Predictions for Tier List v4 (Includes overview of entire cast)

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

Maybe I'm thinking of a different combo than you, but how is a CG to DACUS techable? Also, platform laserlocks.


We have SK92, too. DEHF isn't the only Falco player.

o.0 He was talking about the 0% to death. And platform locks are hard has heck to set up for and even execute after taht.

 

[CRASHiC]

Still, CG isn't everything, it's the camping game that really makes him shine. Very few can actually out camp Falco.

Except you can get in through his camping game with 0 damage, and then, other than the chaingrab, Falco lacks options in close combat.

It doesn't really matter if he has few tournament results or not. By just being able to place high, even if by one person, proves he does have potiental. And SK92 has placed high in a lot of major tournaments consistantly so it's not a one time fluk kind of a thing. Falco doesn't have the rep. that a lot of other characters have. The same can be said about a lot of there characters like Wario.

Except Wario has more top players. Fiction has done far better with Wario than the Falco has done.
Mango was taken into consideration when making the Melee tier list, despite this, Puff is still considered High Tier. It wasn't until other puffs starting poping up that they considered reforming the Melee back room and looking into the matter.
A select few players is all it takes, but one is not enough.

 

[demonictoonlink]

You accidentally put Mario in the same tier as Toon Link.

 

[SuSa]

He puts the hurt on a LOT of characters except:

Ice climbers (A Tier+)
Kirby (...)
Pikachu (...)
Snake (S Tier) *
Meta Knight (S Tier)*
Marth (I forget Tier)*

* = actually matters

Laser spam game is not great if power shielded... powershield, shield drop, powershield, shield drop. Shield if he IAP's, otherwise approach and be ready to shield again. If you see him move rather then jump, get ready to Jump OoS to dair or another aerial because chances are he's going to try to boost pivot grab you or something similiar. =p

 

[WaterTails]

Except you can get in through his camping game with 0 damage, and then, other than the chaingrab, Falco lacks options in close combat.

Falco's jab is really fast, though. It comes out in, I think, two frames. Also, he can always Phantasm away. IAP has, like, a seven-frame startup.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

Except you can get in through his camping game with 0 damage, and then, other than the chaingrab, Falco lacks options in close combat.

Except Wario has more top players. Fiction has done far better with Wario than the Falco has done.
Mango was taken into consideration when making the Melee tier list, despite this, Puff is still considered High Tier. It wasn't until other puffs starting poping up that they considered reforming the Melee back room and looking into the matter.
A select few players is all it takes, but one is not enough.

I'm not experience enough to say more than this, so I'll have to back off from the debate right there. I'm working with like summer 08 to summer 09 stuff. From what I learned there it seemed as if Falco was all camp and CG. What it seems to becoming is that Falco has to rely upon his ability to mix it up. It is that ability of Falco's to be unpredictable and mix it up that can give him the edge. But with something as vague as that coming from the Falco players seems a little odd. But it's enough to keep him doing well.

 

[AvariceX]

I'm not gonna say where Ness should be on that list because I'll just get flamed for bias. What I will say is that recovery is NOT what holds him back. Watch any good tourney Ness - they do just fine with their recovery. There's several characters who have worse recovery.

 

[Alfa]

Snce their has been no info on Bowser given by Pierce, I've decided to post some info on Bowser, and my opinion on him.
First: http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=211975
Bowser Mathcup thread:

If you read the above thread, you would see that as of yet, Bowser has no good matchups, and in my opinion, the only good matchups that are possible are PT (two standing infs with grab release, and chaingrab on squirtle), and Ganondorf. Bowser also has a plethora of 60-40 and 50-50 matchups, but he only has a few matchups worse than 60-40 (Dedede due to 'infinite', diddy, and IC's). Unfortunatly, due to having so many bad matchups Bowser can not be high tier, however, due to doing alright against some of the top characters, and having very few, horrible matchups, he makes it out of F/G tier with ease, and when you consider Bowser's great OOS option in his UpB, his weight, his defensive game, and all the stuff he can do with grab releases, you can see how he makes it out of E tier too, and sits comfortably in D tier, and probably mid-high D tier on the upcoming official tier list.

In short, Bowser's tier placing suits his character, a bit below average, but not horrible.

Edit: I also feel Ness is a pretty solid character, he can space well, damage well, killing doesn't pose any great difficulty to him, he has one of, if not the strongest spikes in the game, and no horrible matchups (according to this matchup thread http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=188116), but he has a subpar recovery, and he has bad matchups against the top tiers, hence D tier.

 

[Lionman]

In my opinion Falcon should be C-Tier

Any objections?

 

[CaliburChamp]

It seems like the OP is basing this tier list all upon match ups and nothing else. Match ups aren't the only factor.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

It seems like the OP is basing this tier list all upon match ups and nothing else. Match ups aren't the only factor.

True... But doesn't seem as if MUs contribute to the majority of the factors one can present?

FOr example, if you look at simply tournament results, there is a direct correliation between there MUs results and tourament playings. More advantaged and fewer disadvantage MUs you have, the more likely they are to place higher.

 

[CT Chia]

Yo Pierce, I'm gonna let you finish, but....

lol jk

Anyway, I suppose I'll throw my hat into the ring. This is one hell of a thread, good stuff Pierce.

I'm only going to comment on the characters that I'm knowledgeable about where I feel your opinions of them clash with mine.

*Tried to remember that you didn't order within the tiers despite seeing them otherwise lol*

ROB: Of course I have to comment on ROB
That's why I'm here afterall right?

