No Tiers in Brawl: Theory of Character Counters

[MajinSweet]

I think you make a good point. II can't refute your first point, but I do have something to say on your last. Roy is an example of characters people chose when they start. He's a good starting character. And he works. He is used by newer people because he can rely on smashes and specials. The same is true for Samus and Link. But does this make them high teir? No. Let's look at Team Fortress 2 (a great game BTW, check it out). The game is balanced, but newer players play Solider. Does this mean the Soldier is better then the other classes. No. A Scout is harder to play then a Soldier, but both are balanced. That's the idea. Roy is balanced but much easier to play, but this is a direct contrast to the tiers which says he's not as good. In the lower levels, stuff like this does matter.

Thats not the point I was making, obviously the current tier list isn't going t reflect casual play very well. The point was that tiers exist at all skill levels even at low level play. Of course in low level play, the tiers will appear to me more balanced than at a high level, but even there the tiers do in fact exist.

 

[IWontGetOverTheDam]

It's official. Tiers don exits.

 

[Enshoku]

It's official. Tiers don exits.

already made the joke, son...

 

[SmashChu]

Thats not the point I was making, obviously the current tier list isn't going t reflect casual play very well. The point was that tiers exist at all skill levels even at low level play. Of course in low level play, the tiers will appear to me more balanced than at a high level, but even there the tiers do in fact exist.

True, but I was responding to the comment I quoted (saying that the Roy thing proves there are tiers at the lower levels).

Looking though your other post (at least between mine and yours) I didn't see any evidence that points to that conclusion. Maybe you can enlighten me?

 

[Samochan]

Even casuals recognice when a character is lackcluster and when a character owns. Like new people using sheik in ssbm (my first character, guess if I beat everyone or not) and till today sheik has been a top 4 character. Without being aware of competitive community my pikachu and kirby were constantly losing to my buddy's peach, be it hyrule temple or not. I found myself on severe disadvantage cause I got turnip spammed and gimped on my recovery and everything pretty mean. So I switched to peach myself and the results were pretty clear, lol. Simple dsmash spam won me a tourneyset while my kirby got owned.

 

[papagenos]

tiers will happen but i'm hoping it's a bigger GROUP this time aorund...

it would be nice if tiers had the best FAST character the best HEAVY HITTER character the best COMBO CHARACTER ect...

i'm being vague but you get the idea, instead of ONE character dominating it would be nice if there a "types" of characters and one or two are the BEST of that type but at tournaments there is at least a variety of characters since each type dominates over the other type.

no matter how die hard a melee fan you are you must admit the list of "playable" tournament level characters was VERY small, i don't see hwy ppl don't want thsi to change it SHOULD change and we shoudl all be happy if it does.

tiers are fine, but lets hope we have a diverse list even if some characters are best i hope the case is SOME characters and not one or two characters.

 

[okiyama]

What the tier list says:
A character that is of a higher tier it does better against most characters if the two players have equal skill levels, low tier is the converse; a character of a lower tier will lose to most characters but could be better against others.
For example: DK plays very well against fast fallers like Fox and Falco but against most other characters he has trouble with them, thus low tier.

 

[Aminar]

I'd like to see lower tier characters having a use. The best exampes of this are Link, Young Link, And Pikachu from Melee. Pikachu is good against Captain Falcon. Link is good against Peach and Marth, Youg Link is good against Peach. If every low tier or most of them did very well against a high tier reliably while on an equal level than one good low tier main could counterpick his way to the top. This is essentially what the toipic creator is saying. Lucario is really good against people that rack up lots of damage to kill. Ike amd Dedede own Lucario quite hard. Falco's Laser Lock is just stupid and throws this off somewhat, but maybe a few characters are immune to it. We'll see as time goes on.

 

[Problem2]

I don't know why people like the idea of a counter happy character roster. This isn't pokemon where you have a team of 6 to use. You have one main guy that you use and hope to strive over everyone else. If by chance, your character does end up playing a counter, you get a back up to win.

If it's too counter happy then the first match will be the only match that counts and then all other matches would be countering a main, then countering a counter, then countering a counter counter etc...

The fact that you can never establish the best team or player in Pokemon is one of the reason I began focusing more of Smash. If Smash turns out to be too much like Pokemon, it would really diminish the competitive seen imo.

 

[mario brawler]

okay I basicly only read the 1st page so...yea,but I really like the topic of this thread and your post,I'd enjoy a rock-paper-scissor feel to brawl,and I hope a match up list will be created,that list will be far better and usefull than a tier list

EDIT:just bothered reading above comment XD

I don't know why people like the idea of a counter happy character roster. This isn't pokemon where you have a team of 6 to use. You have one main guy that you use and hope to strive over everyone else. If by chance, your character does end up playing a counter, you get a back up to win.

If it's too counter happy then the first match will be the only match that counts and then all other matches would be countering a main, then countering a counter, then countering a counter counter etc...

