My dear friends of the Smash community...

[ECHOnce]

Alright, well guess what. Those characters don't exist. I'm talking about actual characters made by a professional game studio that actually pays attention to what they put into their games. When a character comes out that does 999% damage, you let me know, and I will admit that they deserve the top spot on the Tier List, okay?

Forgive me for skipping the rest of the nonsense that followed, but you missed the point here entirely.

Epsilon pointed out that if two characters existed - one that did no %/KB, and another that had insta-kills - it'd be undeniable that one is better than the other. That means that, using these values - %s, KB, and other things like hurtboxes, hitboxes, frame data, MU difficulty, etc. - there is an objective scale of good and bad. Certain moves/aspects of characters are going to be better than others, and the characters with the most overall good things is gonna come out on top. And that's literally all Tier Lists aim to indicate. So by acknowledging that in this scenario - even if it isn't a real-world example - that the character that does 999% damage is better, you are acknowledging the reasoning used to justify tier lists.

/thread. You can argue how tier lists are bad in whatever way you like, but calling every character even isn't something you can argue for logically.

 

[RadicalRat]

Tires drive discussion. Discussion is good. I like to see games played at its highest level.

Tiers drive discussion? Tiers destroy discussion. They turn "How can this character be played" into "This character shouldn't be played"

 

[Spak]

Tiers drive discussion? Tiers destroy discussion. They turn "How can this character be played" into "This character shouldn't be played"

To be honest, there are some that shouldn't be played at the highest competitive level. All of them could win locals (depending on the area) and some of them could win regionals, but in all reality, nobody but the top 12 will win a National soon (unless @ Zalak gets god-tier REALLY soon).

 

[RadicalRat]

Forgive me for skipping the rest of the nonsense that followed, but you missed the point here entirely.

Epsilon pointed out that if two characters existed - one that did no %/KB, and another that had insta-kills - it'd be undeniable that one is better than the other. That means that, using these values - %s, KB, and other things like hurtboxes, hitboxes, frame data, MU difficulty, etc. - there is an objective scale of good and bad. Certain moves/aspects of characters are going to be better than others, and the characters with the most overall good things is gonna come out on top. And that's literally all Tier Lists aim to indicate. So by acknowledging that in this scenario - even if it isn't a real-world example - that the character that does 999% damage is better, you are acknowledging the reasoning used to justify tier lists.

/thread. You can argue how tier lists are bad in whatever way you like, but calling every character even isn't something you can argue for logically.

The problem with Epsilon's post is that it's not reasonable. At all. Yes, a character with literally no attack power would be useless. Yes, a character that can one-shot the entire map would be OP. But if these hypothetical characters were tweaked so that they didn't exist for the sole purpose of breaking the game... Say one does 1% damage, and very little knockback, but moves quickly, and has good range with little lag. Whereas the other has a guaranteed OHKO, but is slow to move around the map, has a sizable lag after every attack, and this attack has a small hitbox. A properly timed blow from OHKO-Girl would end it for 1%-Man. But if 1%-Man could stay safe enough to keep the pressure on OHKO-Girl for long enough, his small knockback would be amplified by the % enough to become potentially lethal.

Those are "realistic" extremes. Epsilon's extremes just don't make sense.

 

[Plunder]

The problem with Epsilon's post is that it's not reasonable. At all. Yes, a character with literally no attack power would be useless. Yes, a character that can one-shot the entire map would be OP. But if these hypothetical characters were tweaked so that they didn't exist for the sole purpose of breaking the game... Say one does 1% damage, and very little knockback, but moves quickly, and has good range with little lag. Whereas the other has a guaranteed OHKO, but is slow to move around the map, has a sizable lag after every attack, and this attack has a small hitbox. A properly timed blow from OHKO-Girl would end it for 1%-Man. But if 1%-Man could stay safe enough to keep the pressure on OHKO-Girl for long enough, his small knockback would be amplified by the % enough to become potentially lethal.

Those are "realistic" extremes. Epsilon's extremes just don't make sense.

yea but if you actually know Melee characters inside-out like someone who has actually played this game a long time you would already know your analogy is irrelevant.

