Not a Tier List: Montage's Character ratings: New Info: Meta, Sonic, Snake, Lucario

[Mama]

I'm actually quite surprised that you even NEED someone of importance to tell you how bad Ganon is. Bashing Yoshi for his limited approach and then praising Ganon is pretty hypocritical, considering that the only aerial move Ganon can afford to use close to the ground is his Uar, and his ground game mostly consists of Side B and "hope-your-opponent-doesn't-see-it-coming-a-mile-off" tilts. His fastest moves are his jab and up smash, both of which have no disjointed hitboxes and limited range. Projectile users like Lucas have a field day. And it's not like Ganon has tricks to get his hits in like Ike and Dedede do.

Then on the topic of Lucario, you say he doesn't have any approach either, but I couldn't help but notice that nobody in your group actually uses his extremely fast and effective disjointed-hitbox laden tilts. All the Lucario gameplay I've seen coming from Montage consists of Lucario using mostly his slow smash attacks and the occasional down air. No clever use of his down B or Side B at close range, etc and not one up tilt! Lucario has plenty of ways to advance on the opponent, much more so than Ganon. And unlike Ganon, he doesn't just have to rely on two moves to get opponents off his case.

Basically, I'd just like a bit more explanation on how you came up with some of the stranger ratings, especially since the rest of your impressions seem spot on. And why on earth does Ganon get a massive 2.5 boost from being able to suicide with his Side B and having a bit of power, while other characters with much more important edits end up getting 1.0's or 0.5's.

And also, oh thank you so much for stating the obvious about any character "working" if you're good. But that's not what I was talking about. Your assessment of the character's strengths and weaknesses are incorrect by majority and I'm pointing it out: Lucario does not have any problems with the range of his smash attacks, since all of them include disjointed hitboxes. His Fsmash has about the same range as Ike's Fsmash, which is widely accepted to be a move with "awesome range".

Well you can't really argue/understand if you don't have the game to see anything for yourself.

However I don't think any sort of tier list or rankings list created now would be all that accurate in the future. Don't get all bent out of shape if he disagrees with your favorite characters. As far as I know nobody has taken the game itself up to the next level. Not trying to say theres a right or wrong way to play it but I think that a lot of people may still have Melee-ish tendencies sitting at the back of their brains for the first couple of months of Brawl play.

We should see game play trends pop up in a couple of weeks like off stage aerial play becoming more common and stuff like that. When the trends begin to develop thats when people will reassess the preliminary tier/ranking lists like this one. Though some things may not change greatly...

 

[Flaming Dragon Wang]

Yoshi has one approach. The Bair. With the decline in power, as ht emove is used, Yoshi has a hard time.

The next time you mention Gimpy to me, will be the last time your question will be answered. If you get M2k, or someone of ACTUAL importance to tell me how Ganon is bad, then I'll care about your little messenger boy antics.

Vanish, please.

Edit: any character can 'work.' You just have to be good.

Thank you for being one of the people on this board with the balls to not kneel down and suck Gimpy's d*ck. Yes, he's good at Smash. A lot of people are. Get over it.

 

[Toadster5]

Cool one of the most enjoyable characters from Melee is now useless.

 

[Proven]

Eh? You guys can't get ZSS to work? What kind of strategy are you using?

I think I'll agree on the kill move stuff. Her two main (and as far as I can tell, only) kill moves are her Forward B and Bair attacks (the kick). Her Fsmash seems useful only at 150% or higher, but I haven't played a lot of matches with her. Too in love with Olimar.

Tried stun combos yet? This guy opens up some possibilities in my mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsAMYc3k7uQ

 

[cr00mz]

i was wondering about D3, what character can you compare him to in melee? (in terms of weight/speed) i assume that all or most of the characters from melee here in brawl have gotten speed, weight, damage etc. changes. So i was wondering what of the melee chars has the same speed and weight as D3 so i can get a better clue.

thanks for your time

 

[TheMagicalKuja]

I'd like to take this moment to say that Ether plays the best Sonic I have ever seen.

 

[red stone]

zero suit samus can use down b for recovery. she deserves points for that. Her combo ability is through the roof especially when you use b moves. also her down b is a spike. please raise her score to at least a 7

 

[S2]

I see see that some of TC's rankings of the mid/how tier clash with those seen in other topics.

At this point I'd take any tier list with a grain of salt until everyone has the game and players dedicated to specific characters really show us their full potential.

But yeah, it seems that the characters being called top tier here are pretty much consistent everywhere.

