Tier List Speculation

[JOE!]

Again I'm really wondering what makes you think Bowser needs both a great neutral and a great punish game.

We have precedent where: Really easy to combo and edge-guard = you get a great neutral and punish game

 

[Cox Box]

3.5 up-throw release point releases people a lot lower. it allows him to CG spacies for an additional like 40% than what he already can. and generally allows follow ups much longer on everyone.

Yeah, Fox can jump out of an up-throw chain grab at 34% in 3.6, which really kills the potency of it. Also, it's just harder to use for grab conversions, which is how Ike gets a lot of his heavy punishes.

I'd honestly agree Nair is fast enough as is, but just give us back 3.5 up-throw please. It's single handedly gutted a huge part of Ike's punish game, and it may or may not have been intentional, since it seems like it was just an unintended consequence of global throw release point changes. Also, dash grab can't be used out of quick draw, so it would require as much thought as Marth trying to grab a crouching Jigglypuff, so it passes the melee litmus test. By that I mean it wouldn't immediately make melee players cry "jank."

 

[_Chrome]

Hmmmm... I'm not sure how I feel about Ike having chain grabs against Fox for more than 34% considering his aerials do an absurd amount of damage while allowing for combos to be extended via QD and his overall ability to cover space with good speed and high range moves. If I survival DI any of his aerials, I'm sure to be hit again and again and again at lower percents, netting me almost/around 30% by being hit by two aerials... this coupled with an uthrow chain throw would be kind of ridiculous to me, which iirc is why they changed his uthrow going into 3.6 since it was complained about quite a bit.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

To be fair, in the past (3.0), the PMDT strongly discouraged personal builds to argue for changes, saying to develop the meta. Was one dt in a ness thread.

 

[JOE!]

To be fair, in the past (3.0), the PMDT strongly discouraged personal builds to argue for changes, saying to develop the meta. Was one dt in a ness thread.

But what if it's really cool tho....

 

[King of Hoboz]

To quickly clarify some stuff on those Ike suggestions. First, that personal build, wasn't done correctly, we didn't manage to lower the release point (I think) and the 3.6 U-Throw is an undocumented change that didn't have anything to do with balance but merely quirk of mechanics change.

Anyway, the different for the U-Throws is not +40%, but more of a +15/20% addition, but that isn't what is important about the U-Throw change. It's a change geared towards the other fall speeds. Ike loses most every option against non-Fastfallers near 20-30% when using U-Throw. He generally throws them way too high, even to try to trap someone's landing along with the low percent these situations occur exaggerating it. With these changes, it improves enough to actually have a threatening juggle game. Honestly, this change doesn't mean anything for the Spacies imo- they can still get rekt by Ike's grab, assuming Ike ever grabs them.

Don't think of these changes in the context of 3.6 necessarily. Think of them in the context of a 3.5 power level or slightly higher; because that was the cast these changes were suggested in mind. If you want to only think within 3.6's power scheme, the two biggest suggestions that should be tested are a lower grab box (Standing or Dash) to ease MU difficulty with shorter characters and less endlag on QD Attack.

 

[Boiko]

Personally, I think that everyone should focus on working with the tools that they currently have rather than advocating for buffs/nerfs. It seriously stagnates your development when you rationalize your losses by saying, "my character needs buffs." If you think that your character has impending buffs, or an opponent of yours has impending nerfs, playing with a sour attitude saying, "I can't wait for the next patch when XYZ is changed" is just going to hinder your growth as a player.

For the past several pages this thread has been nothing but people complaining about how weak their character is and how they would buff them. Instead of that, how does your character stand in the current meta game? What strengths does your character have that maybe you're failing to consider? Put the buff/nerf discussion to the side for a minute and focus on what is actually in front of you. Don't focus so much on the future, focus on the now.

I understand that your character may be lacking a particular strength, but that doesn't mean that they don't have tools elsewhere. And maybe, if you didn't have such severe tunnel vision about what is good and what is bad, you would discover something that you haven't considered before. There is a lot of untapped potential out there.

