Official Brawl Tier Discussion (OP Updated)

[Kaizo]

At least that tier-list doesn't have Ike anywhere near the top.


I really should make a temporary gimmick out of how much I hate Ike.

Ike isn't all that bad. Definitely overhyped, but actually decent.

That tier list put Bowser at bottom tier, that's enough for me to want to kick him in the ****.

 

[Corner-Trap]

I never thought I'd see the day where people actually argued about who sucked more between tow crappy characters.

Also Sliq's statement has me a bit confused. Why is it that only the Smash community believes that tier list should solely be decided by tournament results. Of course they should influence placements but should never be the sole dictator. For the most part match-ups are a far more accurate way to decide a tier list. When it comes to tournaments people will say things like character X only does better than character Y due to sheer popularity, which is actually a valid argument. Everyone knows how good the IC's can be but so many characters do better than them at tournaments simply because they're not exactly popular. Within a few months we should have a generally agreeable match-up chart for Brawl, and it's kinda hard to say Snake shouldn't be top tier when he has few if any bad match-ups.

Now it's time to discuss another character. So is anyone else confused aside from me on how Wario possibly manages to consistently do well at tournaments the way he does? His ground game is pitiful but he makes up for it somewhat with his air game that is supplemented with good aerial mobility. Overall his attacks lack in range, priority(highest priority move is Fsmash and thats only because of the super amour), damage, knock back(best kill moves are Uair which is situational, Fsmash which has a lot of lag, and Ftilt which is easily telegraphed), and speed(his attacks come out fast but have a lot of lag at the end). His approach is very linear and predictable which usually involves either SH into an attack are charge in which the motorcycle. Camping is fairly much nonexistent out side of a weak WoP, unlike Jigglypuff who also suffers from short reach and relied on WoP at least she had priority to back her up. His recovery is good but easily edge guarded, and he doesn't have a lot of options while edge guarding and the only reason it could possibly be considered good is because of his recovery allowing him to chase further. Seriously, nothing about Wario screams out to me "tournament winner" is it simply sheer popularity amongst good players that keep him high?

 

[Yuna-Maria]

Ike isn't all that bad. Definitely overhyped, but actually decent.

That tier list put Bowser at bottom tier, that's enough for me to want to kick him in the ****.

Ike's alright, I just hate the people who say he's the best fighter in the game. I also don't like him because he reminds me of someone else that I don't like.
*clenches fist* ....Sol......
But yeah, Bowser isn't bottom tier. Low, maybe, but not bottom. My personal bottom tier is as follows:
Jigglypuff
Ganondorf
Mario
Ivysaur
Sonic
Captain Falcon

 

[Dantarion]

I think that its going to be very hard to organize the bottom tier, simply because the characters are SOO close in terms of ability. Most of the things we can debate about these characters are things where its hard to say "technique/move X that character X has is better than technique/move Y that character Y has" without delving into playstyles of individual players.

What I am trying to say it, its beginning to look like we have a situation where people list pros and cons of things, but in the end, its not clear who is better, even when everyone is stating facts :D

Although I happy that this thread has some good discussion going on inside it.

 

[Corner-Trap]

Lobelia, it seems like you copy and pasted that from our SRK list. But why is Jigglypuff in there? I feel she's a notch above all the other characters in bottom tier.

 

[Vlade]

I never thought I'd see the day where people actually argued about who sucked more between tow crappy characters.

Also Sliq's statement has me a bit confused. Why is it that only the Smash community believes that tier list should solely be decided by tournament results. Of course they should influence placements but should never be the sole dictator. For the most part match-ups are a far more accurate way to decide a tier list. When it comes to tournaments people will say things like character X only does better than character Y due to sheer popularity, which is actually a valid argument. Everyone knows how good the IC's can be but so many characters do better than them at tournaments simply because they're not exactly popular. Within a few months we should have a generally agreeable match-up chart for Brawl, and it's kinda hard to say Snake shouldn't be top tier when he has few if any bad match-ups.

Now it's time to discuss another character. So is anyone else confused aside from me on how Wario possibly manages to consistently do well at tournaments the way he does? His ground game is pitiful but he makes up for it somewhat with his air game that is supplemented with good aerial mobility. Overall his attacks lack in range, priority(highest priority move is Fsmash and thats only because of the super amour), damage, knock back(best kill moves are Uair which is situational, Fsmash which has a lot of lag, and Ftilt which is easily telegraphed), and speed(his attacks come out fast but have a lot of lag at the end). His approach is very linear and predictable which usually involves either SH into an attack are charge in which the motorcycle. Camping is fairly much nonexistent out side of a weak WoP, unlike Jigglypuff who also suffers from short reach and relied on WoP at least she had priority to back her up. His recovery is good but easily edge guarded, and he doesn't have a lot of options while edge guarding and the only reason it could possibly be considered good is because of his recovery allowing him to chase further. Seriously, nothing about Wario screams out to me "tournament winner" is it simply sheer popularity amongst good players that keep him high?