 

[NESSBOUNDER]

Ethet's Dedede is nothing to sneeze at either.

As for me not having the game, that's true, so I can't speak from personal experience. HOWEVER, all in all a character in Smash Bros is made up of a bunch of animations and statistics. If you remove all player skill and just look at the statistics, Ganondorf really doesn't have as much as many other characters.

Don't get me wrong, I think Montage did a great job of the character ratings so far, it's just that from a statistical point of view, Ganon SHOULD NOT be rated higher than Lucario, and I could not help but notice that nobody at Montage is making use of Lucario's better attacks and are making a lot of silly mistakes while playing him.

As for my earlier comment about Gimpy, I was not sucking up to him, dammit. I used Gimpy as an example because he:

a) is well known for being good with slow characters
b) uses Ganondorf effectively from what we've seen so far

I'm probably not looking hard enough, but I haven't seen a better Ganondorf yet, and I'll be that they still encounter the same problems.

 

[ComradeSAL]

As for me not having the game, that's true, so I can't speak from personal experience.

You could have stopped talking right there.

 

[Collective of Bears]

ROB? Slow? I think not!

 

[Gum]

Eh? You guys can't get ZSS to work? What kind of strategy are you using?

I think I'll agree on the kill move stuff. Her two main (and as far as I can tell, only) kill moves are her Forward B and Bair attacks (the kick). Her Fsmash seems useful only at 150% or higher, but I haven't played a lot of matches with her. Too in love with Olimar.

Tried stun combos yet? This guy opens up some possibilities in my mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsAMYc3k7uQ

zero suit samus can use down b for recovery. she deserves points for that. Her combo ability is through the roof especially when you use b moves. also her down b is a spike. please raise her score to at least a 7

OMG thank you. but here are some better vids of ZSS in action. Contrary to popular belief though, she does have a bit more kill potential than just forward B and back air. Her up smash is failry lethal as well.

ZSS vs Snake
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVvfHoUUND4

ZSS vs Shiek
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhFUfxfAAYo

Also, did anyone notice that samus still has double missile cancel. check this vid out
at 6:17-6:21. She does a perfect missle cancel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGcvQqUFN7U

 

[WFL]

Great post, I read most of it. I didn't think Toon Link would be that great, but with any mention of 0-death he has to be pretty good (just as IC's in melee). I'm sort of surprised by the amount of characters you gave an 8 or higher. Hopefully we won't be seeing every tourney won by a fox/marth/falco/mang0 and get more of a variety.

 

[Zenjamin]

I have the game, and I agree that ganon needs a point or so knocked off. the edit was not worth 2.5

but Link and Yoshi still suck balls.
no experence with Lucario.

MK and Olimar perhaps needing a bump up?
I have a friend who mains Olimar, and he is pretty much impossible to approach with DDD. anti aircraft tether, can out spam the Dees, is faster... i just cant catch up with the guy till he has racked up 100+ damage on me with DOTS.

 

[Collective of Bears]

Great post, I read most of it. I didn't think Toon Link would be that great, but with any mention of 0-death he has to be pretty good (just as IC's in melee). I'm sort of surprised by the amount of characters you gave an 8 or higher. Hopefully we won't be seeing every tourney won by a fox/marth/falco/mang0 and get more of a variety.

What, dare I ask, is a mang0?

 

[Flaminglink]

WTF link has poor combos ? You are crazy ! (looks like i will be toon link XD)

 

[leafgreen386]

You could have stopped talking right there.

Right now, when we have statistics and specifications about characters at our grasp, and most importantly video footage of what their attacks are capable of, I'd say theorysmash is viable enough to be considered. There is very little to suggest ganon even being that viable of a character anymore, while there is definitely info that suggests lucario at being fairly viable as a character. Someone who has studied a character and what they can do, and kept up to date with new things about the character probably knows more than someone who's only used a character for a little while, and learned everything through practice. Theory, although it should not be taken as the sole form of judgment, is meant to be applied to practice. Weak theory plus practice is no better than strong theory and no practice, especially at this stage, when everyone sucks. It's going to be a while before we see the true potential in a lot of characters, I'm sure, but the theorysmash of an observer shouldn't be completely ignored by those that are actually playing the game. I'm sure we all have our own ideas about how we want to play a character. Listening to these different ideas is one way these character's metagames are going to evolve in these early days of brawl.

Meh. This sorta got turned into a rant about something different than I originally meant, but w/e. My point is somewhere in there.