There is a critical flaw that many people have when they're playing Smash. Players often get distracted mid set, thinking about the outcome. "Oh wow, I'm two stocks up game three against the top player in my region. I just need to close it out." They get distracted thinking about the result, they start playing unsafe because they're so concerned about the outcome, and they stop playing the way that put them in that position in the first place. A similar string of logic applies here; do not worry so much about what is to come, focus on what you have and what you can do with that. You will improve as a player.

Talking about proposed changes is fine, and I don't want to discourage that entirely. I would just rather see a discussion of current character strengths. Maybe that's just me.

 

[_Chrome]

Honestly, I can't see Ike deserving any/many buffs, especially significant ones. He has a lot of the advantages of being a heavy-weight due to his damage output, early kills and good edge-guarding, but it's exemplified by the fact that he is also really fast, not as large of a target, and has a huge inherent disjoint in the form of his sword. At this point in the game's development cycle, characters consistently considered some of the best in the game only need minor changes that don't drastically shift their viability. Ike is one of those characters. Grab release points were one of the main design changes in 3.5, with bad ones being buffed (ie Ness d throw, ZSS throws, MK dthrow) and good ones being nerfed (such as Ike's uthrow and Link's dthrow).

That brings up a good point: How come Wario's uthrow is still the way it is? Even if I agreed with the rest of his moveset and attributes, it's objectively a bad throw to have in the game since it leads into his super powerful uair. I'm not going into another Wario spiel by the way.

 

[zen-bz-]

The main good trait was pressure, which he's still pretty good at, but there are a few things that throw it off. Multihits being one of them. Maybe I'm missing something, but based on everything I've seen/played, it's super easy to get out of his moves--magnet for example: If you simply hold away/up, it's pretty universally easy to get out of. Not saying it should be super hard or impossible or like Lucas can't just follow them, but the move isn't doing work for anyone besides the fact it's ever so slightly disjointed and can be held for varying periods.

Even still, it's beaten by swords (that's a given though so shrug) and even though it's a main combo tool, whether or not it works can depend on a few frames where the move have no active hitbox, which means even thoughtless bum-rushes have a chance of completely beating the move. Now, that's more of a fundamental flaw of the character I wouldn't want to see changed per se. I'm just illustrating that despite it being relied on as Lucas' main combo tool, it can fail to do its job because of its traits--it's not all-powerful.

Also, it can be CC grabbed by at least some of the cast (I don't know all who), and CC smashed by other characters. Couple that with the fact that magnet and nair both send in the opposite direction with just a tiny misspace error, and you get a character while, good when he works, has times where the amount of calculation needed to perceive a hit confirm is just impossible. I'm still fine with all that. I mean I guess it'd be nice if magnet's outer hitbox were a little bigger and the inner hitbox were a tad smaller or just removed? Hell, I'd take a larger release outer hitbox so it was less likely for an opponent to just press up to get out of it. Just give him something to make his problems worth it.

I could go on for hours about how Lucas' OOS game, CC options, neutral, dash dance, grab (don't change that tho), and even now possibly his pressure options are just worse than a certain character we all know. Yeah, he has DJC and movement options, and when you do play him right he looks broken as ****. But the fact is that fair's level of precision required for a reward is just stupid when the character already is situational/variable as crap.

And hell, I don't even play against people who know all that much about DI/SDI/Lucas and they still seem to get out of moves a little too often for my tastes. My problem with that isn't about the move not doing all the work for me, but the fact that I have almost zero control over whether or not the move is successful due to CC/SDI. Best I can do is perfectly space magnet so at least I don't get grabbed, but then there's moves like Fox's CC upsmash that make me not want to use the move at all. I don't like being punished for landing a hit and doing what my character is supposed to do (and succeeding). It isn't fun. It would be like if Samus' missiles could be CC'd all the time and you could be foreseeably be smashed in the face for landing a missile.

TL;DR All this is just to say that, basically, Lucas is finnicky and his lack of reward for slightly misspacing shouldn't get so drastic and/or his options should be more potent when they DO work. Sorry for getting so rambley.