You're quite right about wario, I've been wondering about this myself.

Perhaps it's his ability to punish?

 

[Corner-Trap]

Punish? With what? None of his KO moves are good for punishing, and he doesn't exactly do a lot of damage off of any of his attacks either. If this was the case then the IC's would be top tier because they can punish with a grab that leads to a KO or a Dsmash that does 40% uncharged when sweet spotted.

 

[Kaizo]

Lobelia, it seems like you copy and pasted that from our SRK list. But why is Jigglypuff in there? I feel she's a notch above all the other characters in bottom tier.

Question....how is Jigglypuff better than Sonic? She's definitely not, the only thing she has on him is an air game...he obviously has priority weaknesses to deal with, but aside from that he has a somewhat solid ground game, an air game that passes as okay, an excellent, difficult-to-gimp recovery, and a lot of speed and general "control" of a lot of space (his best game is basically punishing and chasing, but his priority does hurt some). Jiggs has priority, but her range sucks badly (about as badly as Sonic), and she has no real ground game at all.

On that note, how is Jigglypuff better than CAPTAIN FALCON?!?! I know Falcon has no real good matchups....except for against Jigglypuff....and Jigglypuff has NO good matchups (that I know of.....there's no one she could really get the best of easily). I remember someone mentioning that Falcon has a decent air game, but no real approach to force anything. Jiggs has the patented Jiggs© approach, which is probably outright beaten with uair/nair, and probably will trade hits with his bair. Otherwise, Jiggs can only fight in the air, where Falcon actually thrives. Both characters can fight decently in the air, and both of them have ****ty ground games.....but Falcon's is less ****ty, he's tougher to kill, and kills more easily than Jiggs.

Also, Mario still shouldn't be in bottom tier, unless the bottom tier consists of playable characters (apparently it does)...but Mario should be low tier at least, he's definitely a league above everyone on the bottom...so is Sonic, and even Ivysaur might barely escape from the bottom.

 

[DMG]

I main Wario and I can give you a little insight on why he is doing so good recently.

Punish? With what? None of his KO moves are good for punishing, and he doesn't exactly do a lot of damage off of any of his attacks either.

Wario is a punishing master. He has Fsmash out of shield, he can juggle most characters well if they mistime an air dodge, he has a fairly good grab range, he can even punish with a waft or his Chomp. Wario's overall game is focused on pressuring your opponent into making a mistake and then punishing the mistake they made. There are differences in style among Wario's (Futile is usually very aggressive while Blue sHell is a bit more defensive) but pressuring is usually a main focus in his gameplay.

He does either average or above average damage for his most used attacks. His Dair does 16% if every hit connects, his uair does 17%, Fsmash does 19% and super armor is always nice, His fully charged waft can do 42%, his Chomp can do a lot of damage depending on how many hits you can get in, and His Fthrow does 13%. His other attacks are ok at doing damage, but they aren't at the core of his gameplay anyway (excluding the rest of his aerials.)

His kill moves have a lot of knockback. He can kill some characters in the 50-60% range from the center of FD with an almost full waft. Uair is a great vertical killer and Fsmash has good horizontal knock back. He certainly makes you think twice about attacking Him when you are at higher %'s.

His recovery is easy to edgeguard only if you can knock him off his bike before he jumps or if he is forced to recover with Upb. His edgeguarding game is simple and straight forward, yet effective at doing its job.

Wario doesn't always have to approach with an aerial. He can approach characters with an airdodge and weave around them with his aerial DI. This helps his pressure game since he can airdodge an attack, land behind the opponent, and punish them. Although he has really short range, he is a beast at close combat and range doesn't matter as much as speed and power in close range. He also is one of a select few characters that can usually get into close combat with an opponent without too much trouble, which is why his range isn't too much of an issue since he can usually force the opponent to make an opening and start brawling. Oh, and his motorcycle isn't that great of an approach. If a Wario is spamming it on the ground, he is misusing it. It should be used occasionally/sparingly.

Most people don't know how to fight against Wario. He isn't too popular of a character and all it takes is a good one to come by and sweep people off their feet. People underestimate him a lot and then when they go head to head with him, they realize how much of a challenge he can be.

 

[Kaizo]

I main Wario and I can give you a little insight on why he is doing so good recently.



Wario is a punishing master. He has Fsmash out of shield, he can juggle most characters well if they mistime an air dodge, he has a fairly good grab range, he can even punish with a waft or his Chomp. Wario's overall game is focused on pressuring your opponent into making a mistake and then punishing the mistake they made. There are differences in style among Wario's (Futile is usually very aggressive while Blue sHell is a bit more defensive) but pressuring is usually a main focus in his gameplay.