R.O.B. is an interesting character, because he doesn't really have any safe pokes. His DownB gives him decent approaches, and dtilt gives him a decent poke I guess, but really, he just throws mad projectiles at you, and forces you out with his anti-approach options (ftilt, Fair, Pivot grab). He has a great recovery and defensive game, and despite decent kill power, he lacks good kill set-ups. R.O.B. also has a difficult time dealing with certain strategies, including characters that out-camp him. He's an all around solid character, but not great in way that makes him high tier.

I really agree with a lot of this, well written. The only thing I have different to say is that ftilt is a far better poke than dtilt simply because of it's range. Sure it's slower, which means you have to use it a bit more careful not just throwing it out there randomly or you will get punished. dtilt seems to be better for punishing out of shield and hoping for a trip for a good set up. The only other thing that needs more disclosure that you sort of briefly touched on is that his down B gives him decent approaches. It's essentially true, as most of the rest of ROB's game is based on punishing your opponents approached, but it's not just the down b alone that forces approaches or helps you approach, but specifically the endless options out of glide tossing.

ROB is likely the first or second best character to really make use of glide tossing (only contested to by Diddy) with the ability to spawn his own projectiles (though they aren't easy to grab asap, they have multiple uses unlike other projectiles). ROBs GT is extremely fast and long, and he can glide in every direction while throwing in every direction, something that not every character has the ability to do (for instance, off the top of my mind Peach ROB and Diddy can glide and toss in all directions, but MK can not). It's great for approaching (especially from a far distance since his glide toss is massively longer than diddys), uses a projectile that's faster and travels furhter than turnips (and bananas maybe, i dont remember), and is awesome at approaching as well as spacing simply from the speed and length of the glide.

ROBs biggest problem is by far killing. His nair is his most reliable kill move, but two things hold him back from this
a) if I may quote Fiction on this, "you have to be ******** to get hit from ROB's nair, its so slow and obvious" However after he said this I continued to punish him continuously with it but he is true to an extent
b) its a necessity to rob's attacking arsenal throughout the entire stock so by the time you're ready to kill, it's almost always stale. this move SUCKS at killing when staled.
fortunately I have some workarounds for this but I'd rather not flat out talk about it yet gotta keep some secrets.
So yea, those two reasons are awful qualities of a character's best kill move lol
Other than that he has usmash (which I rely on a lot surprisingly) as it's stupidly strong for the character compared to what else he has, but it's really tough to land. Fsmash doesn't have good range, and still just isn't that spectacular.

That's more just adding onto what you said, but overall I don't think that ROB belongs in the C tier. He's dropped since the beginning of the game, but with how the metagame is changing he's on a rise again imo. ROBs two biggest problems are DDD and MK, they are about tied for his worst matchups imo. DDD was very high on the last tier list and has always been generally high. This sucked for ROB, with MK and DDD ruling the tops of lists, it was very hard for him to break into the top of the metagame, but things are changing.

As you said in your description, DDD is going down due to the increase in Diddy, Falco, Pika, ICs, and Olimar (and lets not forget about MK). This is a godsend to ROB. One of his hardest matchups is continuously dropping on the tier list and better matchups are being replaced. There's nothing we can do about MK, he will still be at the top for a while, but let's face it, so many character's worst MUs are MK that its hardly a problem anymore.

Look at what the top tier has changed to however... MK Diddy IC and Snake. AWESOME! ROB has positive matchups on both Diddy and ICs. This is a godsend for ROB. Both of these characters are becoming incredibly overused so that ROB is finding better and better matchups throughout tourneys. Especially with ICs on the rise, ROB is one of the few characters thats widely known to be a bad MU for ICs, being able to force approaches, rip through desync blizzard setups with piercing lasers, has a retardedly fast dash grab and fthrow animation, fast enough that ICs can not react to and it splits them instantly, great edgeguarding options, etc. Need I continue? lol
Beyond those two, there is Snake. ROB is widely considered by many to counter Snake, though I personally think that is starting to change. It's about evenish at the moment, but either way, with the tools ROB has to gimp Snake, and some reliable pokes and projectiles that can potentially outcamp Snake, it's not too bad a matchup for what you call a C tier going into S tier.

ROBs matchups aren't all that bad either as you go down. Brief summary: he does nice on wario (about evenish? possible slight win?), slightly loses to falco, even with marth, loses bad to DDD unfort (but hes on the decline), about evenish to GaW, even or slightly loses to pikachus depending on stage and camping, and technically slightly loses to olimar (though VERY few olimars know the matchup well enough to abuse what they need to to win, and i hardly tell people what it is so they dont start to abuse it and destroy me lol).


That's it for now, that was a lot @_@

I'll talk later about others.

Edit: btw, Pierce teach me the Snake matchup. You know so much about it and im failing at it recently.

 

[sammy p]

wow nice!!!
i could actually agree with all characters on your list!!
im a pit main and i agree really with what you said about him and where you placed him!!
10 thumbs up for that!
good read!

 

[CaliburChamp]

True... But doesn't seem as if MUs contribute to the majority of the factors one can present?

FOr example, if you look at simply tournament results, there is a direct correliation between there MUs results and tourament playings. More advantaged and fewer disadvantage MUs you have, the more likely they are to place higher.

If this was based solely on match ups, Sonic would be low tier and not mid tier.

Also, you can't listen to that cr@p about Ankoku's tournament rankings, because it doesn't calculate averages. It just keeps on adding tournament wins with "x" character, so the most played characters will always have the higher ranking on Ankoku's character ranking list.