Most of the lower tier characters have glaring weaknesses that don't have astounding strengths to offset them. Game and Watch for instance has terrible rolls, an imaginary shield, one of the worst spot dodges, his tech options are horrendous.....even if you gave him a Shine like the spacies it wouldn't offset all these super bad disadvantages. Even if you gave him Peach Downsmash it wouldn't offset the disadvantages, the higher tiers have all those great moves, plus they have so many more options and defensive capabilities.

Options and safe approaches are really what hugely separate tiers, that and the ability to combo and easily KO most of the cast. Once you understand that you will understand why it's so obvious a tier list exists and why 75% of the character can't win a national tournament ever. Most are just worse versions of those higher on the tier list and I'm not talking about clones (Falcon > Dr. Mario > Mario.....Ganondorf > DK > Bowser.....etc)

 

[Delta Chae]

The problem with Epsilon's post is that it's not reasonable. At all. Yes, a character with literally no attack power would be useless. Yes, a character that can one-shot the entire map would be OP. But if these hypothetical characters were tweaked so that they didn't exist for the sole purpose of breaking the game... Say one does 1% damage, and very little knockback, but moves quickly, and has good range with little lag. Whereas the other has a guaranteed OHKO, but is slow to move around the map, has a sizable lag after every attack, and this attack has a small hitbox. A properly timed blow from OHKO-Girl would end it for 1%-Man. But if 1%-Man could stay safe enough to keep the pressure on OHKO-Girl for long enough, his small knockback would be amplified by the % enough to become potentially lethal.

Those are "realistic" extremes. Epsilon's extremes just don't make sense.

You do understand that you're missing the point again right? The way Epsilon worded it was hyperbolic but it got the point across. By acknowledging that tiers would be relevant here you are acknowledging that tiers are relevant as it stands now, albeit on a much less extreme scale. You're also not accounting for the fact that the character that can only do 1% might not have reasonable enough knockback scaling to ever KO anything.

You need to stop being a scrub and admit that tiers exist for a reason that has nothing to do with trying to overcentralize the metagame. We have had characters move up the tier list because they were found to be better than people initially thought and we've had characters that people initially thought were good drop because they turned out to be pretty bad. Many of the points you've been bringing up were debunked in the link I sent you (By the way, that write up was in no way condescending, just because someone takes a stance that disagrees with you does not mean they're being condescending).

I think you need to take a step back and think long and hard about what you've been saying because most of it is just completely outlandish to the point that I'm not wholly convinced you're not trolling.

 

[Spak]

The problem with Epsilon's post is that it's not reasonable. At all. Yes, a character with literally no attack power would be useless. Yes, a character that can one-shot the entire map would be OP. But if these hypothetical characters were tweaked so that they didn't exist for the sole purpose of breaking the game... Say one does 1% damage, and very little knockback, but moves quickly, and has good range with little lag. Whereas the other has a guaranteed OHKO, but is slow to move around the map, has a sizable lag after every attack, and this attack has a small hitbox. A properly timed blow from OHKO-Girl would end it for 1%-Man. But if 1%-Man could stay safe enough to keep the pressure on OHKO-Girl for long enough, his small knockback would be amplified by the % enough to become potentially lethal.

Those are "realistic" extremes. Epsilon's extremes just don't make sense.

But what if 1%-Man was laggy and did gave out very little hitstun? For example, all of Roy's aerials suck because they don't put the opponent in enough hitstun, so they get out of hitstun before you get out of the endlag and thus you can't combo and they can punish. There are some situations where you're actually in a better position while playing Roy if you don't hit your opponent because you'll get punished harder for a successful hit than you would for not hitting them at all.

EDIT: Made the paragraph make more sense

 

[RadicalRat]

@ Delta Chae

I am taking that step back. I'm not arguing moves and such until I learn more. I recognize my inexperience and am working to fix that. I will neither admit defeat nor claim victory until I can adequately discuss such things. Instead I am arguing the logic of things for now. The technical details will come later.

While yes, that essay addressed a lot of my points, I would not say anything has been truly debunked. Yes, the tier lists change based on new techs that are revealed. How exactly does that prove tier lists are legitimate? To me, that proves they're useless. Dramatic exceptions may be rare, but they still do happen, and that means the lists failed in their job of categorizing characters, as it is put in the link.