He does either average or above average damage for his most used attacks. His Dair does 16% if every hit connects, his uair does 17%, Fsmash does 19% and super armor is always nice, His fully charged waft can do 42%, his Chomp can do a lot of damage depending on how many hits you can get in, and His Fthrow does 13%. His other attacks are ok at doing damage, but they aren't at the core of his gameplay anyway (excluding the rest of his aerials.)

His kill moves have a lot of knockback. He can kill some characters in the 50-60% range from the center of FD with an almost full waft. Uair is a great vertical killer and Fsmash has good horizontal knock back. He certainly makes you think twice about attacking Him when you are at higher %'s.

His recovery is easy to edgeguard only if you can knock him off his bike before he jumps or if he is forced to recover with Upb. His edgeguarding game is simple and straight forward, yet effective at doing its job.

Wario doesn't always have to approach with an aerial. He can approach characters with an airdodge and weave around them with his aerial DI. This helps his pressure game since he can airdodge an attack, land behind the opponent, and punish them. Although he has really short range, he is a beast at close combat and range doesn't matter as much as speed and power in close range. He also is one of a select few characters that can usually get into close combat with an opponent without too much trouble, which is why his range isn't too much of an issue since he can usually force the opponent to make an opening and start brawling. Oh, and his motorcycle isn't that great of an approach. If a Wario is spamming it on the ground, he is misusing it. It should be used occasionally/sparingly.

Most people don't know how to fight against Wario. He isn't too popular of a character and all it takes is a good one to come by and sweep people off their feet. People underestimate him a lot and then when they go head to head with him, they realize how much of a challenge he can be.

That's all pretty good, although most characters succeed merely by pressuring people into mistakes, some characters are just bad at it though (*Falcon**Jiggs**cough*). The reason Ike is actually good is because he's fast enough and strong enough to pressure people into making mistakes. Of course he's not a god, but he's good enough.

 

[DKKountry]

That's all pretty good, although most characters succeed merely by pressuring people into mistakes, some characters are just bad at it though (*Falcon**Jiggs**cough*).

Excuse me, I know Falcon and Jigglypuff, but who's cough? JP

 

[sweener]

I think you are underestimating Jigglypuff. She is in no way top or high, but definetly not bottom. Maybe low or just medium. IMO.

 

[DMG]

That's all pretty good, although most characters succeed merely by pressuring people into mistakes, some characters are just bad at it though (*Falcon**Jiggs**cough*). The reason Ike is actually good is because he's fast enough and strong enough to pressure people into making mistakes. Of course he's not a god, but he's good enough.

What I meant is that Wario can not only pressure better than most characters, but his follow up choices are usually better as well. He has a great ability to get into your face quick, he has a great aerial game than can be hard to punish even if you shield, and he makes you think on your toes whenever he starts an aerial chain or whenever he is hovering around you. He also limits your defensive options when up close because he can own any shields or attempts to spot dodge with Chomp. Most characters don't have a move that can absolutely **** your opponents defensive choices.

I don't think Wario will ever have what it takes to be in Top Tier. He should be a solid candidate for a good spot in the High Tier however.

 

[Sans Glutin]

Shadow Link I was going to read your posts, but then I scrolled down to the bottom and saw the Sonic symbol







So Wolf is pretty much going to be High tier at least?

 

[DMG]

Shadow Link I was going to read your posts, but then I scrolled down to the bottom and saw the Sonic symbol







So Wolf is pretty much going to be High tier at least?

Lol do you have a personal grudge against Sonic users? I don't see how a person's ability to contribute/debate can be truly based on who they main. Just because Sonic isn't the best of characters doesn't mean it should affect Shadow Link's ability to reasonably argue/contribute if he mains him.

About Wolf: I think he is a bit overrated. He has some strong points but I think that his weaknesses are bringing him down to somewhere in the higher area of middle tier. Maybe at the bottom of High Tier depending on how many characters get into there or what the qualifications for High Tier are.

 

[Corner-Trap]

So you're saying that Wario's game basically revolves around pressuring the opponent into a mistake then punishing it? Well the same thing can be said for most characters and they usually have better pressuring and punishing options. Wario lacks range and priority, his approach is merely average, and he has a lot of lag on several of his attacks which all limit his pressure game. The best he's got is a semi WoP like Jiggz, but unlike her, Wario doesn't have the priority to back it up. His lack of range and merely average damage also limits his punishing options. Players with an even decent understanding of spacing can keep themselves out of range of all of Wario's ground attacks. Wario doesn't excel at pressuring or punishing so I'm not sure why you're trying to base your argument on that. To drive my point even further I'll give a few examples of characters who are much better at pressuring and punishing than Wario.

