Should everyone have a pocket space animal?

[JFB (JurgaBurgaFlintines)]

eww no

screw 20XX

falcon for lyfe

Falcon is considered a space animal so you are kinda contradicting yourself.
http://supersmashbros.wikia.com/wiki/Space_animal

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Falcon is not a space animal. Anyone can edit wiki pages and put nonsensical "facts" in them.

 

[victra♥]

everyone should just play fox falco and falcon for maximum melee fun

 

[victra♥]

everyone should just play fox falco and falcon for maximum melee fun

 

[-ACE-]

"Everyone" is where the OP went wrong. Some will never be able to play spacies at the necessary level to succeed, yet can succeed with other characters. It depends on your playstyle.

 

[Phantom High]

I think I'll pocket jiggs FOR the spacie match up.

 

[The Soap]

I think I'll pocket jiggs FOR the spacie match up.

Have fun fighting Fox

 

[-ACE-]

Have fun fighting Fox

Until fox reaches a high level he's free as F for a good jiggs. Its not like the mu is 80/20.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Ya its only 70-30. All fox needs to do in the matchup is dash dance grab -> uthrow uair. Laser for percent. Nair/Bair sometimes to maintain stage control. Always hold left or right when you're near her shield so you don't get uthrow->rest. Congrats, you can beat 99% of puff players.

 

[Zodiac]

Having a pocket spacey worked two or three years ago but now days if your space animal isn't up to the standard you will probably just get bopped, you have to put in as much work into pocket space animals these days as you did into maining one three years ago.

 

[victra♥]

Having a pocket spacey worked two or three years ago but now days if your space animal isn't up to the standard you will probably just get bopped, you have to as much work into pocket space animals these days as you did into maining one three years ago.

This. These days so many players are used to the spacies match up against players who actually main spacies. I would imagine players wouldn't see too much success whipping out a pocket spacie these days.

 

[Roukiske]

I think it would be a good idea to pocket a character who counter's a matchup you personally dislike or try to strengthen the weakness of your main. That's too much work for me though, I just wanna have fun :D

Casually I started out with Shiek, but started maining a spacie (Fox) competitively years ago. I'm thankful for that only because I feel it really helped my tech skill. After so many button presses over the years I started to work on a pocket Jiggs and it felt so much easier to play that sometimes I just prefer to play Jiggs.

This could be different for others, I've played Fox for a long time but my Falco is garbage...

 

[Dr Peepee]

People should play whatever character works best for them.

Not everyone is good at tech.

Splitting attention between characters tends to hurt more than help overall unless you're already high level(then it just makes it debatable).

Spacies are very good and very fun for many people and very common, but they are not broken.

 

[xbombr]

You may not need a spacie, but if you have a lower tiered main with an awful match up, having a secondary with a good match up against the character your main has a bad time against can be a good idea.

As PP mentioned though, splitting your focus too much could end up hurting more than helping.

 

[Hax]

no one other than Fox Falco or Marth should win a national from here on out. IC's and Jigglypuff are like minigames for Fox (don't make massive mistakes and you win). Sheik is bad vs both spacies and requires massive outplaying to win. Peach has the 4th best chance of winning a national because she isn't glaringly awful vs either spacie. she's bad vs Fox for sure but her neutral game vs him is still much stronger than IC's/Jiggs/Sheik. Peach can still win *now* but her ability to win will eventually fizzle out as Foxes continue to improve. Armada will tell you this himself.

this game is truly reaching theorycraft levels of play (I'd say it happened this year specifically; go back and watch the level of play at Apex/EVO 2013, it's gross). the sudden Melee boom has caused people to train like hell, and something that has become apparent to me with this year's advancement of the metagame is that Fox and Falco truly SHOULD win every game if they play well enough. when I go back and watch sets of my Falcon, I see so many instances where I'm capitalizing on spacie players' blunders. my strategy heavily involved eliciting mistakes on their end. what is naturally going to happen when spacies players continue to optimize their characters with endless potential and stop making these mistakes? other characters are going to fall out of viability.