( The condescension comes not from the disagreement itself, but in the "Anyone who reads this and still doesn't accept tiers is an idiot" attitude. Not to say it's necessarily a bad thing, it's a solid persuasive writing technique, if an annoying one. But that really isn't important, as this thread is not about writing, but Smashing )

I am acknowledging that tiers exist in a hypothetical situation where one character is intentionally engineered to be better than another. This is not the case with any Smash game. You can't just say "Tiers exist here, so they must exist here."

I realize that essay pointed out that because tiers weren't intended, there was no intent to balance the game either, so tiers have to exist. But I find that to be a flawed argument in that I see no way not intentionally creating tiers actually DOES create tiers. If I'm misinterpreting this, feel free to clarify

I do agree that alone, it's a poor defense to rely on, as just because something was not intended doesn't mean it won't happen anyway, but I'm not using it alone.

EDIT: Meant to add this as a footnote before, but I want to apologize for not breaking down the quotes like I've been doing, I'm on mobile now.

 

[GenNyan]

Those are "realistic" extremes. Epsilon's extremes just don't make sense.

Extremes DO exist in the game though. How can anybody possibly say Pichu is better than Pikachu? You can't. They are almost exactly the same, except Pikachu is better in every way. Fox is incredibly fast and powerful. Kirby is slow and weak. This shouldn't be very hard to accept.

Oh well. Its not like I can convince a troll, so I guess you won, since I took the bait. Haha, Amirite? It was hilarious.

 

[Comet7]

Spoiler

 

[Zalak]

They are almost exactly the same, except Pikachu is better in every way.

That's actually not true. Pichu has some advantages over Pikachu, such has the incredible knockback on Pichu's smash attacks. I think his aerials might also be faster?? + he has a smaller hitbox. I don't actually play either of the characters, but I'm certain Pikachu isn't better than Pichu in every way. If I HAD to pick, I would put Pikachu above Pichu, sure, but that doesn't mean he has every advantage over Pichu.

 

[GenNyan]

That's actually not true. Pichu has some advantages over Pikachu, such has the incredible knockback on Pichu's smash attacks. I think his aerials might also be faster?? + he has a smaller hitbox. I don't actually play either of the characters, but I'm certain Pikachu isn't better than Pichu in every way. If I HAD to pick, I would put Pikachu above Pichu, sure, but that doesn't mean he has every advantage over Pichu.

Ok. Pichu has a handful of tiny advantages over Pikachu. But Pikachu has a crap ton of huge advantages over Pichu. I used a slight exaggeration, sue me.

 

[Plunder]

That's actually not true. Pichu has some advantages over Pikachu, such has the incredible knockback on Pichu's smash attacks. I think his aerials might also be faster?? + he has a smaller hitbox. I don't actually play either of the characters, but I'm certain Pikachu isn't better than Pichu in every way. If I HAD to pick, I would put Pikachu above Pichu, sure, but that doesn't mean he has every advantage over Pichu.

"Pichu has some advantages over Pikachu, such has the incredible knockback on Pichu's smash attacks."

Really, eh?

You mean his weaker Up Smash that has crap range compared to Pikachu, his F-smash which has crap range and can be SDI'ed out of, his poopy Down smash which is so weak and small compared to to Pikachu's....

 

[GenNyan]

"Pichu has some advantages over Pikachu, such has the incredible knockback on Pichu's smash attacks."

Really, eh?

You mean his weaker Up Smash that has crap range compared to Pikachu, his F-smash which has crap range and can be SDI'ed out of, his poopy Down smash which is so weak and small compared to to Pikachu's....

Oh Sh*t, I didn't even see his "example." I thought he meant something legitimate like smaller hurt boxes or the fact he has 2 taunts. Thanks for catching that.

 

[RadicalRat]

@ GenNyan

I am abstaining from the Pichu vs. Pikachu argument, due to lack of technical knowledge.

However, let's say, for all intents and purposes, Pichu IS just "Pikachu, but bad." An exception to the rule, yes. But my quarrel with the Tiers is primarily the viability bit. Honestly, it was pretty naïve of me to try arguing that all characters are equal. But I firmly maintain that no character is just not viable.

Also, I will concede that some characters have natural counters. A character can be better AGAINST a certain character, without necessarily being a better character. The circle of counter-characters is another way the Tier list falls short. This was touched on in @ Delta Chae 's link, but I think it goes deeper than "X Character is good against Y, but literally nothing else" as it's phrased there.

Perhaps I should offer an alternative to the Tiers you're so attached to instead of just saying we should abolish them completely.