 

[kunai_abuser]

dmbrandon, quick question, I'm still a little confused, would say the worst 5 are, based on you and your friends impressions, Yoshi, Ganondorf, Link, Captain and ICs?

 

[NESSBOUNDER]

Right now, when we have statistics and specifications about characters at our grasp, and most importantly video footage of what their attacks are capable of, I'd say theorysmash is viable enough to be considered. There is very little to suggest ganon even being that viable of a character anymore, while there is definitely info that suggests lucario at being fairly viable as a character. Someone who has studied a character and what they can do, and kept up to date with new things about the character probably knows more than someone who's only used a character for a little while, and learned everything through practice. Theory, although it should not be taken as the sole form of judgment, is meant to be applied to practice. Weak theory plus practice is no better than strong theory and no practice, especially at this stage, when everyone sucks. It's going to be a while before we see the true potential in a lot of characters, I'm sure, but the theorysmash of an observer shouldn't be completely ignored by those that are actually playing the game. I'm sure we all have our own ideas about how we want to play a character. Listening to these different ideas is one way these character's metagames are going to evolve in these early days of brawl.

Meh. This sorta got turned into a rant about something different than I originally meant, but w/e. My point is somewhere in there.

^this.

Also, compare this Lucario to the ones on the Montage Youtube page.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8CM-NcVv8a8

This player uses ALL his tilts and attacks to their best ability, and also doesn't just flounder about with aerials and smash attacks. It's safe to say that the Pit player isn't terrible either, and Pit is considered a character who isn't easy to approach.

Also, metaknight is still only 6/10 after you added a +1 modifier, or am I missing something? (I don't remember him being a 5/10 before...)

 

[dmbrandon]

I'd like to take this moment to say that Ether plays the best Sonic I have ever seen.

I'd like to take this moment to agree.

zero suit samus can use down b for recovery. she deserves points for that. Her combo ability is through the roof especially when you use b moves. also her down b is a spike. please raise her score to at least a 7

She sucks ***. When you play people who are good, you will see why she sucks

What, dare I ask, is a mang0?

Mango is broken.

 

[dmbrandon]

dmbrandon, quick question, I'm still a little confused, would say the worst 5 are, based on you and your friends impressions, Yoshi, Ganondorf, Link, Captain and ICs?

sounds about right...

Also, compare this Lucario to the ones on the Montage Youtube page.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8CM-NcVv8a8

This player uses ALL his tilts and attacks to their best ability, and also doesn't just flounder about with aerials and smash attacks. It's safe to say that the Pit player isn't terrible either, and Pit is considered a character who isn't easy to approach.

Also, metaknight is still only 6/10 after you added a +1 modifier, or am I missing something? (I don't remember him being a 5/10 before...)

that was jdel's first attempt at the game He just wantyed to be on youtube!! hahahaha

Don't compare anything. He's good, but not great Lucario won't achieve much

 

[NESSBOUNDER]

Oh, and since your secondary is Lucas, Brandon, have you managed to integrate the damaging part of his down B into your game yet, or is it just not worth it as an attack? So far there have been mixed reports about this attack.

 

[dmbrandon]

Oh, and since your secondary is Lucas, Brandon, have you managed to integrate the damaging part of his down B into your game yet, or is it just not worth it as an attack? So far there have been mixed reports about this attack.

It's not worth it more than saying hahahahaha I hit you with that lolz

 

[NESSBOUNDER]

I see. Because apparently the attack is fast and has almost no lag after it hits. I was thinking it might be possible to use it for combos at low damage.


One more thing, and then I'll shut up about Lucario for a while: it turns out that Lucario's down B is actually effective for countering projectiles at close range, much more so than any other counter attack that isn't a reflector. While he can't teleport behind an opponent if they fire a projectile from a far distance away, his dash range WILL be extended for about half the length of Dedede's Side B in range if he counters a projectile. Since Wolf, Falco and Dedede players tend to use projectiles at close range, I can see this getting some more use once people begin to get the timing of the move down.

 

[SGX]

This is really disappointing to hear about Falcon. can you give an idea of particularly bad or good matchups for him?

 

[SmashFi3nd]

Whoa...are Link and Captain Falcon really THAT bad now? Captain Falcon doesn't really seem to be changed so much from melee besides his speed and Link is always bad to people. You just need to try him out ;-)

 

[dmbrandon]

This is really disappointing to hear about Falcon. can you give an idea of particularly bad or good matchups for him?