Fox and Falco have a neutral game that is on a different level from the rest of Melee's cast, and I basically view the other 24 characters as "mistake eliciters." that is to say that they all lose the neutral game to Fox and Falco, and require Fox/Falco to make mistakes for them to win. this still applies to Marth. Marth, however, is a very unique and interesting character, and the best of these 24 at dealing with spacies (Fox especially).

spacies are undoubtedly the best characters that actually make contact with their opponent. thus, it makes complete sense that their most difficult matchup other than themselves is Marth, a character who relies on his obscene disjointed hitboxes to keep spacies out. while spacies expand infinitely for various reasons, I like to see Marth as the 3rd character who is also broken in theory, because his strategy inherently requires a mistake from himself for his opponent to be able to get in on him. while I can't attach concrete values to either the Fox/Falco neutral game, or the Marth neutral game (the 2 endgame neutral games), to declare one objectively better, I think ultimately spacies' ability to abuse human reaction time and play with the human mind is too strong. I don't think we'll ever see Marth surpass spacies on the tier list - I think he'll be forever 3rd - but I am so sure that he is 3rd.

I suppose I've been speaking from the perspective of a Fox player, not a Falco player, this whole time. Falco definitely has a tougher time with characters like Peach, Jigglypuff, Ice Climbers, and Samus, etc (I would say Falco is only *possibly* currently better than Fox vs Marth and Captain Falcon, and even those are both maybes). but from the perspective of a Fox player, only Falco and Marth have fair matchups vs my character. just as I used to be really open about Falcon being bad, I'm really open about Fox being broken as hell. it wasn't my intention to come across as a johner (which people used to call me when I mained Falcon), I'm just very open about what I think. and I think that this game is very soon going to reach a point where only Falco and Marth can deal with Fox.

 

[victra♥]

@ Hax Do you think Melee's popularity will reach an end if it reaches the stage where only Fox/Falco/Marth are the only viable characters? You say that we will reach this point soon, how long do you think it will take?

Out of curiosity, how long do you think Melee will stay alive at top level play?

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Related to what victra said, will you still have fun playing the game? Competitively?

 

[Bones0]

no one other than Fox Falco or Marth should win a national from here on out. IC's and Jigglypuff are like minigames for Fox (don't make massive mistakes and you win). Sheik is bad vs both spacies and requires massive outplaying to win. Peach has the 4th best chance of winning a national because she isn't glaringly awful vs either spacie. she's bad vs Fox for sure but her neutral game vs him is still much stronger than IC's/Jiggs/Sheik. Peach can still win *now* but her ability to win will eventually fizzle out as Foxes continue to improve. Armada will tell you this himself.

this game is truly reaching theorycraft levels of play (I'd say it happened this year specifically; go back and watch the level of play at Apex/EVO 2013, it's gross). the sudden Melee boom has caused people to train like hell, and something that has become apparent to me with this year's advancement of the metagame is that Fox and Falco truly SHOULD win every game if they play well enough. when I go back and watch sets of my Falcon, I see so many instances where I'm capitalizing on spacie players' blunders. my strategy heavily involved eliciting mistakes on their end. what is naturally going to happen when spacies players continue to optimize their characters with endless potential and stop making these mistakes? other characters are going to fall out of viability.

Fox and Falco have a neutral game that is on a different level from the rest of Melee's cast, and I basically view the other 24 characters as "mistake eliciters." that is to say that they all lose the neutral game to Fox and Falco, and require Fox/Falco to make mistakes for them to win. this still applies to Marth. Marth, however, is a very unique and interesting character, and the best of these 24 at dealing with spacies (Fox especially).

spacies are undoubtedly the best characters that actually make contact with their opponent. thus, it makes complete sense that their most difficult matchup other than themselves is Marth, a character who relies on his obscene disjointed hitboxes to keep spacies out. while spacies expand infinitely for various reasons, I like to see Marth as the 3rd character who is also broken in theory, because his strategy inherently requires a mistake from himself for his opponent to be able to get in on him. while I can't attach concrete values to either the Fox/Falco neutral game, or the Marth neutral game (the 2 endgame neutral games), to declare one objectively better, I think ultimately spacies' ability to abuse human reaction time and play with the human mind is too strong. I don't think we'll ever see Marth surpass spacies on the tier list - I think he'll be forever 3rd - but I am so sure that he is 3rd.

I suppose I've been speaking from the perspective of a Fox player, not a Falco player, this whole time. Falco definitely has a tougher time with characters like Peach, Jigglypuff, Ice Climbers, and Samus, etc (I would say Falco is only *possibly* currently better than Fox vs Marth and Captain Falcon, and even those are both maybes). but from the perspective of a Fox player, only Falco and Marth have fair matchups vs my character. just as I used to be really open about Falcon being bad, I'm really open about Fox being broken as hell. it wasn't my intention to come across as a johner (which people used to call me when I mained Falcon), I'm just very open about what I think. and I think that this game is very soon going to reach a point where only Falco and Marth can deal with Fox.

