Official Brawl Tier Discussion (OP Updated)

[jiovanni007]

Top:
Snake
Meta Knight
Mr. Game and Watch

High:
Marth
R.O.B.
Falco
Toon Link
Wolf

Upper:
Ice Climbers
King Dedede
Pikachu
Wario
Kirby
Pit
Olimar
Zelda
Donkey Kong
Lucario
Diddy Kong

Mid:
Luigi
Lucas
Fox
ZSS
Pokemon Trainer
Bowser
Mario
Sonic
Ness
Peach

Low:
Yoshi
Sheik
Ike
Jigglypuff
Samus

Bottom:
Link
Ganondorf
Captain Falcon


Alright, I updated the positions a bit and the names of the Tiers, so new comments please

I love to see the increasing popularity of my 6 tier system and how I gave Kirby so much credibility =)

Anyway GaW goes down to top of high, Wolf should be under Dedede, Lucario and Diddy go to Top and 2nd in mid tier, Luigi to the bottom of Upper tier, and Samus and Jiggs should be banished to the bottom tier. Link should also be at the bottom of low...he's not that bad.

 

[Mike_Echoes]

Top:
Snake
Meta Knight

High:
Mr. Game and Watch
Marth
R.O.B.
Falco
Toon Link

Upper:
Ice Climbers
King Dedede
Wolf
Wario
Zelda
Pikachu
Olimar
Kirby
Pit
Donkey Kong
Luigi

Mid:
Lucario
Diddy
Lucas
Fox
ZSS
Pokemon Trainer
Bowser
Mario
Ness
Peach

Low:
Sonic
Yoshi
Sheik
Ike
Link
Samus

Bottom:
Jiggly Puff
Ganondorf
Captain Falcon

UPDATED

 

[zamz]

I've always been quite partial to seeing Marth and Falco next to each other. I'd suggest raising Falco up 1 spot, or raising Rob up 1 spot. I think we established earlier that Marth and Falco are dead even.

 

[Mike_Echoes]

Ok, vote time, Marth Down or Falco up?
Community please give answer and if u feel an explanation

My vote is for Falco up

 

[Http]

Falco up. I just don't think that ROB is ahead of Marth.

 

[SaxDude93]

I think EL is bipolar. On SWF, he respects the English language in all of its facets. Yet on AIM, he ***** it into horse****.

 

[metalmonstar]

We probably shouldn't base our tier list on how the melee one was constructed. Not only is brawl a different game but their are also more characters.

Top: These are the best characters. They have 20+ good matchups and less than 5 bad ones. They also have hardly any flaws and if they do they don't really affect their game too much.

Very High: These characters may have as many matchups as top or even as few flaws as top but it is unlikely that they have both to at least to the same extent as top. They are still great characters and many of them will be good counterpicks for top tier characters.

High: These characters don't have quite the matchups as the other two tiers and we start seeing characters with some flaws that actually effect their game. They are still good characters but most likely they will have an area of weakness that can be exploited. A couple of them may have good counterpicks against the higher tier but much of their strength comes from beating the lower tiers.

Middle: Jack of all trades master of nones go here. Pretty much the mario tier they have got a good bit going for them just not enough t really match up with the higher tiers. Specialist also dwell here but mostly likely another area of their game just isn't worth mention and can be there downfall. Most likely they won't match up with the top or even the very high tier. In fact their matchups are going to be pretty erratic.

Low: Matchups are looking even worse. In fact this tier will be full of characters who have more bad matchups then good ones. They may have one or two areas of excellence but most of their game is going to be less than decent. They may matchup with the middle tier a bit but mostly likely will matchup with those below them. They will be lucky if they have a neutral with high or very high.

Bottom: This tier is for those that have little to nothing going for them. Players will spend much of their time trying to hide their flaws. These flaws have huge impact on their game. Most of the characters in this tier will hardly have 5 good matchups, None of which will be anyone worth mentioning.

That is how I see the tier list looking. If a character fits into that then it doesn't matter how many others occupy this space.

 

[Emblem Lord]

I honestly don't care about spelling at all on AIM. lol.