Good match ups-

Bad matchups - everyone else

Whoa...are Link and Captain Falcon really THAT bad now? Captain Falcon doesn't really seem to be changed so much from melee besides his speed and Link is always bad to people. You just need to try him out ;-)

I was a link main for two years.

 

[ComradeSAL]

Right now, when we have statistics and specifications about characters at our grasp, and most importantly video footage of what their attacks are capable of, I'd say theorysmash is viable enough to be considered. There is very little to suggest ganon even being that viable of a character anymore, while there is definitely info that suggests lucario at being fairly viable as a character. Someone who has studied a character and what they can do, and kept up to date with new things about the character probably knows more than someone who's only used a character for a little while, and learned everything through practice. Theory, although it should not be taken as the sole form of judgment, is meant to be applied to practice. Weak theory plus practice is no better than strong theory and no practice, especially at this stage, when everyone sucks. It's going to be a while before we see the true potential in a lot of characters, I'm sure, but the theorysmash of an observer shouldn't be completely ignored by those that are actually playing the game. I'm sure we all have our own ideas about how we want to play a character. Listening to these different ideas is one way these character's metagames are going to evolve in these early days of brawl.

Meh. This sorta got turned into a rant about something different than I originally meant, but w/e. My point is somewhere in there.

You have your terms heavily confused.

Watching a couple crappy youtube videos is not theory. It is empirical evidence, just like playing the game. The only difference is that playing the game is an almost strictly better form of empirical evidence. Especially when you have 80+ hours of playing the game compared to, what? Maybe 20 hours tops of watching on youtube.

If someone discovers an AT that breaks Lucario, then this is would be a revolutionary breakthrough in theory that would hopefully lead to an excellent character in practice. But guess what? No one is going to find such a thing by watching youtube.

I'm not saying Diem's word is god - in fact, he's very likely to be extremely wrong in at least a few places. However, if you haven't played the game, you have no business arguing with him as your arguments will basically boil down to "well Gimpy said..." or "this noob beat this noob with Lucario so he must be good."

 

[dmbrandon]

You have your terms heavily confused.

Watching a couple crappy youtube videos is not theory. It is empirical evidence, just like playing the game. The only difference is that playing the game is an almost strictly better form of empirical evidence. Especially when you have 80+ hours of playing the game compared to, what? Maybe 20 hours tops of watching on youtube.

If someone discovers an AT that breaks Lucario, then this is would be a revolutionary breakthrough in theory that would hopefully lead to an excellent character in practice. But guess what? No one is going to find such a thing by watching youtube.

I'm not saying Diem's word is god - in fact, he's very likely to be extremely wrong in at least a few places. However, if you haven't played the game, you have no business arguing with him as your arguments will basically boil down to "well Gimpy said..." or "this noob beat this noob with Lucario so he must be good."

I love you.

 

[StealthFighterX]

I really like this thread...im suprised falcon got nerfed so bad...but not link he sucks all around heh. Nice job brandon.

 

[NESSBOUNDER]

You have your terms heavily confused.

Watching a couple crappy youtube videos is not theory. It is empirical evidence, just like playing the game. The only difference is that playing the game is an almost strictly better form of empirical evidence. Especially when you have 80+ hours of playing the game compared to, what? Maybe 20 hours tops of watching on youtube.

If someone discovers an AT that breaks Lucario, then this is would be a revolutionary breakthrough in theory that would hopefully lead to an excellent character in practice. But guess what? No one is going to find such a thing by watching youtube.

I'm not saying Diem's word is god - in fact, he's very likely to be extremely wrong in at least a few places. However, if you haven't played the game, you have no business arguing with him as your arguments will basically boil down to "well Gimpy said..." or "this noob beat this noob with Lucario so he must be good."

Except that a lot of the time, people who have played the game will confirm speculations from theory.

Which is very much the case for Ganon, and to a lesser degree, Snake. Half of Snakes best tricks have been figured out because of people analysing his moves based off initial observations from other players.

To begin with, lots of people were using Lucas incorrectly when the game first came out. However, when people who were analysing the videos suggested that Lucas players use PK thunder more for offence and rely more on his aerial game at ground level (amongst many other suggestions) Lucas is now recognized as a very good character.

My arguments basically boil down to cold, hard statistics in most cases, which has been compiled from the opinions of people who HAVE played the game and who have done tests for us. And basically, Lucario has extended hitboxes on most of his attacks, has fast, reactionary tilts and the ability to punish predictable gameplay very effectively. Ganondorf is slow, has difficulty approaching the enemy from above, and relies on one or two good attacks to make up the majority of his approach.