And I've seen somebody play as Ganon in tournament, and they listed they played both Dedede and Ganon in the tournament even though that player lost with Ganon, and he only played him in one match. So Ganon got points just for being played at the tournament, even though he ended up losing that match... this is another flaw of Ankoku's character ranking list. Do your own research if you wish to get a better answer, that's what I do, and that's what a few other pros do, like M2K.

 

[CRASHiC]

As you said in your description, DDD is going down due to the increase in Diddy, Falco, Pika, ICs, and Olimar (and lets not forget about MK).

And let's not forget that DDD goes 55-45 with MK and Diddy.

 

[Pierce7d]

I gimped Hylian's Diddy Kong with a banana. Threw it, knocked off the barrels. It was pools yes, but it still proves they are usable against Diddy Kong. Ike, Wolf, and MK can also DACIT across like, almost all of FD with a banana.

Cool, but Diddy can recover in a way where he is relatively hard to gimp with his banana if he plays smart. A Diddy will sometimes get hit by their bananas, but the best Diddy players rarely lose control of their bananas, and get heavily punished for it without recovering them.

I played ADHD the other day and a big difference from other diddy's was I only hit him with 1 banana, though I threw atleast 6-7 in either glide tosses or insta-throws.. (Thus I got owned )

I think Falco is S tier.

Agreed. While I've learned to insta-toss them back, Diddy still uses the banana far better than the rest of the cast.

I feel Falco is in the S-A tier range that much is certain. Anything below that is stupid. If you have a 0% to death combo or at least a 0%-60% combo on pretty much the whole cast, and argued to be the best camper in the entire game, that is a gurantee slot in the top ranks. Only downside is the recovery, killing and stage picks. With the right stage and character, Falco can easily get killed or lose a good part of the advantage.

With all that I think he is in the low end of stier or high end of A tier.

I agree with this. People are severely underestimating Falco's tools.

Not to be bias (just a bit) but Olimar should be around where D3 is imo...

I mean, he is neutral against Pikachu, Falco ( I think we have the adv- we outcamp and our grabs and smash kill MUCH more reliably), Diddy (Pikmin throw stops nannerz and so do fsmashes) and Wario (grab, grab, grab and we're hard to hit from his air due to being so small. ).

He has a hard but winnable MU against Marth (pivot grab/sheild grab/use purples and yellows). He is beast against D3 (61:39 lol) and Snake (60:40 but i say 65:35). The only badMU is unfortunately with MK, 65:35. He gimps us like its going outta style. I think its winnable with patience and timing (with purples/yellows and blues).

His other 'bad' MUs are overrated also... like Peach and ROB. Upb disrupts Peach hugely and yellows and purples too. We outcamp ROB imo and he is easily 'comboed' if grabbed.
Also, Oli's nair has decent priority and is usually uexpected and can be land cancelled to a certain smash.

And dont forget super whistle armour! Saves me soo much.

EDIT: Looking at the list again, I don't see why Olimar cant even be above Marth....

Falco has the reflector to deal with camping, as well as phantasm. You also can't whistle through multihit moves, and an opponent can still gimp Olimar even with whistle. Falco also wrecks Olimar up close.

that combo sucks. Its techable. Tournament results equal to the other S-tier characters, Where are they, except for that 1 Cali Falco?

Most people have Falco as a secondary, because of his amazing pocket utility.

0-60% is still 0-60%. That's nothing to laugh at. It's highly unlikely that it would be teched every time, and at a minimum it puts the opponent in a bad position off stage and up to 60% behind that stock.

Yes, I would say that the chaingrab is pretty significant, especially since your options for not getting grabbed still result in good damage for Falco.

It's techable yes, but it's certainly weeds out the those who cannot tech it. Even if the spike is avoided, the CG still racks up good amount of damage. It's gurantees pretty much 50% from a single grab below 50%. With the correct reads you can improve it past that point. And even then Dthrow still sets up nicely after 50%. On a few matches against someone such at MK that is a lifesaver. MK can die once he reaches around 120%-130% or so from Falco. So knocking out almost half the damage needed to get into KO range is great. Plus getting the extra bit of percent shouldn't be to difficult because of Falco's excellent damage racking abilities. The same can be said for a few other match-ups where the CG will come in handy. Against Snake it can easily set-up for an easy egdeguard if Snake doesn't blow himself up sooner.

I'm not saying the CG is all that excellent, or the whole focus of his playstyle. I am just pointing out that it certainly helps make him like a mini-ICs. It's having probably the best camping game out of the whole cast that really makes him top tier into A or S.

It doesn't really matter if he has few tournament results or not. By just being able to place high, even if by one person, proves he does have potiental. And SK92 has placed high in a lot of major tournaments consistantly so it's not a one time fluk kind of a thing. Falco doesn't have the rep. that a lot of other characters have. The same can be said about a lot of there characters like Wario.

Falco is MUCH more the chaingrab. He's a hugely under-represented characters.

Are you talking about the chaingrab? I was referring to another combo. Regardless, I still have seen no evidence in tournies of Falco being an S tier charecter.

What Falcos have you fought? I look and I notice Falco receives no representation in many, many regions. He's not a popular character, but no doubt he's a good one. I myself play Falco, and I'm very amused by so many misconceptions.

No, its not always better to play as Sheik. Do you wanna pick Sheik and go play against Iceclimbers? DDD? Pika? Go right ahead if you'd like, but Zelda is the better choice by a decent margin in all those matchups. Do you wanna try to kill Snake with Sheik's decayed moves? Be my guest. With Zelda you can transform when Snake's at around 120% and kill him with 1 LK while out of his upb. Sheild an ftilt and punish with Fsmash Dsmash. They are are all gonna kill easily because Zelda moves ARE COMPLETELY FRESH. Zelda has insane power. And it's not like you're never going to get an opening. If you cant get one hit in, even on a high tier, you seriously suck. Also, Zelda isnt completely destroyed as you make her out to be. You're also not playing the entire game with her, you just need 1 hit.