Marth:

Yeah, just read this guide and I'm pretty sure we'll agree he's better than Wario at pressuring/punishing.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=172180

IC's:

The IC's entire approach is nothing but a continuous stream of pressure tactics. Ice blocks, squall hammers, and blizzards can all be enhanced through desynchs. As far as punishing goes, how does a 0-death CG or a 40% Dsmash sound?

MK:

Do I even need to list why he's good at pressuring? Repeated Ftils and Dtilts on the ground, lagless multi hitting aerials, tornado, drill, etc. Not much else needs to be explained.

Snake:

Snake is the king of controlling space. Imagine if he places a C4 and mine in two different locations then he stands in a third location tossing nades at you. The C3 and mine act as danger zones which you cannot pass, yet you're still forced to move because of the nades, but you don't necessarily want to move towards Snake because his close range game ***** the majority of the cast. Yeah, no one can pressure as well as him.

Falco:

Lasers + Shine = Annoying as ****

Wolf:

Basic Wolf strategy involves spamming laser till your opponent approaches then punish with his good up close game. Sounds like a pretty good pressure/punish strategy.

TL:

Basically the as Wolf and Falco although he doesn't punish as well.

Pika:

SH thunder jolt, Fair, and QAC are all good pressuring tools, and Pika has some of the best punishing options in the game. Dsmash and Usmash can be done OoS and kill vertically, and even if they don't KO he can follow up with a thunder. His grab range may be short but he does have a CG.

There are many more characters, but what I'm trying to say is that a lot of characters are better than Wario at pressuring and punishing. So using that as your base argument doesn't hold up well.

 

[Bobz]

wario has some obvious weaknesses in range, but has the tricks to get around it. on paper he seems like he shouldn't do so hot, but when you factor in the possibilities of the bite, bike, fart, and extreme mobility, a good player suddenly isn't so linear, can get around some campfests, and has a wicked instant kill move that can also help him recover. Its all about the tricks, and the fart is a real match changing move.

 

[DMG]

So you're saying that Wario's game basically revolves around pressuring the opponent into a mistake then punishing it? Well the same thing can be said for most characters and they usually have better pressuring and punishing options. Wario lacks range and priority, his approach is merely average, and he has a lot of lag on several of his attacks which all limit his pressure game. The best he's got is a semi WoP like Jiggz, but unlike her, Wario doesn't have the priority to back it up. His lack of range and merely average damage also limits his punishing options. Players with an even decent understanding of spacing can keep themselves out of range of all of Wario's ground attacks. Wario doesn't excel at pressuring or punishing so I'm not sure why you're trying to base your argument on that. To drive my point even further I'll give a few examples of characters who are much better at pressuring and punishing than Wario.

Marth:

Yeah, just read this guide and I'm pretty sure we'll agree he's better than Wario at pressuring/punishing.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=172180

IC's:

The IC's entire approach is nothing but a continuous stream of pressure tactics. Ice blocks, squall hammers, and blizzards can all be enhanced through desynchs. As far as punishing goes, how does a 0-death CG or a 40% Dsmash sound?

MK:

Do I even need to list why he's good at pressuring? Repeated Ftils and Dtilts on the ground, lagless multi hitting aerials, tornado, drill, etc. Not much else needs to be explained.

Snake:

Snake is the king of controlling space. Imagine if he places a C4 and mine in two different locations then he stands in a third location tossing nades at you. The C3 and mine act as danger zones which you cannot pass, yet you're still forced to move because of the nades, but you don't necessarily want to move towards Snake because his close range game ***** the majority of the cast. Yeah, no one can pressure as well as him.

Falco:

Lasers + Shine = Annoying as ****

Wolf:

Basic Wolf strategy involves spamming laser till your opponent approaches then punish with his good up close game. Sounds like a pretty good pressure/punish strategy.

TL:

Basically the as Wolf and Falco although he doesn't punish as well.

Pika:

SH thunder jolt, Fair, and QAC are all good pressuring tools, and Pika has some of the best punishing options in the game. Dsmash and Usmash can be done OoS and kill vertically, and even if they don't KO he can follow up with a thunder. His grab range may be short but he does have a CG.

There are many more characters, but what I'm trying to say is that a lot of characters are better than Wario at pressuring and punishing. So using that as your base argument doesn't hold up well.

I never said that Wario was the best at pressuring people lol. I know that there are plenty of characters that can pressure better than him, and guess what? Most of those characters are expected to be higher on the Brawl Tier list than Wario (except Wolf and Maybe Pika and IC).

Wario can get around his range/priority issue better than how most character can deal with their own weaknesses. His approach is more than average and he isn't limited to a semi WoP either. If you watch good Wario's fight, they don't just approach their opponent with an fair and expect for it to work. They mix it up a bit. He does have lag on a lot of attacks but it is usually ending lag or cooldown lag. His best punishing moves come out very quick, do a good % of damage, and most have pretty good knockback. So his cooldown lag is not as important when you can use those moves to punish.