 

[Mike_Echoes]

I wish I had to knowledge to make something without the community's help.
Based on my order, where would the characters go based on your organization?

 

[jiovanni007]

I wish I had to knowledge to make something without the community's help.
Based on my order, where would the characters go based on your organization?

As far as I can tell, your list is pretty solid. I really can't speak much on the lower part of the middle tier and the low tier but Top, High, and Upper are very solid and to some extent agreed upon. If anything DK would be the only one to move down, but not that far. I don't have the knowledge of every character to create a very accurate list, but most of it looks good. The low tier looks a bit skinny, so maybe some of the mid tier characters down. Sonic and Ness immediately come to mind and maybe a rearranging is necessary as well. Also, after looking into it further, I must say that Falcon, Ganondorf, and jiggs would be the only bottom characters. Samus should be the bottom of low tier.

 

[Mike_Echoes]

Lol, I've had too many suggestions for Samus. Some say higher than Jiggs, and others totally disagree and say worst only Ganondorf and Falcon, I don't know what to doooooo. lol

Sonic is another WIDELY disputed character and I have NO clue what to do

 

[jiovanni007]

Well Samus still lives up to her nickname of "Spamus" when used preperly. The only problem now is that her projectiles have been weakened so terribly. Even a maxed out charge beam is shrugged off at 80~90% by some lighter characters. And we should all know the power of sweetspotted Zairs. Her power is negligible. SHe has such a hard time killing and her gimping skills are limited almost exclusive to dairs and zairs. She can stand apart from the bottom tier, and still fair decently in the low tier with proper use.

Sonic may approach great due to his lightning speed, but his molasses-esque mobility in the air really hampers him. Killing is also an issue. If you miss with the fair gimp, more than likely you won't have another chance to gimp until you knock them off again. I really don't even feel like going into his weak attacks. He does have a mean uair juggle that can kill at relatively low percentages and his fair is brutal if he manages to connect with it. His throws are also great and chain well. This isn't enough to keep him out of the low tier though. Specific placement is cloudy to me, but I would imagine towards the top.

 

[stoopdklutz]

-Ice Climbers are a tad high. I'm thinking below Wario.

Just wondering, but how did you come to that conclusion?

 

[Http]

Just wondering, but how did you come to that conclusion?

Chaingrab is amazing, but not getting grabbed can limit a small portion of the IC game. It wasn't because of Ice Climbers not being good or anything, but more of the fact that those other couple of characters generally seem to be... slightly better (I tried to find a different way of saying that. I don't even like that wording) than Climbers. However, after considering it more, Ice Climbers ultimately in the right general spot which is the higher end of Upper tier.

 

[wasabicheese]

falco for top tier

 

[stoopdklutz]

Yea, I wasn't questioning your opinion, Http, just wondering how you came to it. Landing the grab is one of the hardest things to do for me. I am also fine with the Climbers being top of high tier, although having them in Snake-tier would be nice...

 

[wasabicheese]

Yea, I wasn't questioning your opinion, Http, just wondering how you came to it. Landing the grab is one of the hardest things to do for me. I am also fine with the Climbers being top of high tier, although having them in Snake-tier would be nice...

lol at snake tier

 

[Http]

Snake is too cool to care. Anyways, there's one more gripe that I have with the updated list. And that's Pit being behind Kirby. Sure, Kirby is actually usable in Brawl, but Pit has a lot more going for him than Kirby. Pit lives longer, has arrows (D=), and other things.

[Wow, I'm stupid. Actual post content in a sec]

 

[TheSMASHtyke]

falco for top tier

Sorry to interject randomly into this thread with this remark, but you added absolutely nothing constructive to the current conversation at all.

I've got to say that I do like most of Mike_echoes list. I'm kinda skeptical of the placement of Sheik, Ike, and Bowser... Isn't bowser still one of the biggest targets in the game to chain grab and hit in general?

 

[Fogo]

i vote falco up and dedede to the bottom of upper tier

 

[stoopdklutz]

I've got to say that I do like most of Mike_echoes list. I'm kinda skeptical of the placement of Sheik, Ike, and Bowser... Isn't bowser still one of the biggest targets in the game to chain grab and hit in general?