Alright, so I'm noticing a few things with this:
One complaint is about "slight misspaces" for moves such as nair and mag can completely change their direction. While certain hits of mag DO send the person forward, yes, Lucas has to practically be inside of them to hit them with the reverse mag. It's very hard to hit relative to the normal hit of magnet's ease to hit. So this isn't really as much of a "slight misspace" as it is a complete messup of spacing. Though I do concede an opponent's SDI can change the direction in which nair sends them relatively easily, a solution doing nair while full hopping/full double jumping can mess up SDI potentially as many people want to SDI up out of nair.

Which brings up another point about SDI: manipulating the opponent's. This is an underlooked aspect Lucas can use to his advantage, at least if the player controlling him is competent enough. Noticing patterns in the opponents in their SDI can mess them up quite frequently. If they tend to always SDI in, abuse it and follow that person's SDI. If they SDI towards the edge of the stage, follow them. For example, if when you dair they always SDI left, next time you dair short hop towards where they'll SDI while doing dair. And, as mentioned previously, rising nair also works extremely good. It takes a while to notice what opponents go for when pressured, and if Lucas pressures the opponent well enough through movement, Lucas can force out habits, which can be exploited.

Another way around Lucas' SDI issue is hitting with only specific hits of the move or with certain timings. For example, if you don't hit with the initial hit of magnet but connect with another the hitlag is very low in comparison to hitting the initial hit. This lessens the opponent's ability to SDI out of mag consistently. As well, hitting with a specific part of multihits (grounded nair or third hit of dair for instance) give you away around multihit SDI.

On the topic of OOS: I know some things that are good OOS for Lucas are WD (very long and useful in escaping pressure), nair (which comes out frame 8 including jumpsquat frames) and mag. I don't see how those are bad.

Also, you compare a lot of Lucas' stuff to Fox saying how it's worse. That doesn't equate to "bad" though. Lucas has a lot of movement options with mag, djc, long wd length, etc. and his DD is also really good when combined with WD. Fadeback mag, DJPC, and other tech all help Lucas maneuver around the enemy and create openings. CC dtilt is frame 3 and can lead into fair, dash attack, and grab. The options aren't bad. I think Lucas has far better movement than Fox though, but that's beside the point.

Also fair is really easy to hit if you practice through training and consistency. Not as easy as previously possible in 3.02, but definitely still able to hit consistently through time, training, etc. (a la tipper fsmash on Marth).

So overall I think it's a mindset issue, as Boiko stated above. People when discussing character balance tend to think about flaws that hold back a character instead of strengths that they can capitalize on. Yes Lucas has flaws. But so does any character, really. Exploiting strengths, pressuring the opponent, etc. can all lead to Lucas being played extremely well.

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

bang bang.

 

[ThegreatVaporeon1]

bang bang.

 

[Cox Box]

As much as I agree with the sentiment that players should work with what's currently in the game and not what we think should be in the game, I still think discussing potential changes is within the scope of this thread. How would Ike's placement on the tier list be affected if his dash grab could reach a crouching snake? Would the Kirby matchup get noticeably better?

And for the record, while I've messed around with some of the changes in a build, I'd never bring it to a tournament. It's just interesting to see how tiny changes can affect how a character plays. It's way more satisfying to face a low profile crouching opponent and have the option to do something other than space fairs, for instance. And actually testing things out leads to more substance in this thread, which is always good, right?

 

[FreeGamer]

As much as I agree with the sentiment that players should work with what's currently in the game and not what we think should be in the game, I still think discussing potential changes is within the scope of this thread. How would Ike's placement on the tier list be affected if his dash grab could reach a crouching snake? Would the Kirby matchup get noticeably better?

Yes. Kirby would have to kiss one of his few positive MUs goodbye. It's bad enough that Kirby's most effective neutral options are 2 gimmicks whose effectiveness wildly varies depending on stages and MUs. His strengths do in fact exist, but they're grossly outweighed by his flaws in most MUs. :x

 

[Cox Box]

Yes. Kirby would have to kiss one of his few positive MUs goodbye. It's bad enough that Kirby's most effective neutral options are 2 gimmicks whose effectiveness wildly varies depending on stages and MUs. His strengths do in fact exist, but they're grossly outweighed by his flaws in most MUs. :x