If a player just needs to have good spacing to beat Wario, then why are a lot of top tourney players losing to Futile? Surely they have good spacing, or are they not doing it well enough? Good spacing isn't enough to beat Wario. It helps a great deal but it is not a "counter" or something to him. Every character has to work harder if your opponent can space well. This doesn't only apply to Wario.

IC have trouble approaching a lot of characters and you know it. Even with De syncing them they aren't too hot on being able to approach that well (IC would be higher in the tiers if they had no problems approaching or getting a grab and if they didn't get separated so easily). I know about their devastating grab game and part of the reason people lose to IC sometimes is cause they underestimate them and get CG to death. And it would be hard for you not to say that Wario doesn't do very much damage. You play IC... they do more damage than most of the cast and not many attacks can compete with the damage their Dsmash can do. Wario does fine when it comes to dealing out damage.

I think you are underestimating Wario a bit. He's not the best character out there but he has what it takes to make him a pretty good character. If you disagree, that's fine. But I would like to see why you think he is not that great of a character. You have basically told me that Wario isn't as good as some characters, which should be a known fact, not a valid reason to say that he sucks.

 

[Corner-Trap]

I think Wolf, and Pika are much better than Wario, although I do think he would be close to the IC's on the tier list. Yeah Wario can get around his shortcomings better than others, but I can still list even lower tiered characters who are better at pressuring and punishing than Wario(such as Diddy, Olimar, DK, Pit, ZSS, Lucas/Ness, Lucario, etc.). Also cool down lag is very important to consider when trying to punish, because if you miss your chance you'll end up getting punished instead. All I'm trying to say is that the whole pressure/punish bases is not a very good argument. In the end I think Wario will remain at the upper end of mid tier at best. I just simply don't see him hanging with the other top/high tiered characters.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Tier list

MK is overall better than Snake and has better matchups against characters Snake does badly against such as Pikachu, Falco, and DDD.

You put Luigi waaaaay too high. He doesn't have enough speed or priority or ways to deal with camping to make him that good. I'd say Wario is significantly better than Luigi by a few tiers (and in case you forget, Wario has very good projectiles via bike).

Marth needs to be higher. At least 5th place.

Pika and Falco need to be higher.

Falcon and Sonic should go down a bit.

Mario and Bowser should go up a bit. They're better than Link IMO.

As for Mario and why he should go up there, it's because he has good projectile camping (Fireballs are spammable, and have decent setups), good ways of dealing with projectiles (Cape naturally), and very good ledgeguarding (Both Cape and FLUDD). On a more minor note he's also good at juggling.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Wario has complete aerial dominance against most of the cast, a solid ground game, a wonderful recovery, great KO potential, and has a command throw that stays out as long as you want it to.

It's serious business. He controls the air, and a command throw with his speed (that can be done in the air, mind you) helps his pressure dramatically. You'd be surprised how good Bite really is.

 

[Corner-Trap]

Snake goes even with Falco, DDD, and Pika. All three can CG him but he can simply pull out a nade to stop it. Falco can use lasers and shine to disrupt his setups, but he can crawl to bypass that. Falco also beats him out in the air but Snake ***** him on the ground. Falco can gimp Snake's recovery by spiking him out of Cypher but Snake can outright KO Falco at much lower percents. DDD beats Snake out in the air but they tie on the ground. Waddle Dee's aren't as good as stopping Snake's setups as Falco's lasers. Both are two of the heaviest characters in the game and DDD's KO moves can kill at lower percents, but Snakes KO moves are much more reliable to land. Pika's thunder jolts can disrupt Snake's setups and harmlessly set off mines if they connect right. Bair beats all of Pika's aerials, and Snake completely outclasses him on the ground.

Seriously, I don't understand why people say those characters counter Snake when they merely go even with him. I guess people are getting to used to Snake dominating so many characters that when a character that doesn't do as badly pops up people automatically label them as a Snake counter, when in actuality it's just an even match-up. Snake definitely should go above MK for simply not having as many bad match-ups and being an MK counter himself.

 

[DMG]

I think Wolf, and Pika are much better than Wario, although I do think he would be close to the IC's on the tier list. Yeah Wario can get around his shortcomings better than others, but I can still list even lower tiered characters who are better at pressuring and punishing than Wario(such as Diddy, Olimar, DK, Pit, ZSS, Lucas/Ness, Lucario, etc.). Also cool down lag is very important to consider when trying to punish, because if you miss your chance you'll end up getting punished instead. All I'm trying to say is that the whole pressure/punish bases is not a very good argument. In the end I think Wario will remain at the upper end of mid tier at best. I just simply don't see him hanging with the other top/high tiered characters.