I'd like an analysis of each character's match-ups to decide situational viability, rather than viability in certain tournament levels at all. I think that would work better, make tournaments more interesting, and encourage experimentation with all the characters.

 

[Comet7]

pikachu would kill for pichu's nair and superior grab range. pichu is still really bad.

 

[Zalak]

Oh Sh*t, I didn't even see his "example." I thought he meant something legitimate like smaller hurt boxes or the fact he has 2 taunts. Thanks for catching that.

Yeah, actually, I mentioned Pichu's smaller hurt boxes. I referred to them as hitboxes, but I mentioned them. You could have actually re-read my post instead of letting your confirmation bias deceive you.

Also, I never meant to argue that Pichu was better than Pikachu. I was just pointing out that Pikachu isn't technically better than Pichu in every way. I wasn't sure if you knew, so I pointed it out. I would NEVER claim that Pichu is a BETTER character than Pikachu.

edit: but I DID fail to mention Pichu's two taunts... you got me there.

 

[Zalak]

In fact, the only true case is with Amsa and I just believe its sort of a lucky combination of him picking a character who had these unseen tools that he was willing to dedicate himself long enough to uncover. But that is just because thats who Amsa is, he is actual probably one of the best players right now (from a technical standpoint) and his biggest draw back is probably his character choice. If he had dedicated that time to a character who has more options all the time, who knows where he'd be. He's so technical, I can't imagine.

I'm not actually sure if I agreed with you there. Just like someone can have a ton of talent for Smash Bros Melee and have almost none for Street Fighter, I feel like someone can have a lot of talent for a particular Melee character, but not necessarily every other character. aMSa is really technical with Yoshi, so I agree he could probably get SICK tech skill with Fox, but I'm not sure his Fox would be better than his Yoshi overall. That's just speculation though!

Like, I doubt my Fox would be better than my current Mario if I had put all of my Mario time into Fox. That's just me, but the same thing might apply to aMSa. Certain people's fighting styles just work well with the styles of certain characters.

EDIT: accidentally double posted.. rip

 

[GenNyan]

Perhaps I should offer an alternative to the Tiers you're so attached to instead of just saying we should abolish them completely.

I'd like an analysis of each character's match-ups to decide situational viability, rather than viability in certain tournament levels at all. I think that would work better, make tournaments more interesting, and encourage experimentation with all the characters.

That is called a matchup chart. The most recent (legitimate) MU chart was made in 2007. No single person has enough knowledge to create a MU chart on their own, and as such, they are famous for being terribly inaccurate.

In addition to this, MUs are different for different levels of play. At low level play, the Sheik-Bowser MU is probably 50-50. At the highest level of play, the MU is 99-1, sheiks favor. It is only 95-5 in intermediate level play.

The reason high tier characters are placed high on the tier list is that they don't have many losing MUs to low tier characters. Fox has no losing matchups, which is (partly) why he is ranked so highly. Although a character like young link does have a decent MU vs. Jigglypuff, it isn't worth the time investment of learning young link instead of a high tier, since he doesn't win the MU that hard (Some even say its almost 50-50.) A single person can only become truly proficient at 1, 2, maybe 3 characters before working on all of their secondaries takes away time/effort that could have been put into a single main (a person can only use one character per match, so having a plethora of secondaries won't give you much benefit anyways.)

Yeah, actually, I mentioned Pichu's smaller hurt boxes. I referred to them as hitboxes, but I mentioned them. You could have actually re-read my post instead of letting your confirmation bias deceive you.

Also, I never meant to argue that Pichu was better than Pikachu. I was just pointing out that Pikachu isn't technically better than Pichu in every way. I wasn't sure if you knew, so I pointed it out. I would NEVER claim that Pichu is a BETTER character than Pikachu.

You were nitpicking me, so I was happy when someone nitpicked you, sue me. But yes, I missed the hurtboxes part. I also missed the smashes part though, so I'll just call eyesight johns.

I'm not actually sure if I agreed with you there. Just like someone can have a ton of talent for Smash Bros Melee and have almost none for Street Fighter, I feel like someone can have a lot of talent for a particular Melee character, but not necessarily every other character. aMSa is really technical with Yoshi, so I agree he could probably get SICK tech skill with Fox, but I'm not sure his Fox would be better than his Yoshi overall. That's just speculation though!