Honestly, I think that it's dumb for a character to have nothing to do against a crouching opponent. That's not interactive and honestly it can't be fun for Kirby, and it certainly is frustrating for Ike. That's not to say I don't want Ike to have no bad matchup or bad traits, I just want bad matchups to not feel impossible for dumb reasons. I'd say if Kirby only wins a matchup by being short that's an issue with Kirby, not with Ike. Plus, if people don't complain that Marth can do it (dash grab low profiles) why would they complain if Ike can? You can't dash grab out of QD, Ike's dash dance isn't exactly the best, so I would bet it would be acceptable balance wise. It certainly makes him a lot less frustrating to play in that situation, and the people I've showed the change to didn't seem too bothered by it. I haven't tested it against a Kirby main though, so this might all be wrong.

 

[FreeGamer]

Honestly, I think that it's dumb for a character to have nothing to do against a crouching opponent. That's not interactive and honestly it can't be fun for Kirby, and it certainly is frustrating for Ike. That's not to say I don't want Ike to have no bad matchup or bad traits, I just want bad matchups to not feel impossible for dumb reasons. I'd say if Kirby only wins a matchup by being short that's an issue with Kirby, not with Ike. Plus, if people don't complain that Marth can do it (dash grab low profiles) why would they complain if Ike can? You can't dash grab out of QD, Ike's dash dance isn't exactly the best, so I would bet it would be acceptable balance wise. It certainly makes him a lot less frustrating to play in that situation, and the people I've showed the change to didn't seem too bothered by it. I haven't tested it against a Kirby main though, so this might all be wrong.

I can't argue with you there. Just want to point out that if you take away that jank (be it a nerf to the crouch or a buff to tall people's grabs) without compensation, he would legitimately have a case for being the worst character in the game. Kinda like how he was generally accepted as a high/mid tier in 3.02, then the 3.5 and 3.6 nerfs sent him right next to Bowser at the bottom of many tier lists. >__>

 

[_Chrome]

To be fair, I do consider Kirby the worst in the game despite Bowser having no positive matchups. I feel like Kirby is just a weaker character overall despite some of his tools helping him in matchups more than Bowser's do. That noted, does Kirby actually have any winning matchups?

 

[FreeGamer]

Yes. Ike, Sheik, Snake, and Zelda. Arguably Lucario, ZSS, Dedede, and Ganon.

 

[Ripple]

kirby doesn't beat DDD

 

[FreeGamer]

duly noted. what do you think it's like

 

[Jamble]

I feel like people going in with the attitude that their character is "bad" is just something that they tend to hide behind rather than developing their character. Most people here who complain about characters' strengths or weaknesses realistically are at the skill level where a lot of tiers, matchups, and other data like that even come into play. Tiers have to assume that each player is playing completely optimally in every sense and opportunity in every match to even be able to attempt to compare characters on an even and conclusive level.

Really, it's an excuse, and a poor one especially for my fellow rookies or people who play at an intermediate or sub-intermediate level. And if your character is really working that poorly for you and frustrating you that much, then maybe it's time to look into a new main that you're better with and actually enjoy on some level and leave their development to others who actually enjoy the character despite its perceived flaws. /rant

I will say that I'm a believer when it came to Bowser. I wish I was better with him or had a little more time to work with him to try and at least make it happen, but he's just an incredibly polarized character. Even if he could be better off, with future patches incoming, even with some small tweaks I don't know if that makes him bad. Saying a character's bad to me says that at their core their design is just impossible to make work, and I don't feel that way about any of the cast.

 

[Setton]

Kirby is definitely not the worst. He's got stuff going for him. Great aerials, gimps, decent recovery, some alright combos. Bowser has bad mobility, gets punished tons harder, tons of slow and highly committing moves, and a bad recovery.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

On the whole buff my character, tier list thread addition. I think its because its fun to pretend to be in the PMDT's position for a bit. Idk, if its between rediscussing a rehashed topic like fatties are bad, Bowser sux, nerf Fox, etc, it can't be that bad. When it goes too far and people get hopeful rather than push the character, that is where to start taking issue. But as a brief distraction from the same arguments, it can't be too detrimental.