I'm skeptic on Shiek only. She can't have been nerfed that bad. Sure, she has almost-zero kill potential, relying on gimps, but she can rack up damage easily and is still very fast.

On Bowser, I think he's fine, because of his B-moves, his overall faster movement, and the reduction of gravity/ more floatyness of Brawl.

On Ike, I don't really know. All I can say about him are that there isn't much too him, and that little kids 10 and younger always play him. And I've seen that in person.

 

[BDawgPHD]

You know nothing.

Marth's f-smash is 10 frames the same as before. I'm pretty sure of that. 10 frames isn't slow. Generally I would say anything more then 13 frames is slow.

Marth can't chain fairs.

His recovery is better actually.

Only Falco competes with Marth honestly. Wolf isn't as good and Fox isn't in the same league at all.

Stop talking about Marth you nublet.

I wouldn't be surprised if a generally good player took Fox, spammed lasers like a *****, played defensively around Marth to get away, then spammed lasers again, lather rinse repeat, and then kill.

Of course, if Fox messes up once, he's in trouble. That's what tiers are all about, really....how many mistakes can you afford to make, and how easily can you punish mistakes. Any character can compete with any other character, really. Some characters just take far more work for far less reward

EDIT: Marth's recovery appears to be better because of the general floatiness of Brawl. I'm pretty sure his upB gets more altitude, but his sideB doesn't stop his vertical momentum, and his neutral B has to be fully charged to get any real horizontal oomph. IMO his recovery got worse....I'm going to take a wild, slightly educated stab and say that roughly half the characters can recover from any length that they can get knocked out to (fewer can survive spikes, this also assumes that the person playing wasn't a total ******* and lost their last jump for whatever reason). The ones off the top of my head with good enough recoveries for this are Pit, MK, Snake, Luigi, Kirby, G&W, Sonic, ROB.....basically anyone who gets serious altitude with their upB or has multiple jumps will have to be forcibly knocked off the boundaries of the stage or spiked.

Marth isn't quite that safe. With good DI, a Marth will likely survive in this way, but with something like one of Snake's side throws/Lucario's bthrow, where the knockback is not very vertical at all, Marth doesn't have the height to B his way back, and Marth's upB is easily edgehogged, so unless he can get physically ON the stage, he's in trouble.

 

[Http]

I'm skeptic on Shiek only. She can't have been nerfed that bad. Sure, she has almost-zero kill potential, relying on gimps, but she can rack up damage easily and is still very fast. (1)

On Bowser, I think he's fine, because of his B-moves, his overall faster movement, and the reduction of gravity/ more floatyness of Brawl. (2)

On Ike, I don't really know. All I can say about him are that there isn't much too him, and that little kids 10 and younger always play him. And I've seen that in person. (3)

1. I have to agree there

2. Agree, but the lack of L-cancelling really hurts Bowser. But I guess it's for the better because Snake would be above the level of Fox in Melee if L-cancelling existed.

3. No comment...

 

[jiovanni007]

Snake is too cool to care. Anyways, there's one more gripe that I have with the updated list. And that's Pit being behind Kirby. Sure, Kirby is actually usable in Brawl, but Pit has a lot more going for him than Kirby. Pit lives longer, has arrows (D=), and other things.

[Wow, I'm stupid. Actual post content in a sec]

Pit living longer is actually dead wrong. Though IIRC Pit may have a bit more weight than Kirby, Kirby can use the aerial hammer to slow his momentum considerably and can easily live ~30% longer than Pit in Side kill situations. Pit does have projectiles, but Kirby has a much better up close game. Final Cutter provides a weak projectile, but still something nonetheless. Kirby's simple bair approach is also better than what Pit has to offer, it's quick, a sex kick, and still maintains KO potential. Both of them however don't match-up well against most of the characters above them.

 

[stoopdklutz]

Honestly, we need more discussion on the mid-low tiers. The Top-High has pretty much been agreed upon, it's just not in order. Some characters that I think need to be talked more about are Pokemon Trainer and Zelda. Maybe Luigi.