Like, I doubt my Fox would be better than my current Mario if I had put all of my Mario time into Fox. That's just me, but the same thing might apply to aMSa. Certain people's fighting styles just work well with the styles of certain characters.

EDIT: accidentally double posted.. rip

Telling yourself that you can't play a certain character for some arbitrary, made-up reason baffles me. You can play any character you want dude. When I was learning Falco, it was super uncomfortable of course, but now he feels as natural as an apple tree.

 

[Zalak]

Telling yourself that you can't play a certain character for some arbitrary, made-up reason baffles me. You can play any character you want dude. When I was learning Falco, it was super uncomfortable of course, but now he feels as natural as an apple tree.

I'm not saying I can't play Fox. I'm just saying I'm better with Mario. Mario is my main man and he never lets me down.

What I'm trying to say is Mario is an amazing character, and I am great at playing him. It's like how Hungrybox chooses to play Jigglypuff instead of Fox. The only difference is according to the tier lists, Mario isn't S tier. I don't at all regret putting my time into Mario instead of Fox. Why should I?

You were nitpicking me, so I was happy when someone nitpicked you, sue me. But yes, I missed the hurtboxes part. I also missed the smashes part though, so I'll just call eyesight johns.

My apologies, but I genuinely thought you didn't know that Pichu has a few advantages over Pikachu.

 

[Spaghetti Sammy]

Its mostly for pride.
The day Doc is S Tier is the day when all Doc mains will say in perfect harmony:
"aw cool :^)"
Because I mean, you know your character is good.
Everyone else knows it.
But tiers make it official.

 

[Zalak]

Its mostly for pride.
The day Doc is S Tier is the day when all Doc mains will say in perfect harmony:
"aw cool :^)"
Because I mean, you know your character is good.
Everyone else knows it.
But tiers make it official.

...............

Mario will become S tier before Doc... mark my words...

 

[Flippy Flippersen]

Ok here's another question. How many of us are on the same level as Armada, Leffen, and Mango? I'd wager that the answer is none. Granted, if Fox sweetspots the edge properly which is a pretty consistent thing for the top 10 players, then there's not a whole lot you can do aside from an extremely fast edgehog which usually isn't worth the risk. On most other levels however Fox's recovery is probably the middle ground as far as recoveries amongst the top tiers are concerned.

Being able to sweetspot the ledge is not some high tier tech that only those who spend thousands of hours refining can do. You literally just hold towards the ledge. This combined with that his non sweetspot goes to far to cover if you hog the ledge away from fox means he gets at least a 50/50, then there is also side b/shortens shine stall, wall jump and airdodge. (admitably walljump is pretty common and airdodge is something all characters have) Fox has plenty of recovery tools. There's only 3~4 better recoveries in the game (puff pika samus (peach))

If you compare this to sheik who is forced to up b on stage if she's too far to airdodge and her opponent knows to grab the ledge. (which will just get her hit again cause she has like 1/2 a second worth of endlag) It's very clear spaceys have a better recovery. If you compare it to falcon (who has the same problem as sheik except he's also easy to intercept) spaceys have a better recovery. If you compare it to marth who has a good mixup when he has his double jump but a terrible recovery without ( also susceptible to marth killer from a lot of positions) spaceys have a better recovery. If you compare it to ics where you're pretty much gonna get hit again no matter how you recover spaceys have a better recovery.

There is even a case to be made to argue their recovery is better than peach (since whilst peach has an amazing recovery she has a hard time actually landing after said recovery whereas spacey recovery after landing usually gets them straight back into the action) The only top tier with an objectively better recovery is puff. (there's also midtiers in samus/pika who have better recovery)

The only reason a lot of low level spaceys are so easy to kill is because low level players don't mix up what they do yet and spaceys are easy to get offstage. You can list any situation with a spacey above stage (outside of max distance away) and I can list you off a few things they can do to either make a guaranteed comeback or a mixup.

 

[Delta Chae]

@ Delta Chae

I am taking that step back. I'm not arguing moves and such until I learn more. I recognize my inexperience and am working to fix that. I will neither admit defeat nor claim victory until I can adequately discuss such things. Instead I am arguing the logic of things for now. The technical details will come later.