Eisen
It seems you may have missed my response since I didn't quote/tag you. How can Fox crouch cancel grab a lucas who magnets him when the second hit of magnet launches at 0%? True crouch is eliminated when we consider that the first hit is close enough to the second to avoid that. Even if you were to sdi out of the launch hit, asdi down that hit outside of range (no worrying about the second hit interrupting empty landing), even all of that, you would only be +3 on a Lucas who immediately jumps out. Since you can't shine at that spacing, a wavedash should put you well out of danger from a fox punish. Care to elaborate what I am missing? Magnet is Lucas' go to anti cc, especially if dair is failing you.

 

[MLGF]

The only desire I have out of any those Ike changes is being able to grab characters like Snake and Kirby. That's not so much of a buff but a design fix imo. It makes some matchups become very dull and uninteresting, even if he doesn't technically lose (EG Kirby loses to Ike as soon as he lets go of down and there's no reason Ike has to approach a character without any approach tools), and it breaks the dynamic of CC counterplay in the first place.

But outside of that, I really love Ike atm and have no real problems with his kit. I still feel pretty confident that this character is bat**** absurd and no one is even close to utilizing his best tools.

 

[G13_Flux]

Yes. Ike, Sheik, Snake, and Zelda. Arguably Lucario, ZSS, Dedede, and Ganon.

i would put falco in there. a good approach from the air, and a low crouch can combat lasers, long lasting, beefy hitboxes can generally beat out falcos, falcos combos dont work as great on kirby, and kirby gimps falco especially hard. overall, i see it as kirby surviving much longer, and falco doesnt neccesarily beat kirby in neutral.

 

[Eisen]

Alright, so I'm noticing a few things with this:
One complaint is about "slight misspaces" for moves such as nair and mag can completely change their direction. While certain hits of mag DO send the person forward, yes, Lucas has to practically be inside of them to hit them with the reverse mag. It's very hard to hit relative to the normal hit of magnet's ease to hit. So this isn't really as much of a "slight misspace" as it is a complete messup of spacing. Though I do concede an opponent's SDI can change the direction in which nair sends them relatively easily, a solution doing nair while full hopping/full double jumping can mess up SDI potentially as many people want to SDI up out of nair.

Which brings up another point about SDI: manipulating the opponent's. This is an underlooked aspect Lucas can use to his advantage, at least if the player controlling him is competent enough. Noticing patterns in the opponents in their SDI can mess them up quite frequently. If they tend to always SDI in, abuse it and follow that person's SDI. If they SDI towards the edge of the stage, follow them. For example, if when you dair they always SDI left, next time you dair short hop towards where they'll SDI while doing dair. And, as mentioned previously, rising nair also works extremely good. It takes a while to notice what opponents go for when pressured, and if Lucas pressures the opponent well enough through movement, Lucas can force out habits, which can be exploited.

Another way around Lucas' SDI issue is hitting with only specific hits of the move or with certain timings. For example, if you don't hit with the initial hit of magnet but connect with another the hitlag is very low in comparison to hitting the initial hit. This lessens the opponent's ability to SDI out of mag consistently. As well, hitting with a specific part of multihits (grounded nair or third hit of dair for instance) give you away around multihit SDI.

On the topic of OOS: I know some things that are good OOS for Lucas are WD (very long and useful in escaping pressure), nair (which comes out frame 8 including jumpsquat frames) and mag. I don't see how those are bad.

Also, you compare a lot of Lucas' stuff to Fox saying how it's worse. That doesn't equate to "bad" though. Lucas has a lot of movement options with mag, djc, long wd length, etc. and his DD is also really good when combined with WD. Fadeback mag, DJPC, and other tech all help Lucas maneuver around the enemy and create openings. CC dtilt is frame 3 and can lead into fair, dash attack, and grab. The options aren't bad. I think Lucas has far better movement than Fox though, but that's beside the point.

Also fair is really easy to hit if you practice through training and consistency. Not as easy as previously possible in 3.02, but definitely still able to hit consistently through time, training, etc. (a la tipper fsmash on Marth).

