game balance matters more (which I don't think should be the main discussion as tournament players are going to play characters that are actually tournament-viable for the most part), then you can compare MK to Falcon, who beats him by 13.37 points. Compare Melee Fox to Pichu (accounting for Brawl adjustment), and you get a 13.05 points difference. Not saying this is the end-all argument for balance, but definitely gives you a better idea of how the characters in the game do against each other in their respective engines. Now feel free to try to rip this apart AZ.

 

[Hive]

is there any reliale matchup charts for melee and brawl? it would be fun to compare them if they use the same grading systems to see which one is more balanced (in terms of more matchups closer to 50-50) for all characters?

 

[IrArby]

Personally, I think people don't know all the matchups well enough yet. A lot of what people post matchup wise is still theoritical conjecture. Theres gonna be underdeveloped characters for years. Realistically, some Melee characters are still a little underdeveloped so Brawl will take longer. I wouldn't put to much faith in a chart if it did exist but I'm not willing to put in the time to say exactly why its wrong either.

I think we've got a decent idea of the overall balance but matchups are going to keep changing for a while IMO.

 

[Oracle]

I don't think there is one for barwl, but just try to find phannas all character melee matchup chart.

 

[Darxmarth23]

lol. This game isn't balanced. Get rid of MK and you are closer.

 

[Turbo Ether]

Personally, I think people don't know all the matchups well enough yet. A lot of what people post matchup wise is still theoritical conjecture. Theres gonna be underdeveloped characters for years. Realistically, some Melee characters are still a little underdeveloped so Brawl will take longer. I wouldn't put to much faith in a chart if it did exist but I'm not willing to put in the time to say exactly why its wrong either.

I think we've got a decent idea of the overall balance but matchups are going to keep changing for a while IMO.

This is correct.