While yes, that essay addressed a lot of my points, I would not say anything has been truly debunked. Yes, the tier lists change based on new techs that are revealed. How exactly does that prove tier lists are legitimate? To me, that proves they're useless. Dramatic exceptions may be rare, but they still do happen, and that means the lists failed in their job of categorizing characters, as it is put in the link.

( The condescension comes not from the disagreement itself, but in the "Anyone who reads this and still doesn't accept tiers is an idiot" attitude. Not to say it's necessarily a bad thing, it's a solid persuasive writing technique, if an annoying one. But that really isn't important, as this thread is not about writing, but Smashing )

I am acknowledging that tiers exist in a hypothetical situation where one character is intentionally engineered to be better than another. This is not the case with any Smash game. You can't just say "Tiers exist here, so they must exist here."

I realize that essay pointed out that because tiers weren't intended, there was no intent to balance the game either, so tiers have to exist. But I find that to be a flawed argument in that I see no way not intentionally creating tiers actually DOES create tiers. If I'm misinterpreting this, feel free to clarify

I do agree that alone, it's a poor defense to rely on, as just because something was not intended doesn't mean it won't happen anyway, but I'm not using it alone.

EDIT: Meant to add this as a footnote before, but I want to apologize for not breaking down the quotes like I've been doing, I'm on mobile now.

You see, this is why I'm not wholly convinced you aren't trolling. You're presenting your arguments in such a way that they seem logically sound but someone who actually reads them will see that they're full of nonsense and that you're just flat out ignoring a lot of what's being said.

As I already said, a tier list reflects the state of the metagame at a specific point in time. The most recent tier list for Melee came out in 2013 and the ranking of each character is based on their viability in the 2013 metagame. When the next tier list is released, there will be changes that reflect the current state of the metagame. Some possible changes: Marth and Sheik might switch spots because Marth has better spacies matchups, Puff will likely drop since as top level Fox's have gotten better Puff has become less viable and might drop out of S tier altogether because of the overabundance of Fox players, Falcon and ICs might drop out of S tier and into A tier, Ganondorf might drop into B tier, Dr. Mario will likely drop since his only representation in high level play switched to Sheik, all of these changes would reflect the current state of the metagame and I don't understand why it's so hard for you to comprehend this one simple fact. Another point that needs to reiterated that you also seem incapable of comprehending, tiers are relevant only at a high level of gameplay. On a local level any character could probably win, however, those that are top tier will still have an easier time. On a regional level, you might be able to win with somebody from A tier but don't count on it. On a national level, unless you pick a top tier, you will not win. You also say that because the tier list changes it's useless, again, this seems to born primarily from your ignorance as to what a tier list actually is, for the third time it is a reflection of the state of the metagame at a specific point in time.

By admitting that you don't have enough experience to talk about the moves you also admit that your opinion on this matter is worth nothing. The tier list reflects which characters are viable during a specific state of the metagame. Whether or not a character is useful in the metagame is based on several things but one of the most important factors in determining that is how fast and how useful their moves are. A character without good moves will not be able to compete even if they have decent character physics because all of the mobility means nothing if you can't do anything efficient with it. As an example: let's take Fox and remove his shine, make his up-smash hit like a wet noodle, remove back-air's kill potential, remove up-air's kill potential, make his up-b like Falco's, make it so up-throw no longer combos into up-air, give his blaster landing lag, make his side-b like Falco's, make it so you can no longer shorten his side-b, increase the landing lag on his up-b, and increase the base knockback of all of his moves but do not compensate by increasing the knockback scaling, do all this but leave his mobility completely untouched. If you do this then Fox loses pretty much every guaranteed kill setup he has and goes from being one of the best characters in the game to one of the worst. A character with good moves will very likely be high or top tier, and a character with bad moves pretty much will be low tier.

You actually are misinterpreting this. A point that was put forward in the link I gave you is that balancing that many characters so that every character is viable is simply not possible even if you were to try. Because the developers weren't balancing their game with high level gameplay in mind this only reinforces the existence of tiers even more. If you truly believe that a developer can make a game where every single character/option is tournament viable then you're either naive or willfully ignorant. Even Project M which is balanced toward high level gameplay has several characters that have little to no tournament representation not because they're bad characters, but because other characters are just better.

 

[Dolla Pills]

I will believe that tiers don't exist when Ganon wins a major.

 

[Spak]

I will believe that tiers don't exist when Ganon wins a major.

