Should Melee's Top Tiers Stay Untouchable Through this Critical Turning Point in Project M's Life?

[victinivcreate1]

Speaking of difficult characters,

Who do you guys consider to be the hardest characters? Whether it'd be via tech, mental ability, or a combination of both

Technically I'd say spacies, particularly Wolf, and Lucas.
Mentally I think Snake would fall under #1 most mentally difficult character to play

 

[Boiko]

Up Smash I can understand why, but up throw up air is not guaranteed. The fact that floaties are really viable in this game pretty much nullifies this. Ness is flaoty and a mid weight too, you shouldn't be getting up throw up aired EVER. Either that Fox sucks (which Animal doesn't), or he's in your head (possibly the case).

It's guaranteed on Ness, trust me. You also need to consider that the option out of uthrow uair is to jump and not challenge it. Guess who has arguably the slowest dj start up in the game.

 

[1FD]

Pikachu has nair upsmash, except his nair travels farther and his upsmash is stronger (and it can also combo into thunder). A lot of characters do have conversions into kill moves, its apart of the game. I wouldn't say nair upsmash is overpowered, maybe just the upsmash itself.

Difference being sweetspots and sourspots all over the place and not massive super-ranged disjoints on both moves.
You actually have to like... TIME and SPACE stuff
WTFFFf
Pika takes more buttonpressing than spacies, and has a mental game beyond more complex than theirs, and is probably the hardest to play in pm by a technicality of being pika, just like he was in melee
The mouse got it hard all day ery day

let's pull out the stops and make the game ****ing awesome imo

So this
The game is awesome
Been waiting for those ****'s for a long time now, but we needed ALL of this other stuff as context to get them.
Now we can go for them and not fack it up.

 

[Bleck]

oh well the tl;dr is that fox and falco are still both absurd in design but they have such a dynamic risk/reward basis behind their interactions that it works out well in practice even if in theory its still ridiculous.

Where's the risk in Fox and Falco's kits? I'm not trying to imply there is none; I'm genuinely curious.

 

[Boiko]

Where's the risk in Fox and Falco's kits? I'm not trying to imply there is none; I'm genuinely curious.

If they do something stupid they get punished super hard by most characters.

 

[Bleck]

If they do something stupid they get punished super hard by most characters.

Something stupid like what, exactly?

 

[kaizo13]

Something stupid like what, exactly?

have you not watched any top level melee? one mistake from spacies can easily turn into a lost stock, where as most other characters have far more leeway.

you're asking where's the risk...well pretty much anything that grants the opponent a chance to land a hit is risky as they get so heavily punished

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

have you not watched any top level melee? one mistake from spacies can easily turn into a lost stock, where as most other characters have far more leeway.

you're asking where's the risk...well pretty much anything that grants the opponent a chance to land a hit is risky as they get so heavily punished

Except they have every tool and more to avoid this and do just as bad to others.

 

[Boiko]

Something stupid like what, exactly?

Reflecting something when your opponent is right next to you, charging a smash outside of an opponents range, flubbing an edge guard, nairing/bairing a crouching opponent, bad spacing, tech errors, etc.

 

[victinivcreate1]

Fox gets punished for
1. Trying to nair at CC percents (cough CC Peach Dsmash lol)
2. Bad spacing
3. Poor shield pressure
4. Predictable recovery
5. Habits
6. Moving slowly
7. Whiffing SHFFL aerials AND the shine (whiffing in general=hard punish)

And then there is the whole mental thing with the game that every character gets rekt by

 

[trash?]

...so basically, their faults are all on the player, then?

"punished hard" isn't really the best of excuses when falcon is an example of that balance, while still not being obliquely bull in his design

 

[Bleck]

have you not watched any top level melee?

Don't make stupid arguments.

Reflecting something when your opponent is right next to you, charging a smash outside of an opponents range, flubbing an edge guard, nairing/bairing a crouching opponent, bad spacing, tech errors, etc.

Literally every one of these could count as a "mistake" as any other character - except for the first one, if only because not all characters have reflectors.

Fox gets punished for
1. Trying to nair at CC percents (cough CC Peach Dsmash lol)
2. Bad spacing
3. Poor shield pressure
4. Predictable recovery
5. Habits
6. Moving slowly
7. Whiffing SHFFL aerials AND the shine (whiffing in general=hard punish)

Like with Boiko's examples, few if any of these count as "risks". Making a mistake that would cost you as any character does not count as a risk specific to playing as Fox or Falco. I shouldn't have to point this out, guys.