So overall I think it's a mindset issue, as Boiko stated above. People when discussing character balance tend to think about flaws that hold back a character instead of strengths that they can capitalize on. Yes Lucas has flaws. But so does any character, really. Exploiting strengths, pressuring the opponent, etc. can all lead to Lucas being played extremely well.

Except the difference is that Marth's non-tippers still kill relatively well and don't lose their utility in non-tipper form. Also, Marth's tipper is huge in comparison to Lucas' fair, not to mention it arcs. A two-frame, static sweetspot that's so small is, frankly, too difficult.

You could argue that Jigglypuff's rest, if it were nerfed to only kill past 100 or something, would still be "possible" to hit with as well. I don't think that necessarily means it's good for the character for a move that, imo, is so key, to be so difficult to land for such little reward. The same goes for Lucas' fair. Why use fair as anything but a mixup when nair is infinitely easier to land and bair is more of a threat?

Also, I don't understand how you're supposed to be able to read SDI when it's quite possibly unintentional. It's such a subtle thing, even more subtle than DI. All I know is that I don't seem to have the same problems with Zelda's multihits that I do with Lucas'. Maybe it's a mindset thing, yeah. Maybe because Lucas is my main I overthink things and don't just play naturally.

I've been messing with fair since 3.5 came out (a year ago) and it still doesn't feel right. I can get the sweetspot, but the work involved is too taxing to be worth it. Would it really be so bad if the middle hitbox just got removed or shifted to not overlap the sweetspot? Is that really so much to ask of a move that isn't even that overcentralizing/powerful? Would Lucas suddenly become so easy that he'd be insta-top tier again? I just feel like the amount of skill you have to have in terms of spacing over your opponent to get fair consistently is just too much. I don't even use the move hardly anymore except in pressure or retreating situations. And even then, dair and bair and nair are all more appealing options, because Falcon can be 20 pixels too close and you get a horrid fair that just resets to neutral (which is not ideal), and then you take a bum-rush knee to the face 5 seconds later.

The move just makes me feel afraid of every single neutral option. I feel helpless and on edge like I have nothing to defend myself with or give myself stage presence.

I can see your points on magnet and nair. I guess it's not any specific move (besides fair, that move is ass), but a combination of moves that make him feel like he doesn't work unless you're miles above your opponent in skill.

As for full-hopping with nair, it's not like I can just choose when full hop nair can be used and when not all the time. For most of its uses, short hop is the way to go. I wouldn't mind this finnicky nature if I felt like I just lost a stock every time I let my opponent go back into neutral unpunished. It's just SUCH a chore to get them back into your zone unless they're fat. But as I mentioned earlier, this is probably more of a flaw with something else -- fair/PKF/bad grab.

I realize it's not good to just look at his bad stuff and go "wow look at how bad", but it's discouraging when I do better with characters I don't even care about simply because the precision required is much, much less. Also, I'm not complaining about a move because it's bad, but because it's not doing its job well. If I complained that PK Burst was hard to approach with, yeah, I could see why that's ridiculous.

dunno if what I'm saying or where I'm going with the argument is making any sense or if I'm just ********. Frankly cause of personal stuff I don't even feel like defending myself anymore because no matter what I say, someone's gonna tell me to "git gud" and because I'm doing one thing wrong or miss one point, my entire argument is just invalid. Maybe it is, **** if I know because I'm scatterbrained and everyone is smarter/better than me.

 

[Eisen]

On the whole buff my character, tier list thread addition. I think its because its fun to pretend to be in the PMDT's position for a bit. Idk, if its between rediscussing a rehashed topic like fatties are bad, Bowser sux, nerf Fox, etc, it can't be that bad. When it goes too far and people get hopeful rather than push the character, that is where to start taking issue. But as a brief distraction from the same arguments, it can't be too detrimental.