 

[Http]

Pit living longer is actually dead wrong. Though IIRC Pit may have a bit more weight than Kirby, Kirby can use the aerial hammer to slow his momentum considerably and can easily live ~30% longer than Pit in Side kill situations. Pit does have projectiles, but Kirby has a much better up close game. Final Cutter provides a weak projectile, but still something nonetheless. Kirby's simple bair approach is also better than what Pit has to offer, it's quick, a sex kick, and still maintains KO potential. Both of them however don't match-up well against most of the characters above them.

I don't like Pit or Kirby, but when I attempt to play both, my Pit generally lives longer than Kirby, but 90% of the time, me dying is a star KO (more due to my suckiness). For both characters. Either way, neither of them live long compared with most of the cast.

Close Up Game: Kirby. Those are all incredibly true as Kirby is able to provide pressure while Pit relies on arrows to force the other to approach and thus **** Pit.

Projectile: Pit. Final Cutter barely even counts as a projectile, and while arrows aren't so hard to avoid (for the most part) either, Final Cutter loses out.

Overall: I'd say Kirby seems better on paper, and it's probably the case. My logic is flawed due to the fact that Pit seems to be more popular >_>.

 

[Browny]

Sonic may approach great due to his lightning speed, but his molasses-esque mobility in the air really hampers him. Killing is also an issue. If you miss with the fair gimp, more than likely you won't have another chance to gimp until you knock them off again. I really don't even feel like going into his weak attacks. He does have a mean uair juggle that can kill at relatively low percentages and his fair is brutal if he manages to connect with it. His throws are also great and chain well. This isn't enough to keep him out of the low tier though. Specific placement is cloudy to me, but I would imagine towards the top.

le sigh...
Sonic has i think, 7-8th highest horizontal air speed movement (out of 39 characters, so thats nothing low). compare that to another misconception like MK, who has the 5th slowest. if we take into account spin shotting, im pretty sure he comes the fastest in the air horizontally, not including fully charged rollout, luigis explosive side b etc.

His vertical rise speed in unrivalled with the spring, no one comes close. his fall speed is alright, im not sure exactly but its around the average mark. of course using his dair to fall and attack/ break juggles and combos also makes him the equal fastest faller.

 

[stoopdklutz]

It's not the killing potential thats the BIG problem with Sonic's game, it's his priority.

 

[SaxDude93]

It's not the killing potential thats the BIG problem with Sonic's game, it's his priority.

Agreed. You can't kill what you can't hit. Also, Sonic DOES have a problem killing.

 

[stoopdklutz]

Yea, he has a problem with that too.

 

[AgentAO]

Agreed. You can't kill what you can't hit. Also, Sonic DOES have a problem killing.

Actually, most of his lack of killing ability comes from his lack of priority. His priority (the lack thereof) is his biggest problem so far. I don't have much of a problem actually making a kill with sonic if I hit, the problem is just hitting.

 

[stoopdklutz]

(just a theory, flame shield up)

In high-level play, many attacks will collide with each other. With Sonic's low priority, he wont get damage in. With low priority, when he goes in for the kill, it could just be cancelled out. Ultimately, his problems compound on each other.

 

[Nigerian Star Storm]

Priority isn't always jsut about Attacks clashing with each other. There are other factors.

 

[jiovanni007]

I don't like Pit or Kirby, but when I attempt to play both, my Pit generally lives longer than Kirby, but 90% of the time, me dying is a star KO (more due to my suckiness). For both characters. Either way, neither of them live long compared with most of the cast.

Close Up Game: Kirby. Those are all incredibly true as Kirby is able to provide pressure while Pit relies on arrows to force the other to approach and thus **** Pit.

Projectile: Pit. Final Cutter barely even counts as a projectile, and while arrows aren't so hard to avoid (for the most part) either, Final Cutter loses out.

Overall: I'd say Kirby seems better on paper, and it's probably the case. My logic is flawed due to the fact that Pit seems to be more popular >_>.

I don't blame you, the lil Star Warrior is an acquired taste, but you have to use Kirby's influence to make him last longer. Otherwise he's gonna fly off quick. Dairs and hammers will save you many times. I still can't believe that Pit, the whiny lil EY-YAH-YAH-YAH-YAH-YAH ***** has more fans than Kirby.