And lol, Zelda cant approach for ****. You have to play reeeeally cautious and smart, but its entirely possible. Again, why do you tihnk Zelda cant do anything but sit there and get *****?

In instances where Sheik gets death comboed, Zelda is obviously the better choice, but I would say that if the opponent is willing to run the timer, Zelda doesn't actually have much of a chance. What are the MUs for Zelda vs D3, IC, Pika? Also, you would not completely suck if you could not hit me with Zelda while I'm trying not to get hit. I'm very good at the MU, and I understand how Zelda works. Once again, this is in reference to the high tier characters.

Sk92 and Larry are the only Falco's I know of that consistently do well... lol

Anyways... I had like.. a 15 minute essay about why Falco should be lower (mid or higher still of A tier still...) but my internet died and I lost the reply....

tl;dr
Lasers are powershieldable, and that makes them near useless (powershielding isn't hard in Brawl..). They aren't hard to powershield either.
Chainspike is techable.
Landing the grab can actually be hard against any character that matters.
No reliable setups to KO unless opponent airdodges uair, eats a fresh bair. Airdodges into a charged fsmash, or doesn't powershield a laser and you DACUS, or they don't know the length of DACUS so you land it.. aka... they don't know the matchup

EDIT:
Also, Snake has a far better camping+stage control game against the majority of the cast then Falco. We can actually punish you for shielding/avoiding our grenades. All I have to do against Falco is powershield pew-pew..

Not only is this a complete misconception, but Dash Attack K.O.s at about 180. Let me break it down for you.

Falco's silent laser has +3 frame advantage. That means laser grab gets beat out pretty much by only spot dodge. Laser jab grab beats spot dodge, and laser to jab combo is virtually safe if Falco holds shield. At close, Falco's jab *****. Ftilt is an awesome poke, and Falco can jump back into lasers at any time. Retreated rising Dair is safe on many characters, and Falco has legitmate traps and combos. Nair OOS breaks so much stuff, and Bair *****.

Dash attack is amazing. Powershielding lasers is cool, but then what do you do after that? If you unshield, you get hit by dash attack/jab (depending on the spacing). Random illusions also break this if you shield in pattern. If you continue shielding, you get grabbed. Falco's mix-ups are extremely good. Frame two jab is super underrated. For a jab, that move has mad range and priority.

Olimar outcamps Falco imo, we can dtilt crawl under lazers, throw Pikmin, dtilt, etc...

Maybe, but Olimar also has low priority. What do you do when I'm not lasering? I can approach Olimar with Falco.

Maybe I'm thinking of a different combo than you, but how is a CG to DACUS techable? Also, platform laserlocks.


We have SK92, too. DEHF isn't the only Falco player.

Falco has great combos, and great follow ups after. I can only name a handful of super successful D3's as well. Atmosk, Seibrik, CO18, Lain I guess. Where are they at if D3 is so good?

Oh. >_>

I see Falco as bottom of S tier. He simply racks up too much damage too quickly, on top of his great laser spam game (even with power shielding) to be lower then that. He has his issues obviously, but he puts the hurt on a LOT of characters.

o.0 He was talking about the 0% to death. And platform locks are hard has heck to set up for and even execute after taht.

Yeah, but Falco doesn't at all rely on these things.

Except you can get in through his camping game with 0 damage, and then, other than the chaingrab, Falco lacks options in close combat.




Except Wario has more top players. Fiction has done far better with Wario than the Falco has done.
Mango was taken into consideration when making the Melee tier list, despite this, Puff is still considered High Tier. It wasn't until other puffs starting poping up that they considered reforming the Melee back room and looking into the matter.
A select few players is all it takes, but one is not enough.

WTF!?!?! How does Falco lack options in close combat? Falco ***** D3 up close. Jab, Dash attack, grab, aerial. Oh, and how did I forget to mention the god tier spot dodge. Invincible 2-20 like 90% of spot dodges in the game, but his ends at 22 instead of 25, leaving only 2 frames to punishing (plus one or two for his next action) instead of the 5 frames almost all have. What Wario players are placing first?

You accidentally put Mario in the same tier as Toon Link.

No, that's on purpose. Please contribute to the topic if you're going to post.

He puts the hurt on a LOT of characters except:

Ice climbers (A Tier+)
Kirby (...)
Pikachu (...)
Snake (S Tier) *
Meta Knight (S Tier)*
Marth (I forget Tier)*

* = actually matters

Laser spam game is not great if power shielded... powershield, shield drop, powershield, shield drop. Shield if he IAP's, otherwise approach and be ready to shield again. If you see him move rather then jump, get ready to Jump OoS to dair or another aerial because chances are he's going to try to boost pivot grab you or something similiar. =p

Falco is definitely capable of fighting ALL characters in the S and A tier except IC. What do you do against laser dash attack, mixed up with laser grab, and Nair mixed in with phantasms? Falco always has answers, and usually has better mix-ups than his opponents.

Falco's jab is really fast, though. It comes out in, I think, two frames. Also, he can always Phantasm away. IAP has, like, a seven-frame startup.

IAP?