 

[kaizo13]

there is more risk to spacies going offstage to attempt an edguard than any other character. them being hit offstage usually puts them below stage level forcing them to use up-b to recover, and we all know how easy that is to edgeguard

 

[Boiko]

....*sigh*

The faults ARE ALWAYS ON THE PLAYER FOR EXECUTING A PUNISHABLE COMMAND, BUT SOME MISTAKES ARE SAFER FOR OTHER CHARACTERS. EXAMPLE:

So, I'm playing Ness, and Fox runs up to me, nairs in front of me and I grab him, down throw, follow up, get a hard read on his recovery, he's dead at 40%.

So, I'm playing Ness, and Zelda runs up to me, nairs in front of me and I grab her, down throw, she jumps away. Combo over, she took 12%.

Some mistakes cost other characters more.

The reason that this super heavy punish game exists on Fox/Falco (for the record, I think Falco is a fine character and needs no changes) is because of their dominating neutral game.

Fox is generally a glass canon characters, he combos EVERY CHARACTER IN THE GAME SUPER HARD and (almost) EVERY CHARACTER COMBOS HIM. So you may think this is equal and fair, but Fox DOMINATES (not just wins), the neutral harder than every other character (sans some of the god tiers). If you don't understand this at this point, there is zero hope for you.

Moving on, Fox is sitting here, forcing to you to approach after you already took 25% from laser camping, then, Fox uses his super fast nair, into another nair, into a grab, into an uthrow, into an uair, and he landed on the top platform of w/e stage and uaired you again. Now you're at 80% and in nair usmash range. So what does Fox do? Laser camp until you're in usmash range. Dominating neutral game and IMO that's fine.

What's not fine is throwing out a raw usmash and killing half the cast below 100% on a move that's near impossible to punish because it's so fast and huge.

 

[JOE!]

Reflecting something when your opponent is right next to you.

Nope, Falco has a lagless reflector because he can JC it even on reflect

 

[kaizo13]

Nope, Falco has a lagless reflector because he can JC it even on reflect

except that's just a bug

and Bokio you find it near impossible to punish fox's up-smash? i find it rather easy to bait and punish it, especially against players that just fish for it past 90%

 

[GP&B]

Some mistakes cost other characters more.

True, but not a reason to make Fox/Falco immune to changes. Welcome to Roy/Falcon/Wolf/literally any other FF-er/combo food character.

 

[Bleck]

there is more risk to spacies going offstage to attempt an edguard than any other character.

Bowser.

 

[Rhubarbo]

Bowser.

What's a Bowser?

EDIT: On a serious note, we often forget low tier characters in this type of discussion, which just serves to show that there's plenty reason to have it.

 

[Boiko]

I don't think they should be changed, but I would understand if they were.

 

[kaizo13]

Bowser.

umm no i think bowser's instant up-b hitboxes make it safer for him than spacies. he can pretty much run off nair/fair/bair and if he gets intercepted as long as he doesn't go too low he can usually make it back as his up up-b literally traps opponents while he recovers. what is so detrimental to spacies being offstage is the start-up on their up-b and their fall speed which is what makes them drop so low after being hit

 

[Bleck]

as long as he doesn't go too low

Reminder; we're talking about Bowser.

 

[victinivcreate1]

Fox really doesn't have combos. Everything "combo" he has literally loses to anyone who knows how to Smash DI or perform good combo DI. Up Throw Up Air is definitely hard to SDI consistently (even Hbox still misses it) but its definitely doable (Hbox still does it with good consistency). Pretty much every floaty character/heavy/non FFer should not be getting up throw up aired in general.

Also, it is not the Fox player's fault that you're DI'ing NAIR (which is not that strong to begin with, so I'd just DI it down and away every time with little to no fear) upward and then you eat the up smash follow up. Complaining about Nair Up Smash is like complaining about Falcon's Up Air Knee or Marth's Ken Combo. You can't really complain about it. Just DI the move properly and it won't happen. You guys really should take advantage of it. Weak bair/nair lead into up smash, but you should not be worrying about these two moves because #1, strong bair does not lead into up smash, so you don't have to worry about dying from it, and 2. PM recoveries are better than Melee recoveries so if you do get hit by strong bair, you should be able to recover anyway.


@ Boiko Just tested Fox's up throw up air on Ness. Not a true combo at all. You should be nairing that. And when you can't just learn how to SDI the up air and get one of your brothers to help you practice SDI'ing it.

 

[Deleted member]

Fox gets punished for
1. Trying to nair at CC percents (cough CC Peach Dsmash lol)
2. Bad spacing
3. Poor shield pressure
4. Predictable recovery
5. Habits
6. Moving slowly
7. Whiffing SHFFL aerials AND the shine (whiffing in general=hard punish)

And then there is the whole mental thing with the game that every character gets rekt by

every character has to "play good" to win, just because fox has to deal with things doesn't mean he's not ridiculously broken.

and let's be perfectly clear here, fox IS broken. fox does not have to play super smash bros with you if he does not feel like it. fox can choose when to attack in a game based on positioning.