I am almost positive Wolf will be lower. I'm not really sure about where Pika will be, and I think Wario will be a slot or two above IC. The only characters that you listed that punish or pressure better than Wario are Diddy, Pit, and Olimar. Diddy needs bananas and Olimar needs Pikmin (Wario's pressure game is never situational, even though it can be hampered), and Pit's arrows aren't overall more effective on the entire cast than Wario's ability to pressure. Cool down lag is not as important as startup lag is for punishing. Punishing in general for any character is usually not done with attacks that take a long time to start up. If you want to punish your opponent before they can shield/get away, it wouldn't make sense to use an attack that takes forever to actually hit them.

If I used a Falcon Punch (lots of startup lag but not too much cooldown), there's a good chance my opponent could evade it or simply hit me before the move works. If I used Wario's Dsmash (lots of cooldown lag but little startup), there's a better chance of me hitting my opponent before they shield or get away. Falcon Punch does more damage, has better range, and has better knockback. However, Wario's Dsmash comes out quicker, therefore it has a better chance of hitting an opponent, and that makes it a better punisher.

I think pressure/punishing is a valid argument. You even admitted that some characters can pressure better than him, and I'm pretty sure that at least part of the reason Snake and the others are up in the Higher Tiers is because of their pressuring abilities. Just because Wario might have to rely on his more than other characters doesn't mean that it isn't a good basis for an argument.

 

[Corner-Trap]

Wario has complete aerial dominance against most of the cast, a solid ground game, a wonderful recovery, great KO potential, and has a command throw that stays out as long as you want it to.

It's serious business. He controls the air, and a command throw with his speed (that can be done in the air, mind you) helps his pressure dramatically. You'd be surprised how good Bite really is.

Huh? His air game can be beaten out by a lot of characters since he lacks range and priority. His ground game is rather poor, I thought that was already universally understood. He can recovery from long distances, but is just as easily edge guarded as everyone else. His KO moves are very situational. Your opponent needs to be directly above you for Uair, Fsmash has short range so you need to be very close to your opponent and it has a lot of lag so you can't miss, and Ftilt can't KO until higher percents. Although I will admit that his command throw is pretty awesome.

 

[Tenki]

Uh no. I don't think Sonic has real combos unless I missed something. The combos I've been telling you actually raise the combo counter in training mode. Those are the ones you need to keep track of. And btw I could write paragraphs who CF has just as many attacks that put people in positions that are easy to follow up from, but that doesn't matter at all since those aren't real combos. So whatever for Sonic's so called pressure game when you can usually N-air out of it.

lol so I was just passing by since I rarely look at this thread, but after seeing some of his posts in the CF section, and checking out some of his posts here... I came to the conclusion that there's alot of lack of knowledge with Sonic. He had alot of funny posts, but this one wins.

Behold, proof of Sonic's "Perfect Combo". F-air variation and N-air variation.

 

[Corner-Trap]

I am almost positive Wolf will be lower. I'm not really sure about where Pika will be, and I think Wario will be a slot or two above IC. The only characters that you listed that punish or pressure better than Wario are Diddy, Pit, and Olimar. Diddy needs bananas and Olimar needs Pikmin (Wario's pressure game is never situational, even though it can be hampered), and Pit's arrows aren't overall more effective on the entire cast than Wario's ability to pressure. Cool down lag is not as important as startup lag is for punishing. Punishing in general for any character is usually not done with attacks that take a long time to start up. If you want to punish your opponent before they can shield/get away, it wouldn't make sense to use an attack that takes forever to actually hit them.

If I used a Falcon Punch (lots of startup lag but not too much cooldown), there's a good chance my opponent could evade it or simply hit me before the move works. If I used Wario's Dsmash (lots of cooldown lag but little startup), there's a better chance of me hitting my opponent before they shield or get away. Falcon Punch does more damage, has better range, and has better knockback. However, Wario's Dsmash comes out quicker, therefore it has a better chance of hitting an opponent, and that makes it a better punisher.

I think pressure/punishing is a valid argument. You even admitted that some characters can pressure better than him, and I'm pretty sure that at least part of the reason Snake and the others are up in the Higher Tiers is because of their pressuring abilities. Just because Wario might have to rely on his more than other characters doesn't mean that it isn't a good basis for an argument.

Wolf has a good ground game, air game, approach, and camping. His attacks have good range, speed, damage, priority, and knock back. Only thing he's missing is good recovery and edge guarding. His edge guarding would actually be good if he had at least decent recovery because he does have good options to hit someone off the stage with. His match-ups for the most part are good and he contends well with the other top/high tiered characters. I don't really see why you think he's going to be lower.

I never said cool down lag was more important than start up lag when it came to punishing, I merely said it was an important factor to consider. You don't want your punishing move to be easily punishable, that means you could end up getting punished yourself if you miss you chance.