I'm not experience enough to say more than this, so I'll have to back off from the debate right there. I'm working with like summer 08 to summer 09 stuff. From what I learned there it seemed as if Falco was all camp and CG. What it seems to becoming is that Falco has to rely upon his ability to mix it up. It is that ability of Falco's to be unpredictable and mix it up that can give him the edge. But with something as vague as that coming from the Falco players seems a little odd. But it's enough to keep him doing well.

THIS! Falco is WAY more than CGs and camping. In fact, most good Falco players are aggressive. Falco's mix-up ability and attack power are WAY under-rated right now.

I'm not gonna say where Ness should be on that list because I'll just get flamed for bias. What I will say is that recovery is NOT what holds him back. Watch any good tourney Ness - they do just fine with their recovery. There's several characters who have worse recovery.

No, I need the Ness mains to come in here and tell me why Ness is better than where I put him, I don't care about bias, I care about logic and facts. When I placed Ness, I figured he might be better, but I realized I had no evidence to back it up, so I kept him there.

Snce their has been no info on Bowser given by Pierce, I've decided to post some info on Bowser, and my opinion on him.
First: http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=211975
Bowser Mathcup thread:

If you read the above thread, you would see that as of yet, Bowser has no good matchups, and in my opinion, the only good matchups that are possible are PT (two standing infs with grab release, and chaingrab on squirtle), and Ganondorf. Bowser also has a plethora of 60-40 and 50-50 matchups, but he only has a few matchups worse than 60-40 (Dedede due to 'infinite', diddy, and IC's). Unfortunatly, due to having so many bad matchups Bowser can not be high tier, however, due to doing alright against some of the top characters, and having very few, horrible matchups, he makes it out of F/G tier with ease, and when you consider Bowser's great OOS option in his UpB, his weight, his defensive game, and all the stuff he can do with grab releases, you can see how he makes it out of E tier too, and sits comfortably in D tier, and probably mid-high D tier on the upcoming official tier list.

In short, Bowser's tier placing suits his character, a bit below average, but not horrible.

Edit: I also feel Ness is a pretty solid character, he can space well, damage well, killing doesn't pose any great difficulty to him, he has one of, if not the strongest spikes in the game, and no horrible matchups (according to this matchup thread http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=188116), but he has bad matchups against the top tiers, hence D tier.

I know a lot about Bowser from Vex, I just forgot the section. Honestly, I'm on the edge about Bowser. I've seen some sick stuff with the character, but just from one player.

 

[OFY]

I agree with you heavily on Pit, with a bit more effort into him, I can see him in at least B-tier potentially even A-tier.

 

[LoganW]

CG to DACUS techable? Also, platform laserlocks are unlikely.

fixed. I believe you mean chaingrab to the gatling combo? I don't play brawl but is the DACUS when you slide like snake or when you cancel a dash attack into an u-smash like in the gatling combo.

 

[SuSa]

180 is really low?

If you are spacing to let yourself be laser jabbed/ftilted, you aren't spacing properly at all. When I post my thread on "safe zones and why 2/3rds of projectiles in Brawl suck" you'll see what I'm talking about (I'm working on it slowly. To try and make sure I won't have to revise it after I post it)

 

[CRASHiC]

WTF!?!?! How does Falco lack options in close combat? Falco ***** D3 up close. Jab, Dash attack, grab, aerial.

Jab- shield grab
Dash attack- shield grab, forward tilt, downsmash, downtilt
Grab- inhale, downtilt.
Aerial- Bair, uptilt, downair.
Commander Beef beat the best Falco in tournament. Beef is not even a top D3. Falco has a glaring weakness, and this is seen once you get past his camping game. Close combat can be beaten, and then pushed off stage for the easy, easy gimp.
Then, how do you plan to kill the D3?

 

[SuSa]

Would that be DEHF or SK92? Also which tourney/how recently? :x

 

[LoganW]

WTF!?!?! How does Falco lack options in close combat? Falco ***** D3 up close. Jab, Dash attack, grab, aerial. Oh, and how did I forget to mention the god tier spot dodge. Invincible 2-20 like 90% of spot dodges in the game, but his ends at 22 instead of 25, leaving only 2 frames to punishing (plus one or two for his next action) instead of the 5 frames almost all have. What Wario players are placing first?

agreed

IAP?

IAP stands for Instant Aerial Phantasm, it's the thing falco's do when they jump a little before phantasm to cut down on landing lag.

took the liberty of looking that up for you pierce. I'm no troll
edit: 100th post melee ftw (no hate just had to say it)

 

[Swordplay]

The Link mains at AIB are so pessimistic about their match-ups, that they actually purposely underrated them, they were claiming the Link:Ganon match-up 55-45 in Ganon's favor

LOL I''ll pop in to say sometimes this was actually true. Some of the Link mains (especially me) were hoping Link to be dead last so when they win they could rub it in their opponents faces even more.

I hope that comes true.


I think IC's are the 4th/5th best character in this game. I agree that Snake MK and Diddy are the best 3.

But Diddy can desynch the IC's unwillingly with bannana's. Snakes Explosives and nades cause grab problems for the IC's not to mention snakes range. And well......MK is MK. It might be IC's best matchup surprisingly out of those three. This was demonstrated by Lain Vs M2K

That said, I don't see IC's able to compete with the top 3 consistantly. I see them as being in the top of A but not in S.

 

[CRASHiC]

Would that be DEHF or SK92? Also which tourney/how recently? :x

Which one is in Cali? DEHF I believe? And it was about a month or two ago, not very long at all.

 

[demonictoonlink]

The theorycraft coming from CRASHiC...it's...OVER NINE-THOUSAND!!!

