Most prevalent aspects that determine tier placement?

[kingPiano]

I've been giving this much thought recently, trying to figure out the simplest essence of explaining the ordering of the Melee tier list.

I've gone through all the stats and each move and even all the 100s of factors that go into what determines why characters are more superior than another. I think I've finally figured out 2 of the more pure and near objective ways of explaining the tier list order to others with the smallest room for dissension. They are umbrella terms/concepts that draw from what I consider to be the most important aspects each character has in neutral and off stage. This is of course my opinion. If you agree with me fully or partially; cool, if not I'd really like to hear what others think are the most deciding factors in tier list placement (It's more interesting if you pick only your top 2-3 and give reasoning)

So here's the 2 aspects I consider to have the most influence in why a character is placed where they are on the tier list:

1. Comeback ability - Basically the ability to comeback from the largest stock deficits (i.e. 1 to 4) against viable characters and competent players. The main contributing factors being: Speed (air and ground), Trade superiority (or at least even), Gimp ability, Move priority and range, option diversity, universal combo ability, combo set ups to KOs. Each of the top tier characters have the ability to do this to almost all characters (come back from a 3 stock deficit); but most of the mid or low tiers don't because they would lose in trades, speed, range, and lack of combo ability.


2. Fast, explosive, and near guaranteed 0 to Death ability - The ability to take a stock in a very short amount of time and in an almost guaranteed inescapable way (if the attacker reads and reacts properly). The main contributing factors being: Speed (air and ground), Gimp ability, Move startup speed and power, universal combo ability, combo set ups to KOs, and high initial knockback moves or early finishers like: Fox's Shine, Falco's Dair, Jigglypuff's bair wall, Ken Combo (Marth Dair), IC's wobbles, etc.



With these aspect in mind the ordering the mid-low tiers should change, but that is probably for another discussion.

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[Cool]

That's actually a pretty good evaluation. I agree with your main and sub points.

 

[Sean de Lure]

Hey, great list so far, but I feel the tier list goes far beyond that.
1. Overall MU: Believe it or not, melee has more than 10 characters, the reason viable characters work is because they have mostly favorable MU compared to a lower tier who can be hard countered by a number of the cast (eg ganon's zero to death CG on pichu) Fox arguably has no bad MU, at worst probably marth on FD.
2. Consistency: in order for a character to be "good" they need to be able to pull things off consistently, thats why despite ICs having a 7 frame zero to death on everyone, they still have to 1. Get the grab 2. Keep nana close/alive, both of which are very to keep up against a good player. The ICs still have other tools other than their aresenal, but nana is a huge part of it, and sopo is just not very good. Mewtwo has a CG on fastfallers, but he is still like 4th worst or something on the tier list, because he lacks other options/other attributes hold him back(havent watched much mewtwo to tell).
3. People who can prove the character is good: before people revolutionized some characters, they were much lower on the tier list. aMSa brought out yoshi, armada peach, and so on. (s/o to the first tier list where zelda was 6th and jiggs was 17th)
sooo... yeah I'm tired, probably a bunch of errors, but hope it makes some sort of sense
:]
oh, and of course, there probably are even more good reasons

 

[AJawesome07]

This is really interesting. I've been hypothesizing that one of the biggest factors that make a good char is that they have an "emergency button" move that when used, will almost always put them in a good spot. Examples are: Fox/Falco's shine and nair and bair, Peach's D-smash, Sheik's needles and nair, and Marth's D-tilt. Top tier chars like Falcon and ICs are usually placed a league lower than the chars above them due to their lack of such move. That does not keep them from being viable, though it does make for an obvious disadvantage. I could be totally wrong, but that's just what I've thought recently.