Eisen
It seems you may have missed my response since I didn't quote/tag you. How can Fox crouch cancel grab a lucas who magnets him when the second hit of magnet launches at 0%? True crouch is eliminated when we consider that the first hit is close enough to the second to avoid that. Even if you were to sdi out of the launch hit, asdi down that hit outside of range (no worrying about the second hit interrupting empty landing), even all of that, you would only be +3 on a Lucas who immediately jumps out. Since you can't shine at that spacing, a wavedash should put you well out of danger from a fox punish. Care to elaborate what I am missing? Magnet is Lucas' go to anti cc, especially if dair is failing you.

dunno what to tell you, man. I put Fox in Lucas' magnet and held down and spammed Z until Fox got a grab/spammed C-stick until he got upsmash. I'm not talking about release hit magnet, so I don't know why you included that at all. Not sure if you think I'm talking about that portion of the move or are just including it. I'm talking about the repeating hitbox version.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

I don't think it's right to just list only Kirby's positives and Bowser's negatives and conclude that Kirby is better than Bowser as a result. Bowser has gimping potential as well, and better survivability plus a better punish game. Kirby isn't exactly that mobile either; he's floaty and doesn't have impressive weave, his dash dance is short, and he's not particularly fast (about as fast as Roy/Tink if I'm not mistaken). Kirby's moves aren't exactly threatening either: none of them threaten significant space (mostly low range) when you factor in his mobility except dash attack, which is committal since it's a burst movement.

Kirby's special moves don't give as much utility to his gameplay as Bowser's do either. Bowser's got that Fortress out of shield as well as KK to beat shields and net huge punishes. Kirby's got a butchered cutter dash (although, it does still have utility), a stone to prevent himself from getting juggled/make recovery less predictable, and the hammer which I think is only okay.

On the subject of his recovery, I wouldn't say it's noteworthy either. All in all, my point's that Bowser's got stuff going for him too and they're probably in the same realm of competitiveness right now. Kirby wins a few niche match ups through gimmicks, Bowser doesn't win any match ups but getting caught by four of his gimmicks can lose you the game. At the end of the day, they both need some love to get on par with the rest of the cast. As it stands, they're straggling behind the ~ > 80% (arbitrary number) of characters in the game that are at least somewhat serious tournament threats.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

Low profiling does seem really lame. What about under OoS options, namely instant aerials. Is that lame to fight against too? Seems interesting, but also lame. Idk

As for serious discussion stuff, what about Pivots? Tried them awhile ago and have been trying to implement them. Soft Serve seems to be a fan, any thoughts? One thing he likes to talk about is pivot dtilt in a neutral position. Nausicaa also love this idea. However, when looking into it for Marth specifically, Kadano said (keep in mind this is melee, stuff might be different) that pivot dtilt wasn't feasible/good/better than wavedash down tilt stuff. If people want I can dig up the links where that was. Something to do with feasible inputs, time it would it take, etc made wavedash dtilt better, though he may have been talking about dash forward, though I don't think so.

Eisen
First, please don't double post. It happens a lot with newer posters, it isn't a huge deal, more for future reference. You can edit posts, you can multi quote, or just a simple tag will do. Next, I assumed the second hit of magnet because that is the relevant part of magnet. I don't think holding magnet is really that good ever, so that is why I didn't even think of it. Just tap down b is pretty much always better from what I can tell. If you want to hit someone later, than do it later.

 

[FreeGamer]

Kirby's special moves don't give as much utility to his gameplay as Bowser's do either. Bowser's got that Fortress out of shield as well as KK to beat shields and net huge punishes. Kirby's got a butchered cutter dash (although, it does still have utility), a stone to prevent himself from getting juggled/make recovery less predictable, and the hammer which I think is only okay.

Sorry, but I'm gonna have to stop you there. Have you ever felt the satisfaction of killing people at 70% with either swing's tipper? Not as stylish as reverse U-Air gimps, but it gets the job done.

 

[Saproling]

Yes. Ike, Sheik, Snake, and Zelda. Arguably Lucario, ZSS, Dedede, and Ganon.

Does Kirby not beat Ivy anymore?

 

[FreeGamer]

Does Kirby not beat Ivy anymore?

Not without that braindead chaingrab from 3.02. Despite Solarbeam shenanigans and Kirby's punishes, I think it's even now.

 

[Saproling]

Makes sense.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

FreeGamer Yes, yes I have. It's amazing.