 

[phi1ny3]

imo falco's "fist game" shall we call it is pretty overrated.
Frame data-wise it's excellent, but hitbox/other qualities is not something to write home about.
If it weren't for the fact that falco could gay lucario up with heavy camping and such, I'd say that lucario would destroy falco's close zone game. Most of the options whilst in it can be ignored and nullified by better spacing from longer ranged attacks, as longer ranged zones are generally superior (not always the case, but it's a pretty good bet) because you play on misspacing when using a close range game, which is a lot harder to capitalize on than mistiming, especially if the opponent knows what he is doing obviously. It's a general rule people forget when determining advantages in terms of tools.

 

[LoganW]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CUcroVpWkk&feature=related
5:11= awesome skip if you want to
/off-topic

 

[CRASHiC]

The theorycraft coming from CRASHiC...it's...OVER NINE-THOUSAND!!!

I main D3. I know he beats Falco upclose.
How is Falco going to kill D3?
If Falco hits us with an aerial, we pull out our uptilt, uptilt has invincibility frames upon contact, meaning we will win out.
Jab we shield grab, duh. dash attack, shield grab, duh.
If we predict a grab, we can inhale it, or downtilt it.
Falco's only way to escape a corner trap against a D3 who is equally skilled is to double jump and use the side b, which we then chase as he falls.
Falco also suffers from pummel releases at the edge, which cause him to fall so far down that its an instant kill. And guess what, Falco camps the edge so that works out very well.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

Jab- shield grab
Dash attack- shield grab, forward tilt, downsmash, downtilt
Grab- inhale, downtilt.
Aerial- Bair, uptilt, downair.
Commander Beef beat the best Falco in tournament. Beef is not even a top D3. Falco has a glaring weakness, and this is seen once you get past his camping game. Close combat can be beaten, and then pushed off stage for the easy, easy gimp.
Then, how do you plan to kill the D3?

What can you do about AAA combo? I believe that DDDs shield grab frames aren't fast enough to grab Falco between the first and second hit. Nor the second and third+ hits.

The only options I see to this are roll or shield. Roll will get you past the hits and into Falco's lag of the attack. If you shield the hit and simply wait for the shield to back off enough to safely lower it I think that Falco can quit the attack during the time you drop shield frames than safely get out of the way with a roll or something else.

If you happen to get caught in the attack I know you can DI out of the attack, but can you punish it if you get caught in it? If you DI away from Falco, he can still end it quickly enough to avoid getting hit by a Ftilt by powershielding. If you DI up or behind you might get caught into him ending it early to get punished by reading your DI.

 

[Pierce7d]

In my opinion Falcon should be C-Tier

Any objections?

Yes. Falcon is bad. Why do you think he should go up?

btw, I know you're trolling. Please don't spam my thread. I'm sure no one laughed at such an unoriginal joke.

It seems like the OP is basing this tier list all upon match ups and nothing else. Match ups aren't the only factor.

Not at all, I'm quite aware. It's more about the character's ability to cope and fight with the characters at the top of the metagame.

True... But doesn't seem as if MUs contribute to the majority of the factors one can present?

FOr example, if you look at simply tournament results, there is a direct correliation between there MUs results and tourament playings. More advantaged and fewer disadvantage MUs you have, the more likely they are to place higher.

Kinda. I look mostly at that characters match-ups versus the characters he is likely to face. I would say someone is A-Tier if they have a positive on everyone in S-B tier, but a 7-3 against the whole rest of the cast.

Yo Pierce, I'm gonna let you finish, but....

lol jk

Anyway, I suppose I'll throw my hat into the ring. This is one hell of a thread, good stuff Pierce.

I'm only going to comment on the characters that I'm knowledgeable about where I feel your opinions of them clash with mine.

*Tried to remember that you didn't order within the tiers despite seeing them otherwise lol*

ROB: Of course I have to comment on ROB
That's why I'm here afterall right?


I really agree with a lot of this, well written. The only thing I have different to say is that ftilt is a far better poke than dtilt simply because of it's range. Sure it's slower, which means you have to use it a bit more careful not just throwing it out there randomly or you will get punished. dtilt seems to be better for punishing out of shield and hoping for a trip for a good set up. The only other thing that needs more disclosure that you sort of briefly touched on is that his down B gives him decent approaches. It's essentially true, as most of the rest of ROB's game is based on punishing your opponents approached, but it's not just the down b alone that forces approaches or helps you approach, but specifically the endless options out of glide tossing.

ROB is likely the first or second best character to really make use of glide tossing (only contested to by Diddy) with the ability to spawn his own projectiles (though they aren't easy to grab asap, they have multiple uses unlike other projectiles). ROBs GT is extremely fast and long, and he can glide in every direction while throwing in every direction, something that not every character has the ability to do (for instance, off the top of my mind Peach ROB and Diddy can glide and toss in all directions, but MK can not). It's great for approaching (especially from a far distance since his glide toss is massively longer than diddys), uses a projectile that's faster and travels furhter than turnips (and bananas maybe, i dont remember), and is awesome at approaching as well as spacing simply from the speed and length of the glide.

ROBs biggest problem is by far killing. His nair is his most reliable kill move, but two things hold him back from this
a) if I may quote Fiction on this, "you have to be ******** to get hit from ROB's nair, its so slow and obvious" However after he said this I continued to punish him continuously with it but he is true to an extent
b) its a necessity to rob's attacking arsenal throughout the entire stock so by the time you're ready to kill, it's almost always stale. this move SUCKS at killing when staled.
fortunately I have some workarounds for this but I'd rather not flat out talk about it yet gotta keep some secrets.
So yea, those two reasons are awful qualities of a character's best kill move lol
Other than that he has usmash (which I rely on a lot surprisingly) as it's stupidly strong for the character compared to what else he has, but it's really tough to land. Fsmash doesn't have good range, and still just isn't that spectacular.