Just because we may not have played the game ourselves, doesn't mean that we can't have observed something that another person who's playing the game may not have picked up on. You don't need to be the one eating a mango to know it's a very juicy fruit, and that eating it over the kitchen sink would be the best way to avoid making a mess.

 

[Hailzeon0079]

I'm really suprised that Diddy is so fast on the chart and ZSS is slower.

Also according to the list, fox, falco, and wolf are all pretty much the same speed?

Oh and can't zss use the DownB kickjump as recovery, then get another jump out of it?

 

[Proven]

...Brandon, why don't you just edit ZSS to say, "she has three jumps with her DB, but we don't feel like it's enough".

 

[ComradeSAL]

My arguments basically boil down to cold, hard statistics in most cases, which has been compiled from the opinions of people who HAVE played the game and who have done tests for us. And basically, Lucario has extended hitboxes on most of his attacks, has fast, reactionary tilts and the ability to punish predictable gameplay very effectively. Ganondorf is slow, has difficulty approaching the enemy from above, and relies on one or two good attacks to make up the majority of his approach.

Just because we may not have played the game ourselves, doesn't mean that we can't have observed something that another person who's playing the game may not have picked up on. You don't need to be the one eating a mango to know it's a very juicy fruit, and that eating it over the kitchen sink would be the best way to avoid making a mess.

I'm currently a graduate student at the department of statistics at Colorado State University, and I can assure you that nothing you have posted so far even vaguely resembles "cold, hard statistics." As if "cold, hard, statistics" actually existed in the real world. I'm not saying that you can't figure out that a mango is a juicy fruit from watching someone eat it; I'm saying that the person actually eating the &#!@ing thing probably has an even better idea.

EDIT: Besides, the mango analogy is void. We've already established that mango is broken.

 

[Toadster5]

Whoa...are Link and Captain Falcon really THAT bad now? Captain Falcon doesn't really seem to be changed so much from melee besides his speed and Link is always bad to people. You just need to try him out ;-)

That's the problem. His style and moveset weren't adapted to the new engine. It looks to me like a lot of the intended set ups that his moves provide don't lead to viable combos anymore. I don't have the game though, it's just something I've noticed in some videos.

 

[RedrappeR]

I Need to see more of Ether. Yes! is pretty good though.

Opinions split on him(sonic) pretty much down the middle at this point.

 

[Puddin Master]

Say it isn't so. D: Falcon...bad?!

I need to see videos of him. Pronto!

*goes to look at Falcon videos*

 

[Jiangjunizzy]

this rating system is so...

....

...

 

[NESSBOUNDER]

I'm currently a graduate student at the department of statistics at Colorado State University, and I can assure you that nothing you have posted so far even vaguely resembles "cold, hard statistics." As if "cold, hard, statistics" actually existed in the real world. I'm not saying that you can't figure out that a mango is a juicy fruit from watching someone eat it; I'm saying that the person actually eating the &#!@ing thing probably has an even better idea.

EDIT: Besides, the mango analogy is void. We've already established that mango is broken.

fair enough. I suppose statistics need numbers in order to be considered "real" statistics.

But honestly, I'm studying to become a game designer/animator myself, and I do have an idea about how characters in fighting games are designed and made. And from what I can tell from a design point of view, Ganondorf really is intended to be a very strong, "unsafe" character. That is, he just doesn't have as many options as other characters, but tries to make up for it with a lot of very hard-hitting moves.

The lag at the end of his aerial attacks over-balances him, especially his Dair. Against a smart opponent, Ganondorf has very few attacks that he can use safely without getting punished. Lucario on the other hand, technically has all the ingredients to be a decent to good character.

I've made basically the opposite of Ganondorf in MUGEN before, a home-made character named Maxime who is still in his beta version right now. His attacks are all so weak that it takes him a 22-hit combo to do what other characters would do with 3 hits, but he is incredibly safe and easy to use. Basically, he is balanced by Melty Blood standards, and still has no problem beating heavy, powerful characters.

Really, Ganondorf's lag is an issue, it is the same with most fighters.

 

[Puddin Master]

Okay, from the videos I've seen of Falcon, he doesn't look too bad. He just looks like has a different playstyle this time around and that it'll take longer to master him because he plays differently. Also, you have to admit that his recovery is better, I've seen Falcon use it with more horizontal AND slightly vertical distance than in Melee in some videos, AND he can actually attack foes edgehogging him now.