TheGravyTrain I know PewPewU's a huge proponent of perfect pivots, and I've got to say I think they're cool too. Pivot Sheik's ftilt would be well, gravy. Mmmm. I've done pivot fsmashes with ZSS and pivot ftilts with Sonic but they're not very prevalent in terms of usefullness in their kits.

In fact, here's a video by PewPewU that gives a simple rundown about pivoting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_aqH9sJnbU

And, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ <---- This one's great.

 

[_Chrome]

Perfect pivot fsmashes with MK are godly for setting up for edgeguards, crossing up shields, getting kills, and being an overall spectacular mix-up move since the shield push back makes relatively safe on shield.

 

[Soft Serve]

Low profiling does seem really lame. What about under OoS options, namely instant aerials. Is that lame to fight against too? Seems interesting, but also lame. Idk

As for serious discussion stuff, what about Pivots? Tried them awhile ago and have been trying to implement them. Soft Serve seems to be a fan, any thoughts? One thing he likes to talk about is pivot dtilt in a neutral position. Nausicaa also love this idea. However, when looking into it for Marth specifically, Kadano said (keep in mind this is melee, stuff might be different) that pivot dtilt wasn't feasible/good/better than wavedash down tilt stuff. If people want I can dig up the links where that was. Something to do with feasible inputs, time it would it take, etc made wavedash dtilt better, though he may have been talking about dash forward, though I don't think so.

Eisen
First, please don't double post. It happens a lot with newer posters, it isn't a huge deal, more for future reference. You can edit posts, you can multi quote, or just a simple tag will do. Next, I assumed the second hit of magnet because that is the relevant part of magnet. I don't think holding magnet is really that good ever, so that is why I didn't even think of it. Just tap down b is pretty much always better from what I can tell. If you want to hit someone later, than do it later.

Pivot u/dtilts are significantly easier in PM due to multiple things. you can do "tilt pivots" or soft pivots or whatever you call them, you can do up/down+the dash direction and you can pivot with that and just press A. you can also reliably do them with the "brawl pivots" or c-stick attack stuff, and other things such as holding a, doing a pivot dsmash timing with c stick (will empty pivot) then down+ attack. theres a lot of stuff that makes them easy and applicable, but the game isn't really developed enough for those kinda of micro-situations to be more useful than general macro situations

 

[KinGly]

FORGET ALL THE **** I POSTED PM DEVELOPMENT HAS CEASED!!!

 

[FreeGamer]

good night sweet prince ;_;

 

[D e l t a]

Re: Lucas.

I've been practicing and labbing Lucas since some time around 3.0 before Neon was really known (months before his dominating performance at LTC3). I've developed a lot of his metagame and combos and all I can say is, Lucas is not an easy character to use. If it's too difficult, play the easier PK boy where you'll always be able to hit sweetspots & sourspots depending on your timing, not spacing. Starting out, it's difficult enough to DJC PKF, let alone do any combos outside of Dair -> upsmash.

That being said, in recent months, I've been noticing opponent's DI and SDI. Both shield DI (to catch rolls or OoS options) and combo DI. It helps to follow up if you know the exact trajectory and where your spacing lies. If you don't pay special attention and instead auto-pilot his moves, you won't notice the intricacies and tiny movements of your opponent. Lucas is a character that heavily relies on micro-spacing and movement. It's like a more techy Fox with DJC's. Not everything is guaranteed, but if you work hard enough, you can get Lucas' moves to work how you want to.

You say that magnet sends opponents forward a lot, yet this is never an issue for myself, Hyperflame, Kipcom, etc. If you're always getting CC'd out of magnet, do a DJC Dair right after. Dair can only be SDI'd out, it can't be CC'd.

Nair is a tricky move to work with, but it's not designed as an auto-combo move. The landing hitbox links well with Dtilt / Ftilt and can push back opponents trying to CC. The trajectory its final hitboxes send opponents at are great for setting up ledge guards / ledge presure. Not to mention, it kills about 10-20% later than sweetspot Fair, but is way easier to land than the super sweetspot of Fair.

tl;dr Practice more, complain less.

 

[Player -0]

Project M Dev Team has disbanded. Yo what?

Like seriously, what?

 

[D e l t a]

GG thread. Good night everybody.