The reason I said the whole pressure/punish argument isn't valid is because Wario doesn't necessarily excel at it. Neither his pressuring or punishing tools are all that great. Overall I feel that Wario will be on the upper end of mid tier, I just don't see him breaking into the high tier, he just doesn't have enough going for him.

 

[FS Fantom]

lol so I was just passing by since I rarely look at this thread, but after seeing some of his posts in the CF section, and checking out some of his posts here... I came to the conclusion that there's alot of lack of knowledge with Sonic. He had alot of funny posts, but this one wins.

Behold, proof of Sonic's "Perfect Combo". F-air variation and N-air variation.

What combo is this?

 

[DMG]

Huh? His air game can be beaten out by a lot of characters since he lacks range and priority. His ground game is rather poor, I thought that was already universally understood. He can recovery from long distances, but is just as easily edge guarded as everyone else. His KO moves are very situational. Your opponent needs to be directly above you for Uair, Fsmash has short range so you need to be very close to your opponent and it has a lot of lag so you can't miss, and Ftilt can't KO until higher percents. Although I will admit that his command throw is pretty awesome.

His air game does not rely/focus on beating out a person's range... Period. Whoever told you that was lying. His ground game is solid; he has a decent spotdodge, decent shield grab, and he can kill on the ground. Even though it is not nearly as good as his air game, it is still more solid than you give it credit for.

I can hit people who are standing right next to me with an Uair. Fsmash has short range but we have discussed this already. Wario is good at getting into people's faces. Range is not too important in close combat, I thought we already established that. Fsmash also pushes shields back pretty far so there's a chance Wario won't get punished for whiffing on a shield. Ftilt is an ok move, but you are forgetting his Waft can kill at absurdly low percentages.

 

[ShadowLink84]

What combo is this?

I believe it is the ASC combo of pwnage.

 

[Tenki]

What combo is this?

ASC [hitx2]> SDR > SDJ > f-air/n-air
(aerial spin charge>roll attack>jump attack>aerial)
ASC [x2]> double jump Aerial does 25-30 damage and is easier to do, but the perfect combo is too good to ignore lulz

But I digress.

Sonic for bottom tier.

 

[Corner-Trap]

His air game does not rely/focus on beating out a person's range... Period. Whoever told you that was lying. His ground game is solid; he has a decent spotdodge, decent shield grab, and he can kill on the ground. Even though it is not nearly as good as his air game, it is still more solid than you give it credit for.

I can hit people who are standing right next to me with an Uair. Fsmash has short range but we have discussed this already. Wario is good at getting into people's faces. Range is not too important in close combat, I thought we already established that. Fsmash also pushes shields back pretty far so there's a chance Wario won't get punished for whiffing on a shield. Ftilt is an ok move, but you are forgetting his Waft can kill at absurdly low percentages.

Brawl's slower pace brings more importance to long range high priority attacks. But I can see how his aerial mobility can make up for his range, and how his speed can make up for his priority. His ground game is not solid, it is below average when compared to most characters. Also you misused the word "whiffing". So tell me what position do you think Wario is at?

 

[DMG]

His ground game is not solid, it is below average when compared to most characters. Also you misused the word "whiffing". So tell me what position do you think Wario is at?

I think his ground game is solid, you think it is not solid, so let's just agree to disagree for now. We can debate his ground game later; I feel like we have taken up a lot of space just going on about Wario alone lol.

I meant that if Wario missed his chance to punish an opponent with Fsmash and they managed to get their shield up, that he pushes them back a bit. Granted, Wario could still be punished for messing up on Fsmash, but since they slide a bit he has a chance to avoid it. I did use whiffing wrong, my bad lol.

I think he will be somewhere in the middle of the High Tier, depending on who gets in there and what the qualifications of High Tier are. That's the problem with tiers though; sometimes there's not an understandable gap or easily recognized qualifications between the tiers. Like if Snake and MK get into Top Tier, then what is the gap/difference from MK to the person right below him? And for High Tier, what is the gap/difference from the lowest in High Tier and the highest in Middle Tier? Once we can define the gaps and the qualifications for getting into certain tiers, then I think we would have a more accurate list that doesn't have too many characters into one tier and that represents their abilities well.