I will believe that tiers don't exist when Ness wins a major.

 

[Eggggggggggbert]

I will believe that tiers don't exist when Ness wins a major.

THE YEAR IS 199X

 

[Delta Chae]

I will believe that tiers don't exist when Ness wins a major.

I'll believe tiers don't exist when Bowser wins a major.

 

[Spak]

I'll believe tiers don't exist when Bowser wins a major.

I'll believe tiers don't exits when Wireframe (Male) wins a major.

 

[rty1001]

Why is this argument still a thing? Tier lists exist, no game developer, especially in the early 2000's, can make a game perfectly balanced, there's always going to be the best and the worst. That's how it'll always be for every fighting game. It's up to you if you want to listen or disregard the tier lists, and whether it stops you to play your main or not. Those 2 reasons are why these arguments still exist, because of insecurity with their character because a list told them it was bad.

 

[Dolla Pills]

I'll believe tiers don't exits when Wireframe (Male) wins a major.

Can we talk about Giga Bowser's viability though?

EDIT:
Nvm I forgot viability doesn't exist

 

[Spak]

Can we talk about Giga Bowser's viability though?

I still think that Giga Bowser is more viable than wireframes. He can mash out of grabs super fast, has specials, he's hard to kill off the top, and since Up-B OoS is frame 1, it would be absolutely gigantic.

 

[Delta Chae]

I'll believe tiers don't exits when Wireframe (Male) wins a major.

When are we going to see G&W win a major?

 

[Dolla Pills]

I still think that Giga Bowser is more viable than wireframes. He can mash out of grabs super fast, has specials, he's hard to kill off the top, and since Up-B OoS is frame 1, it would be absolutely gigantic.

He actually can't be grabbed

 

[Spak]

He actually can't be grabbed

Oh, never mind then. I just assumed he was given altered mushroomed characteristics.

 

[RadicalRat]

You also say that because the tier list changes it's useless, again, this seems to born primarily from your ignorance as to what a tier list actually is, for the third time it is a reflection of the state of the metagame at a specific point in time.

Reflection of the metagame at a specific point in time. That's fine. I'm okay with that. The metagame is most developed for the top tiers, and that's what makes them top tiers. I understand that, and that makes sense. But that shouldn't affect viability, which whether that's actually what the tier list it or not, that's what it's used for. The metagame will always be advanced for the other characters. Yoshi may just rise in the tiers thanks to aMSa, just as Ice Climbers did. As such, while I can see tiers being used as a post-tournament analysis tool... I don't see how they can be used to determine which characters will be viable to win. I KNOW that essay you linked says that's not what tier lists are for. But that's how I've seen them used, and that is where my issue lies. In the assertion that you need to be playing a certain character to win.

On a local level any character could probably win, however, those that are top tier will still have an easier time. On a regional level, you might be able to win with somebody from A tier but don't count on it. On a national level, unless you pick a top tier, you will not win.

That right there. That's what I'm fighting. I acknowledge that tiers will exist in some form, you've won that argument. There's not a way around it, and I will admit that I was blinded by both my inexperience and my desire to believe that all characters were perfectly balanced. I was wrong there. But to state the impossibility of some characters winning? No. Absolutely not. Perhaps it won't be as "easy"... but everyone at least has a chance. There will always be more techs to learn, there will always be another player out there who upsets the list, and proves the viability estimates wrong. Always.

 

[Delta Chae]

Reflection of the metagame at a specific point in time. That's fine. I'm okay with that. The metagame is most developed for the top tiers, and that's what makes them top tiers. I understand that, and that makes sense. But that shouldn't affect viability, which whether that's actually what the tier list it or not, that's what it's used for. The metagame will always be advanced for the other characters. Yoshi may just rise in the tiers thanks to aMSa, just as Ice Climbers did. As such, while I can see tiers being used as a post-tournament analysis tool... I don't see how they can be used to determine which characters will be viable to win. I KNOW that essay you linked says that's not what tier lists are for. But that's how I've seen them used, and that is where my issue lies. In the assertion that you need to be playing a certain character to win.



That right there. That's what I'm fighting. I acknowledge that tiers will exist in some form, you've won that argument. There's not a way around it, and I will admit that I was blinded by both my inexperience and my desire to believe that all characters were perfectly balanced. I was wrong there. But to state the impossibility of some characters winning? No. Absolutely not. Perhaps it won't be as "easy"... but everyone at least has a chance. There will always be more techs to learn, there will always be another player out there who upsets the list, and proves the viability estimates wrong. Always.