The fact that you can never establish the best team or player in Pokemon is one of the reason I began focusing more of Smash. If Smash turns out to be too much like Pokemon, it would really diminish the competitive seen imo.

wow that paragraph really made me change my mind about this,yuor right it'd be like playing rock-paper-scissor's when you already know what you opponent will use ,hmm amybe it could still be a R-P-S,but not to an extreme extent...ugh I just hate this cuz eventually someone's gonna find some big glitch with one character and there gonna pwn,I wish glitches would be banned -.- LOLZ XD yea rite

 

[Enshoku]

okay I basicly only read the 1st page so...yea,but I really like the topic of this thread and your post,I'd enjoy a rock-paper-scissor feel to brawl,and I hope a match up list will be created,that list will be far better and usefull than a tier list

EDIT:just bothered reading above comment XD

wow that paragraph really made me change my mind about this,yuor right it'd be like playing rock-paper-scissor's when you already know what you opponent will use ,hmm amybe it could still be a R-P-S,but not to an extreme extent...ugh I just hate this cuz eventually someone's gonna find some big glitch with one character and there gonna pwn,I wish glitches would be banned -.- LOLZ XD yea rite

glitches add depth to the game, and there is an article written somewhere that explains professional gaming with a wider view, I'll look for it, but right now I'll just try to remember what I can:

glitches are the fault of the programmers, and the professional players WILL use them, unless they are banned. Most tournaments shouldn't ban them unless they make it impossible, or very very very unlikely for any person to beat the glitch abuser, even if he/she is the world's best player.

 

[SlashandBurn]

There will eventually be a tier list for Tournament Play. Techniques will be discovered that give some characters advantages over others. Hopefully with all the effort that Sakurai put into this game to try and balance it it won't be like Melee's tier list where there are 3-4 characters that consistently win tournaments, or around 35% of characters not having a chance in a tournament setting.

 

[squarez]

Of course tiers will exist, it is virtually impossible to make a game with this many characters completely balanced. The best nintendo can do is make it MORE balanced than melee was. It will take a while for the tiers to pan out also, because tier lists constantly change when people find better ways of playing their characters.

 

[Dantarion]

I think brawl will be a lot like smash 64 in terms of tiers.

In smash 64, there was a definate high tier section, consisting of kirby, ness, and pikachu.

However, the bottom of the tier list (DK, Link) wasn't that far away in terms of moves.

In Melee, comparing fox's moves to mewtwo's, there is such a EXTREME difference in terms of range, knockback, speed, and damage, that fox is the superior character in almost every way, and there was almost NO reedeeming factor that could give a skilled mewtwo player a chance to easily beat a slightly less skilled fox player.

I hope that in Brawl the tiers are a lot closer.

 

[Enshoku]

I think brawl will be a lot like smash 64 in terms of tiers.

In smash 64, there was a definate high tier section, consisting of kirby, ness, and pikachu.

However, the bottom of the tier list (DK, Link) wasn't that far away in terms of moves.

In Melee, comparing fox's moves to mewtwo's, there is such a EXTREME difference in terms of range, knockback, speed, and damage, that fox is the superior character in almost every way, and there was almost NO reedeeming factor that could give a skilled mewtwo player a chance to easily beat a slightly less skilled fox player.

I hope that in Brawl the tiers are a lot closer.

in smash 64 link was horrible. If he was put up against a kirby it was over...

hopefully it's as balanced as guilty gear...

 

[Boxob]

There is NO WAY to balance a game this large, there will be tiers. End of story.

 

[Enshoku]

There is NO WAY to balance a game this large, there will be tiers. End of story.

err... duh, the only tierless game is a game where every character plays exactly the same...

 

[PXG]

QFT.

You guys don't seem to get what tiers really are. Tiers are not a ranking of characters based on potential (which many people wrongly believe). Tiers are simply a ranking of characters based on tournament results. In order for a character to become high tier, they must place better than the other characters in tournaments.

Tiers will exist because it's based off of a real statistic (how high does this character place on average).

That being said, they will certainly fluctuate for a year or two after the first one, then they'll probably stabalize until someone makes some huge discovery that makes people place higher with specific characters than they did before (like L-canceling moving Fox and Falco up).

I think people understand how tiers work. Instead, I think what some folks are implying, is that because of Brawls "balanced" nature, a solidifed tier list, such as Melee's may not ever be generated. Sure, some characters will be ranked "higher", but I think the lines dividing "God Tier" and "Upper Tier" are going to be a lot more transparent.

In short, yes, there will be tiers, but it won't be as concrete or have has many partitions as it did in Melee.