 

[isomorphism]

CT, while I admire your persistence and I think your focus on matchups is admirable, I also think you have a tendency to underestimate a character if you haven't played a good one yourself, and also how much a character can benefit from having good matchups with high tier characters. For example, looking at the matchup chart, even if it is somewhat inaccurate, by the numbers Donkey Kong should not be doing well in tournaments. But because he has a neutral to good matchup against Snake and a neutral matchup against Metaknight, and pretty good or neutral matchups against other high tiers, he is consistently doing very well in tournaments. In fact, the only reason he's not higher is because the NY weeklies aren't currently counted in the results--Bum wins with him virtually every week there. I think the same is true for Wario--from what I can see he is fast and agile enough that he does pretty well against Snake, and goes neutral with a lot of other high tiers. I also think that the reason Olimar is not doing as well in tournaments as might be expected is not exactly because of his recovery and light weight, although they are factors, which I think are the reasons you give for your placement of him. I think it is because he simply has bad matchups against high tiers, which is why he gets so many top 8s and has only one victory. I'm not at all good at using Wario, but I still think he is at worst upper middle tier, and more likely high tier, on the basis of the fairly consistent tournament results we see. Note that it's not just Futile using Wario to great effect; if you look around, when people actually use Wario they seem to do quite well. While he may not be the best purely by counting good, neutral and bad matchups, the reality of the Smash scene is that a lot of it is dominated by Snakes and MKs, and any character who can do well against them will probably do well even if he or she has not-so-good matchups against lower tiers.

 

[Kiwikomix]

That's the problem with tiers though; sometimes there's not an understandable gap or easily recognized qualifications between the tiers. Like if Snake and MK get into Top Tier, then what is the gap/difference from MK to the person right below him? And for High Tier, what is the gap/difference from the lowest in High Tier and the highest in Middle Tier?

Easy, just find the characters that are radically worse (or, I guess, less good) than the character above them. For example, G-Dub is pretty much assumed to be third or around that area at this point (I don't mean to start a debate over that so don't quote this) but he doesn't perform nearly as well as Snake and MK do. Or, if you want to see it in a concrete way, see Ankoku's Character Placement thread. You'll notice that the points assigned to each character are much different between gaps.

 

[Corner-Trap]

This is why I want a match-up based tier list, because the line between the tiers would be more clearly visible.

We can go by a win/loss system and rank characters as such.

Top = Mostly good match-ups
High = Mostly good and even match-ups
Mid = Mostly even match-ups
Low = Mostly bad and even match-ups
Bottom = Mostly bad match-ups

Or we can go by a point system and count up the number of points and rank that way.

5 = Heavy advantage
4 = Advantage
3 = Even
2 = Disadvantage
1 = Heavy disadvantage

Personally I see Wario being in mid tier.

 

[Kiwikomix]

To make a matchup based tier list, we would need a good matchup chart.

 

[ShadowLink84]

I never thought I'd see the day where people actually argued about who sucked more between tow crappy characters.

For one its an argument concerning two characters.
Something you often see in tier discussion.
Who is higher Olimar or Falco etc etc.
Who is the better character?

Under your idea you've never seen two people arguing about which character is better.

Furthermore my argument is that Sonic is not crappy as the common conception goes.
Sonic can approach very well, combo decently, can space well.
his man cons are that he can't kill easily ( not only because of the lack of kill moves but how difficult it can be to place an opponent in such a position to KO them)
His lack of priority.

I main Sonic, Link, Marth, TL and Falco so no I am not a Sonic fanboy.
If I see someone say something like (Sonic's recovery is lesser than CF) then I m going to lacerate them if their reasoning does not work.

 

[Genoisdabest]

Jigglypuff seems pretty cheap in brawl.
First off the character has nice defensice tactics, you can easily pull off, also brawl allot more air tactics involved then melee ever did and jiggly puff is not so bad in the air.
Juggly Puff can also use rollout as a recovery, you make one little mistake when he is coming back, you could easily be dead.

 

[isomorphism]

To make a matchup based tier list, we would need a good matchup chart.

Even then, I don't think it would necessarily be accurate. For example, Olimar has a disadvantage vs. Yoshi (or at least it's neutral), but Yoshi is played infrequently enough and is bad enough against other characters that this matchup should almost never come up. Olimar also has a disadvantage against Metaknight, but this is a matchup the player will have to win over and over again in a tournament. The Metaknight disadvantage is obviously much more devastating to Olimar overall, yet in a matchup-based tier list Yoshi and Metaknight count exactly the same (I don't think one is significantly worse on an individual basis than the other, but even if one is assume for the moment that it isn't). A tier list like this will correctly place great characters like Snake, MK and G&W at the top, and poor characters like Bowser (yes, he is improved from Melee, but if you go over to the Bowser boards most of the Bowser mains agree that he only has a good matchup against Ganondorf), Yoshi, and Jigglypuff near the bottom. But it will not accurately predict the placement of characters like Wario and DK, who are doing much better than their matchups would suggest, or characters like Olimar, Zelda (who also seems to have problems with the top tiers), and Samus (she's even worse in practice than in theory), all of whom seemingly should be placing better at tournaments than they actually are.

 

[Emblem Lord]

This is why SRK has two tier list for Third Strike.

A match-up based one. And then a list which is about tournament viability. Basically how well a character will do in an environment with only top tiers and high tiers.

I think this is the best idea EVAR!!!