You see, you have this idea in your head that every character is tournament viable, while that would be nice it's simply not true.

Take for example, Mr. Game and Watch in Melee. He'll never win a major and has almost no tournament representation want to know why? He's tied with Jigglypuff as the lightest character in the game but has none of Puff's redeeming qualities. His only good consistent KO move is his nair, most of his aerial attacks can't be L-cancelled including his nair, he dies extremely quickly as a result of his light weight, he can't combo worth a damn because of his inability to L-cancel most of his aerials, he has a shield that's so easy to shield poke it's laughable, his rolls suck, his wavedash is decidedly mediocre, his tech-rolls are just as bad as his rolls, and his spot dodge grants almost no invincibility frames. There's pretty much not a single redeeming quality about this character except for his throws being hard to DI which isn't a big deal since his followups out of a throw suck anyway.

Or let's look at an even worse example, the PK kids in Brawl. They suffer an extra 10 frames of lag during their grab release animation meaning that several characters, most notably Marth, and grab release them to death. Note that a kill this way is akin to Wobbling, once you're caught in it the only way to escape is for your opponent to mess it up. The difference between this an Wobbling is that it requires almost no skill to perform, grab>pummel>grab release>repeat until you can finish them off with an fsmash out of the grab release.

There will always be small things being discovered in Melee, that much is true. At this point however, it's safe to say that nothing huge like wavedashing will be discovered that will revitalize a character's metagame. Something might be discovered that moves a character a spot or two up the list, but nobody is going to be seeing any major drops or gains any time soon. Again, if another character had some sort of game changing tech that could shoot them up the tier list they would've found it by now. Almost all low-tiers have a professional dedicated to using them and only Yoshi has broken out so far and that's primarily due a lack of match-up knowledge on most players' parts. As a final example, Taj is a very notable Mewtwo player and is considered the best Mewtwo player in Melee, he himself has stated as a low tier player it's more or less required that you have a pocket top tier to cover certain matchups. If you main Bowser for instance, you'd pretty much have to have a pocket Puff or Fox because inevitably you'll come up against a Sheik which in case you weren't aware, is the single most lopsided match-up in Melee, like 9.9-0.1 against Bowser. Before you say "There's still a chance however small that Bowser could beat Sheik", the odds of that happening are so low that they're not significant enough to be worth accounting for.

The most a player can hope to get from playing a low tier at this point is taking an opponent by surprise because they don't know the match-up. Link-Marth is Melee is a good example of this, if the Marth player knows that match-up, it's free as hell, but if they don't then the Link can cause some serious issues for the Marth.

In theory, anyone could win a tournament. In practice however, only top tiers and some high tiers will be winning tournaments.

 

[Dolla Pills]

I'd like to emphasize that right now characters are going through optimization, not revolution. It wouldn't surprise me if in the future Plup takes a big tournament using only Sheik or Wizzrobe wins using Falcon if they are able to optimize those characters well enough. However, the likelihood that a Zelda or a Roy will win is abysmal because the characters just don't have many good options. Tech is not some infinite resource that can be continued to be discovered. This is not OOT where some random wrong warp will be found that allows the game to be beaten in 10 minutes instead of 20. Sure, you can try to be as efficient with Roy as possible, but you won't be able to do an instant fully charged neutral b no matter how hard you try, and you will lose to a Sheik that is half as efficient.

These aren't rules written in stone, if you want to show everyone that all characters are viable then be the one to pick up Ness and prove us all wrong. Good luck

 

[Zodiac]

Oh hey look its time for our annual "Tier lists are evil and if YOU JUST BELIEVE WITH YOUR HEART YOU CAN WIN WITH LOW TIER CHARACTERS" Thread.

I don't even buy that crap and I MAIN LINK FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

 

[Zalak]

Oh hey look its time for our annual "Tier lists are evil and if YOU JUST BELIEVE WITH YOUR HEART YOU CAN WIN WITH LOW TIER CHARACTERS" Thread.

I don't even buy that crap and I MAIN LINK FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN LINK? DO YOU BELIEVE IN HIS POTENTIAL AS A FIGHTER?