 

[BDawgPHD]

I need to learn Sonic, I have this itching feeling that he could actually be a good character....I'm not good at using key things like his side B though, which makes it difficult for me to actually succeed with him.

 

[stoopdklutz]

what else does priority affect? Also, how did R.O.B. get to high tier?

 

[Mike_Echoes]

So now we're trying to get Sonic higher,
And have a good Pit and Kirby placement discussion.

I could see Sonic as higher than Mario. Mario's moves are kinda easy to see, and Sonic could be like the Pichu of Brawl. Dashing around poking hits.

As for Kirby, jiovanni007 pretty much has stated my opinion on the Kirbster. He takes getting used to. Plus the majority of the time, Kirby can get a useful B move.

Snake, Meta, Falco, ROB, Toon Link (Can He quickdraw too?), Wolf, Zelda, Pika, Pit, DK, Luigi, Lucario, Fox, Charizard, Ivysaur, Bowser, Mario, Peach, Ike, Link, and Samus all yield useful B Moves, so Kirby has tons of options

@Klutz: ROB has awesome priority, great Air and Ground game, 2 projectiles, a reflector, almost ALWAYS recovers with is Up B, and can usually spam Fairs as well as Marth can.
Oh and his alt costume makes him Gold! (Not yellow) (Gold is awesome, I'm a gino)

 

[stoopdklutz]

Kinda Ironic how a third party character is one of the best in the game.

Pit is just....meh. Once you get past his arrows, he isn't that phenomenal. That's the problem though, getting past the arrows. At least he can't kill that well.

 

[Mike_Echoes]

Dash -> Shield/Spot Dodge, Dash-> Shield/Spot Dodge, Dash -> Shield -> Grab = Pit's Doom.
Plus Pit's Up+B is horrible, really. It's one of the easiest to gimp. Except like Jigglypuff's Up+B lol

 

[jiovanni007]

Yeah let's ave this Sonic discussion first. The Pit and Kirby thing can wait seeing as they only bare to lose 1 position spot. As far as the Sonic air speed goes, I guess its a relativity thing. He goes so freakin fast on the ground, but when you jump it appears that you're moving like molasses. As far as killing goes, I just don't see it. Stutter Stepped fsmash is good, but it still requires very precise spacing due to the terrible hitbox present. The lack of priority makes gimping tough because almost anyone can throw out an attack and cancel him out. Bair could work with proper timing, but again, he is likely to get hit before it comes out. If he had Fox's bair we may be able to talk business, but he doesn't. But as I said before, Sonic would still at least be in the high portion of the low tier. If not he'd be the bottom of the mid tier. Two different spindashes due make for good mindgames, and when they hit, they can be easily chained into aerials (fair, bair, and uair are most useful). Spindash does suffer from a lack of priority however. Sonic does have a very mean uair juggle that has potential to kill at less than 100% and actually has decent priority and low start-up lag. The lack of priority and still kills him however. That's my rant on him and I still think he should be upper low tier, but maybe someone logical can change my mind.

As far as Kirby and Pit go, Kirby is better. He has better match-ups below and can still destroy a select few characters higher than him as well. King Dedede, R.O.B, Falco (yes Falco, don't believe that **** match-up chart) and Wolf all get destroyed by the baby Star Warrior. His overall approach is much better due to the disjointed properties of his feet. Bairs are killer and almost unstoppable without a projectile or sword. Gimping is one of Kirby's best skills. He may not do it as well as Meta due to a lack of semi-spike and hugely nerfed spike, but he can still make do. Kirby also happens to be a middle weight character with a move that under normal circumstance cancels vertical movement, and allows for stronger than normal DI. This means the lil guy will be coming out of bubbles more than air. I wish I had a dollar for ever profane word I heard when my opponent sees Kirby swing his hammer from inside that bubble when he's over 120%. He does suffer when hit vertically, but He's still better than Pit in most cases. That's why he should be over Pit.

I'm actually really glad that I got involved in this topic, heated discussion is fun.