 

[mario brawler]

glitches add depth to the game, and there is an article written somewhere that explains professional gaming with a wider view, I'll look for it, but right now I'll just try to remember what I can:

glitches are the fault of the programmers, and the professional players WILL use them, unless they are banned. Most tournaments shouldn't ban them unless they make it impossible, or very very very unlikely for any person to beat the glitch abuser, even if he/she is the world's best player.

very true,but my main point was IF glitches did'nt exist or IF they where banned tier list's and character's generaly would be alot more balanced which is something everyone can admit,now im not saying that the character's would be perfectly balanced for example a fox player can still beat a mewtwo player,but the mewtwo player would have a higher chance of winning than normally,right now brawl look's very balanced and there's no one character that extremly better than another(eith the ecaption of a few...I think),but then glitches will change all that ,I just hope that the next tier list's to come will be alot tighter this time around rather than god tier and garbage tier XD

 

[Enshoku]

very true,but my main point was IF glitches did'nt exist or IF they where banned tier list's and character's generaly would be alot more balanced which is something everyone can admit,now im not saying that the character's would be perfectly balanced for example a fox player can still beat a mewtwo player,but the mewtwo player would have a higher chance of winning than normally,right now brawl look's very balanced and there's no one character that extremly better than another(eith the ecaption of a few...I think),but then glitches will change all that ,I just hope that the next tier list's to come will be alot tighter this time around rather than god tier and garbage tier XD

characters aren't extremely balanced right now, do me a favor and find me a video where a marth loses to a yoshi...

 

[Dark Sonic]

Actually L-canceling made melee more balanced than it was before, because it reduced the speed gap between slow and fast characters. So I don't see where you're getting this idea that advance techs make the game less balanced.

And in your example you used Mewtwo and Fox, but you were still wrong. Double Jump canceling and L-canceling were like a god send in this matchup, because it's really what allowed Mewtwo to combo Fox at all. Wavedashing also allowed Mewtwo a quicker method of moving around the stage, which sure didn't hurt. It's just that the things Mewtwo gained wasn't enough to save him from being a terrible character in general.

Now lets look at a more realistic example, Gannondorf. Gannondorf was a very slow character, but L-canceling gave him a significant speed up. It used to be that every time his attacks were shielded people could just shield grab him (or even let go of thier shield and then punish him) but now he was safe. Now he could actually apply a little bit of pressure to a shielding opponent, with less risk than before. That made him go from bad to pretty good. Now everyone can agree that Gannon got more out of advance techs then Sheik, and thus it closed the gap between them a little.

 

[mario brawler]

characters aren't extremely balanced right now, do me a favor and find me a video where a marth loses to a yoshi...

I said very balanced not extremly,and it is alot more balanced,well compared to melee anyway's,and hehe well finding specific matches on youtube right now is'nt very easy -.-,and I've yet to see a 1on 1 fight versus a yoshi and marth...sorry?

Actually L-canceling made melee more balanced than it was before, because it reduced the speed gap between slow and fast characters. So I don't see where you're getting this idea that advance techs make the game less balanced.

And in your example you used Mewtwo and Fox, but you were still wrong. Double Jump canceling and L-canceling were like a god send in this matchup, because it's really what allowed Mewtwo to combo Fox at all. Wavedashing also allowed Mewtwo a quicker method of moving around the stage, which sure didn't hurt. It's just that the things Mewtwo gained wasn't enough to save him from being a terrible character in general.

Now lets look at a more realistic example, Gannondorf. Gannondorf was a very slow character, but L-canceling gave him a significant speed up. It used to be that every time his attacks were shielded people could just shield grab him (or even let go of thier shield and then punish him) but now he was safe. Now he could actually apply a little bit of pressure to a shielding opponent, with less risk than before. That made him go from bad to pretty good. Now everyone can agree that Gannon got more out of advance techs then Sheik, and thus it closed the gap between them a little.

now all that does'nt matter cuz when someone find's a glitch it wont matter how fast a ganondorf can shffl or wavedash,I mean alright wavedashing can help a low-tier char.....but a high tier can still whoop *** cuz he also has accses to those techniques,those technuiqes that make low-tier better also make any other high tier character better and most likely to an even greater extent,now im not really against shffl'ing scicne short hopping and fast falling were intended,l-canceling help's alot too,but im just again'st glitches some character's can take better advantage than other's l-canceling is something everyone can do equally and will have the same effect's on all character's,but something like uh wavedashing while all character's can do it some character's are better or in more cases can be used in more situation's,but whatever WD is'nt even in brawl anyway,but im sure other glitches will be found and we could see kirby at god tier XD

 

[AREL0E]

The emergence of a god tier will never be in brawl, based on the characters.

I agree greatly with Dark Sonic. The "glitches" even up the playing field.

But if you're going to compare, the holy grail of glitches that makes one character surpass is all is just really naive. Link has the most ATS as far as brawl goes, yet he is not even considered in the same league as MK or Snake.

Basically Tiers exist greatly in brawl, I feel it more than in melee, or SSB64.

 

[1048576]

Lol necrobump.

Yeah OP was totally off. MK dominates all.

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

Wow, how idiotic.

Simply entertaining the though of "No tiers in Brawl" is a complete mockery of the principals of theorizing.

MK is Brawl. Done.

 

[Alopex]

Why was this thread revived?

The people responding after AREL0E should check the date of all the posts before his.

Then you'll see that were were made in February, when everything was still fresh and no one knew crap.

 

[karthik_king]

MK=Brawl
MK=Way to good
Brawl=/=too good

Yes I know this has been done before and I checked these dates but still you cannot say something like this after a couple of days so we assumed it was semi recent.

 

[1048576]

I already said lol necrobump.

Reading fail.