That's more just adding onto what you said, but overall I don't think that ROB belongs in the C tier. He's dropped since the beginning of the game, but with how the metagame is changing he's on a rise again imo. ROBs two biggest problems are DDD and MK, they are about tied for his worst matchups imo. DDD was very high on the last tier list and has always been generally high. This sucked for ROB, with MK and DDD ruling the tops of lists, it was very hard for him to break into the top of the metagame, but things are changing.

As you said in your description, DDD is going down due to the increase in Diddy, Falco, Pika, ICs, and Olimar (and lets not forget about MK). This is a godsend to ROB. One of his hardest matchups is continuously dropping on the tier list and better matchups are being replaced. There's nothing we can do about MK, he will still be at the top for a while, but let's face it, so many character's worst MUs are MK that its hardly a problem anymore.

Look at what the top tier has changed to however... MK Diddy IC and Snake. AWESOME! ROB has positive matchups on both Diddy and ICs. This is a godsend for ROB. Both of these characters are becoming incredibly overused so that ROB is finding better and better matchups throughout tourneys. Especially with ICs on the rise, ROB is one of the few characters thats widely known to be a bad MU for ICs, being able to force approaches, rip through desync blizzard setups with piercing lasers, has a retardedly fast dash grab and fthrow animation, fast enough that ICs can not react to and it splits them instantly, great edgeguarding options, etc. Need I continue? lol
Beyond those two, there is Snake. ROB is widely considered by many to counter Snake, though I personally think that is starting to change. It's about evenish at the moment, but either way, with the tools ROB has to gimp Snake, and some reliable pokes and projectiles that can potentially outcamp Snake, it's not too bad a matchup for what you call a C tier going into S tier.

ROBs matchups aren't all that bad either as you go down. Brief summary: he does nice on wario (about evenish? possible slight win?), slightly loses to falco, even with marth, loses bad to DDD unfort (but hes on the decline), about evenish to GaW, even or slightly loses to pikachus depending on stage and camping, and technically slightly loses to olimar (though VERY few olimars know the matchup well enough to abuse what they need to to win, and i hardly tell people what it is so they dont start to abuse it and destroy me lol).


That's it for now, that was a lot @_@

I'll talk later about others.

Edit: btw, Pierce teach me the Snake matchup. You know so much about it and im failing at it recently.

I'll teach you the Snake MU when I'm in PA. I don't think ROB is going to bounce into the high tier because he doesn't at all beat the rest of the cast soundly. I hear ROB slaughters ICs, so I've just taken that for granted and can imagine it, though I've never seen the MU being played. Can you elaborate on ROB vs Diddy? I don't see why ROB has the advantage.

wow nice!!!
i could actually agree with all characters on your list!!
im a pit main and i agree really with what you said about him and where you placed him!!
10 thumbs up for that!
good read!

Thank you, but please, feel free to add your own ideas and contribute to the topic.

If this was based solely on match ups, Sonic would be low tier and not mid tier.

Also, you can't listen to that cr@p about Ankoku's tournament rankings, because it doesn't calculate averages. It just keeps on adding tournament wins with "x" character, so the most played characters will always have the higher ranking on Ankoku's character ranking list.

And I've seen somebody play as Ganon in tournament, and they listed they played both Dedede and Ganon in the tournament even though that player lost with Ganon, and he only played him in one match. So Ganon got points just for being played at the tournament, even though he ended up losing that match... this is another flaw of Ankoku's character ranking list. Do your own research if you wish to get a better answer, that's what I do, and that's what a few other pros do, like M2K.

Ankoku's ranking list is to be taken with a grain of salt. It's not a tier list. Well said.

And let's not forget that DDD goes 55-45 with MK and Diddy.

I feel D3 loses worse than this in both MUs. ESPECIALLY MK. Explain why D3 isn't doing much better if he's got a 55-45 with MK and a 55-45 over Snake. He's got a win over Wario and Marth, and you think he beats Diddy. Why am I not seeing D3's win tourneys? That only leaves ICs, and Falco. Falco's are almost non-existent and IC are growing in popularity, but they can't be taking out all the D3's. Where are your tourney wins if MK is only 55-45?

fixed. I believe you mean chaingrab to the gatling combo? I don't play brawl but is the DACUS when you slide like snake or when you cancel a dash attack into an u-smash like in the gatling combo.

Falco also has other combos and traps which deal a lot of damage.

180 is really low.

If you are spacing to let yourself be laser jabbed/ftilted, you aren't spacing properly at all. When I post my thread on "safe zones and why 2/3rds of projectiles in Brawl suck" you'll see what I'm talking about (I'm working on it slowly. To try and make sure I won't have to revise it after I post it)

I was not referring to vs. Snake. I need to study that MU more, because Falco fights Snake in a unique way. However, you greatly misunderstand why projectiles are good. It has nothing to do with them hitting you. It's about them limiting your options. Against double laser, you can't jump, then you must shield. This limits your options, and Falco has good options. You also don't seem to understand the movement abilities a double lasering Falco has.

 

[ru5514n]

Jab- shield grab
Dash attack- shield grab, forward tilt, downsmash, downtilt
Grab- inhale, downtilt.
Aerial- Bair, uptilt, downair.
Commander Beef beat the best Falco in tournament. Beef is not even a top D3. Falco has a glaring weakness, and this is seen once you get past his camping game. Close combat can be beaten, and then pushed off stage for the easy, easy gimp.
Then, how do you plan to kill the D3?