 

[Pwnz0rz Man]

Fox gets punished for
1. Trying to nair at CC percents (cough CC Peach Dsmash lol)
2. Bad spacing
3. Poor shield pressure
4. Predictable recovery
5. Habits
6. Moving slowly
7. Whiffing SHFFL aerials AND the shine (whiffing in general=hard punish)

And then there is the whole mental thing with the game that every character gets rekt by

This was a joke post, right? Because it reads like one.

 

[Kidneyjoe]

there is more risk to spacies going offstage to attempt an edguard than any other character. them being hit offstage usually puts them below stage level forcing them to use up-b to recover, and we all know how easy that is to edgeguard

There's more risk for Falco going offstage than most characters, but Fox actually has it pretty OK. Wario, Bowser, Yoshi, DK, ICs, Roy, and arguably Falcon and Ganon are all at greater risk when going off stage than him.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

What's a Bowser?

EDIT: On a serious note, we often forget low tier characters in this type of discussion, which just serves to show that there's plenty reason to have it.

Why?

They are relevant when overall Character balance is considered and a design flaw that applies to them.

 

[Rhubarbo]

Why?

They are relevant when overall Character balance is considered and a design flaw that applies to them.

Haha, a Kappa face would've made my post make more sense. I'm saying we sometimes gloss over low tier characters to a fault.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Haha, a Kappa face would've made my post make more sense. I'm saying we sometimes gloss over low tier characters to a fault.

Oh ok, lol.

 

[victinivcreate1]

@Umbreon
Half the characters in the game don't have to play SSB with you. Its called a ledge stall. Its called running away. Its called platform camping. This works in a 3.02 and a 3.5 context, because haxdashes are a form of ledgestall and still exist in PM, but no one uses them.

Fox is definitely not the only one.

 

[Deleted member]

@Umbreon
Half the characters in the game don't have to play SSB with you. Its called a ledge stall. Its called running away. Its called platform camping. This works in a 3.02 and a 3.5 context, because haxdashes are a form of ledgestall and still exist in PM, but no one uses them.

Fox is definitely not the only one.

if you want to risk suicide performing a very precise series of inputs for 120 times per minute while stalling against my now free edge pressure thats fine by me, if youre REALLY good at it you might even live for 10 seconds of it.

you can still interact with fox running away by cornering him and taking free positional advantage unless you CPd like a total ******.

 

[victinivcreate1]

How about running around though. Or platform camping. You probably saw Westballz platform camp Armada for like what 6 or 7 minutes?

 

[Deleted member]

you know this is a PM forum right

 

[Ripple]

Is he saying that platform camping stops interaction between people like a fox laser camping? Or that the camper is somehow now on a fox esque level of dictating the pace?

 

[Mera Mera]

How about running around though. Or platform camping. You probably saw Westballz platform camp Armada for like what 6 or 7 minutes?

The platform camping that Westballz did to Armada was pretty matchup specific. You can use that tactic against characters with slow second jumps (Ness and Peach for sure and maybe Yoshi, Mewtwo, and Lucas... with Yoshi's armor though it might not matter that he gets to you slowly... plus I think he has a high full hop).

Basically, since they can't get to you very quickly, you'll always be able to react and punish their approach. Of course, if they are ahead they can simply do nothing or throw projectiles at you, but if you're ahead they are slightly more obligated to make something happen. Also keep in mind this only works on stages with high platforms... and I'm not even sure that includes Yoshi's Story, cause most characters don't need their second jumps to reach that height. It's particularly effective on Battlefield and Dream Land. That all said, it's not really effective against any characters other than Peach and Ness and possibly the three others I listed.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Speaking of difficult characters,
ho do you guys consider to be the hardest characters? Whether it'd be via tech, mental ability, or a combination of both

Difficult to win with, or difficult to play near-optimally?

To win: Bowser.
To play well: Wolf.

 

[Deleted member]

disagree, in a competitive game the goal is simply to win the competition. bowser is much more difficult to win with than fox ever was

 

[JOE!]

In brawl, Fox's lasers only had a set distance, didn't they? Putting it like that but making them have the same dps or better could make it a bit less "dumb"?

 

[victinivcreate1]

In brawl, Fox's lasers only had a set distance, didn't they? Putting it like that but making them have the same dps or better could make it a bit less "dumb"?

Set distance, but you could triple laser out of an SH.

 

[Blank Mauser]

It honestly wouldn't matter enough most likely unless you absolutely gutted the range.

Ammo systemmmmmm