Like you said, your strategy (and I think many other non-spacie mains) is generally to bait spacies into making mistakes and punishing super hard. Assuming we get to a level where spacies are making virtually no mistakes as far as committing to bad attacks or tech skill, do you then believe non-spacie metas will shift towards harder reads? Wouldn't, for instance, a Falcon main be better off hard reading a Fox's movement and trying to raw knee him rather than waiting?

 

[Hax]

@ Hax Do you think Melee's popularity will reach an end if it reaches the stage where only Fox/Falco/Marth are the only viable characters? You say that we will reach this point soon, how long do you think it will take?

Out of curiosity, how long do you think Melee will stay alive at top level play?

this is a very fortunate endgame situation for Melee; similar to MVC2 and practically the opposite of MVC3. it's very reminiscent of Marvel 2's Magneto/Storm/Sentinel endgame, where the endgame characters are beautifully designed (complex and difficult), hype for the viewers, and fun for the players. I've always said that MVC2 is the FGC's Melee, and I'd be totally down to learn it with someone.

a less fortunate situation would be the one Marvel 3 is in, where Morridoom just seems to dominate everything in a really boring fashion. I used to play Magneto in that game, but I stopped playing it + stopped watching streams for it because the cheesy characters legitimately seem to be the best in that game. Zero's the most offensive character that can keep up with it currently, and he's pretty damn cheesy/uninteresting as well. I hope for the sake of that game that the perfect C. Viper theories come to fruition just so a well-designed character can be what dominates. "well-designed" definitely doesn't come to mind when I think of Morrigan or Zero lol. don't get me started on Vergil, or X-Factor's inclusion.

if Fox didn't exist in Melee, I think Melee's survival would legitimately be threatened. this is very largely because Jigglypuff would be seen a LOT more. Jigglypuff is the Morrigan of this game IMO, and despite how broken Fox is, he saves Melee from it.

I'll absolutely still have fun playing it competitively lol. any spacie vs spacie matchup is like a DBZ battle, and Fox dittos are easily the most fun and best matchup in the game IMO.

Melee's incredible cult following and stream viewership + fortunate endgame situation + completely uncompetitive sequels that don't threaten to kill it = I don't see this game going anywhere anytime soon

 

[BTmoney]

I'm happy to see the quality of this discussion (on this page, just read the rest of this thread lol).

But to the OP I believe no. If you rely on a spacie to accomplish something for you then you're doing that because they are better at something. You should probably just main the spacie you think works well for you if you do secondary one of them. If we're purely talking about increasing your win ratio.

I think at higher levels they are inefficient characters to secondary unless you specialize them for specific cases like M2K or Pewpewu but you have to be pretty good to make that work for you. I do think enjoyment and your thoughts on MUs are relevant factors. I accept that Marth is worse than Fox but I actually go Marth vs. floaties sometimes because it gives you way less to think about (as a Fox main) and I can really only focus on making good reads and picking the right options. Plus it's just flat out fun. It's a mental exercise that I enjoy doing.

But back to the point it's an arms race you can't win if you secondary spacies. You can't put in enough time to be better at the MU (while dedicating most of your time to your main) than a player who has been playing the MU with their main.

Again if we're talking about purely increasing your probability of winning and your ceiling then maining said spacie would make more sense than secondary-ing that spacie.

Also, <3 @ Hax thoughts on Marth. He's underrated.

 

[Phantom High]

Marth is underrated? I thought he was considered to be the gods in melee.

Well there is something hype about spacies and a" bishie" duking it out. only now did i realize they take full advantage of what melee has to offer

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I'll absolutely still have fun playing it competitively lol.

Thats all I need to hear. This game will live as long as there are people to play it

 

[EddyBearr]

My "pocket fox" is, instead, a pocket young link. Close enough? Spam projectiles and get an eventual kill set-up?

 

[Deleted member]

Not for me.

Pocketing a Fox while maining Falcon is pointless. I'd have to drop Falcon for Fox because Fox is obviously the better character, IMO.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I find a lot of Falcon players keep a pocket Marth

 

[Deleted member]

I find a lot of Falcon players keep a pocket Marth

I exclusively main Falcon. I rarely pull anything out different in tournament, in friendlies sure, but in tournament no. I simply can't play anyone else, just doesn't feel good.

 

[JNova]

Yes, so ppl can stop complaining how bad their non-spacies Mains are