If a Falco player anticipates the shield grab, he can just continue jabbing until he pokes through the shield.
And the rest, basically, like it has been said, Falco can mix it up. If he anticipates a d-tilt, or an inhale he can dair. U-tilts and dairs are stopped by lasers. For the killing part, I doubt anyone can tech CG to spike every time. Lasers can also gimp your recovery somewhat if you waste your jumps.

 

[N.A.G.A.C.E]

why are you hating on zelda. i might be missing something since i have not played her seriously for a very long time but it seems to me are main weakness are di-able smashes and predictable recovery. she really is not that bad and even through she is not great at approaching i never found that to be that big of deal. No one talks about this but with zelda i boxed people in s they could no longer spam and would have to get closer to me to attack. When this happened i would use zelda's range to beat my opponents. plus if you f-smash and it misses you can buffer a d-smash if your opponent comes in at you and it usually works since people think you are defenseless after the f-smash. I understand she is not a great character but with her range and strength she is not that bad and definitely not bottom 3.

Wheni use to play her i did very well top 10 almost every time in the nyc/long island area so ether i am the most amazing player ever (which i am sadly not) how people fight her has changed a huge amount or she is not that bad

 

[LoganW]

Falco also has other combos and traps which deal a lot of damage.

that's cool I just knew he can chaingrab to dair or gatling combo/ dacus? Could you answer my question cause that would help more
IAP=Instant Aerial Phantasm idk if you saw that

For the killing part, I doubt anyone can tech CG to spike every time.

what percent are you chaingrabbing at? Cant the spike be meteor cancelled or is that even in this game?

 

[CRASHiC]

What can you do about AAA combo? I believe that DDDs shield grab frames aren't fast enough to grab Falco between the first and second hit. Nor the second and third+ hits.

Better question, what the hell is D3 doing within that range????? If the D3 is that close to Falco to get hit by jab, he's asking for trouble. D3 outranges Falco by far, and has the tools to keep Falco in that distance.

If you happen to get caught in the attack I know you can DI out of the attack, but can you punish it if you get caught in it?

Shield DI boi.

I doubt anyone can tech CG to spike every time. .

THAT DOESN'T EVEN HIT.
DI AWAY BUDDY.
And even then, it won't kill D3. We can get up.

 

[CaliburChamp]

I main D3. I know he beats Falco upclose.
How is Falco going to kill D3?
If Falco hits us with an aerial, we pull out our uptilt, uptilt has invincibility frames upon contact, meaning we will win out.
Jab we shield grab, duh. dash attack, shield grab, duh.
If we predict a grab, we can inhale it, or downtilt it.
Falco's only way to escape a corner trap against a D3 who is equally skilled is to double jump and use the side b, which we then chase as he falls.
Falco also suffers from pummel releases at the edge, which cause him to fall so far down that its an instant kill. And guess what, Falco camps the edge so that works out very well.

You have the wrong mindset. Your thinking about rock, paper, scissors. RPG type elements. Well, this is a fighting game with numerous variables... this isn't Final Fantasy. lol.

 

[SuSa]

All projectiles are easily taken care of by power shielding. The only ones that limit options are ones that are prolonged far past the lag of the projectile.

EG:
Rob's Gyro (it's alright, cept the whole.. bye bye on shield)
Samus's weak missile (or a missile canceled strong one. bye bye on shield sucks, but they last far past the lag of the attack)
Snake's grenades
the Links' bombs (due to bouncing off shields)
Diddy's bananas
Zamus's armour pieces
To some limited degree, Wario's bike wheels. (Cept the whole bye bye on shield)
To an extremely limited degree: Falco's silent laser (and even then, only at closer distances)

Also you CAN jump against SHDL depending who you are. Also, I used to secondary Falco and I play Falco's who think Falco+Jape > Snake very often....

Snake has loads more options, and limits them far more then a laser.

 

[ru5514n]

Better question, what the hell is D3 doing within that range????? If the D3 is that close to Falco to get hit by jab, he's asking for trouble. D3 outranges Falco by far, and has the tools to keep Falco in that distance.

But if Falco has to keep this distance, then we are back to laser camping option.

 

[LoganW]

wait, cant you just meteor cancel that chaingrab?

 

[clowsui]

falco v. ddd is definitely in falco's favor

falco forces an approach on ddd and wins up close. please don't try and suggest to me that ddd is a better boxer than falco lmao, the only thing ddd can do up close is use offensive spotdodging, shield and grab, but falco can beat out all of those options simply by spamming his own spotdodge + jab. the only issue that falco has might be killing ddd but if worst comes to worst he'll camp his *** off and get a dash attack kill or something (frame 5 dash attack that can be initiated off of down throw reads...god **** what a **** tactic). similarly DDD doesn't have as good of tools as other characters to try and beat phantasm. it's definitely not more than a 6:4 since a good ddd can abuse grab traps + bair against falco but the problem is d3 getting in his effective range...which isn't happening vs. falco

also caliburchamp some situations are reduced to RPS but not in falco vs. ddd unless you're talking about tech reads.

btw corner traps v. ddd can be escaped by just grabbing the shield that he's obv going to use or just phantasming through the spotdodge that he does to bait you into something, it's not that difficult. similarly you can just charge fsmash and force a reaction

 

[ru5514n]

wait, cant you just meteor cancel that chaingrab?

You mean cancel the spike, right? That depends on your damage. Also, remember D3's Up-b is VERY edgehoggable.