Tier List Speculation

[shairn]

Playing Bowser is a bad idea

Unless you're the kind of person who wants to have fun

 

[Frost | Odds]

Yeah I don't mind the matchup either when Falcon is playing like **** and I get to 0-death him for free

Every Falcon plays like ****.

 

[Kapapanerp]

Gonna pop in real quick to say Ivy wins +1 the way I see it.

Maybe this is obvious, but I think stage choice plays a huge roll in how this MU plays out. On small platform heavy stages Luigi is much harder for Ivy to pin down, and especially on WL Ivy dies really early. On larger stages where there either aren't platforms or where they're less prominent (ghz, smashville ect.) Ivy has an easier time zoning Luigi and setting up for edguards. I personally think the MU is even, maybe ever-so-slightly in Ivy's favor, but to be fair i don't have too much experience with her.

 

[Life]

I'm kind of interested in putting together a separate tier list for characters that make good counterpick characters. While a regular tier list involves measuring which characters are the best choices to win a tournament with solo (or usually something to that effect but a little different), this list would favor characters who have more polar matchup spreads, rely on having specific stages (e.g. Ganondorf, Ike on WW), and have other quantities that make them tend to shine when used as a surprise pick in game 2.

 

[Saproling]

Maybe this is obvious, but I think stage choice plays a huge roll in how this MU plays out. On small platform heavy stages Luigi is much harder for Ivy to pin down, and especially on WL Ivy dies really early. On larger stages where there either aren't platforms or where they're less prominent (ghz, smashville ect.) Ivy has an easier time zoning Luigi and setting up for edguards. I personally think the MU is even, maybe ever-so-slightly in Ivy's favor, but to be fair i don't have too much experience with her.

You stole what I was gonna say.

 

[nimigoha]

I'm kind of interested in putting together a separate tier list for characters that make good counterpick characters. While a regular tier list involves measuring which characters are the best choices to win a tournament with solo (or usually something to that effect but a little different), this list would favor characters who have more polar matchup spreads, rely on having specific stages (e.g. Ganondorf, Ike on WW), and have other quantities that make them tend to shine when used as a surprise pick in game 2.

Just as long as it's with the explicit header of "this is for character-first" because stage-first is awful and poo.

 

[KinGly]

Just as long as it's with the explicit header of "this is for character-first" because stage-first is awful and poo.

Wouldn't that ruin the point? I believe Life is talking about a "surprise *****!" sort of counterpick. If the opponent knows who you're gonna play then they would just ban stages accordingly.

Like, if you have a pocket ganon, and I know you're gonna play ganon, I'd just ban whatever small stages are being run.

But if we're talking about a counterpick tier list where it's stage first then counterpicks are much more potent.

 

[FreeGamer]

falcon is so fun to fight

said no floaty main ever

 

[TheGravyTrain]

Characters first still has use for cp characters, namely getting around dsr stuff by opening up a new "best stage". Basically, if your character has 3 super great cp's and 2 bans, then you only get 1 super great cp and one average pick. But with a second character that likes different stages, you get 2 great cp's, assuming the mu isn't terrible.

 

[nimigoha]

Yeah like imagine I'm playing a spacie and he wins G1. He stays and I feel like CPing Bowser.

He has 2 bans for GHZ, BF, WL, and FoD so I'm still gonna get a nasty stage.

Stage first is garbage poop and rational people should see it as the janky cheese that it is in PM.

 

[Life]

Can you use more generic buzzword synonyms for bad please?

I'd be doing stage first because that's what my local uses and it hasn't even occurred to anyone here to reconsider it. Myself included, actually.

A huge issue with doing a counterpick tier list of any kind would be the variation in stage lists between locals, actually. Mine has WW banned, so Ganondorf is a dramatically worse character (he's probably getting GHZ or FoD).

 

[nimigoha]

Can you use more generic buzzword synonyms for bad please?

Stage first is cancerous and toxic kappa

Honestly though, it's been discussed multiple times in the ruleset thread and the cons of it far outweigh any kind of benefit it brings. The recommended ruleset was changed in favour of character first months ago. This isn't really the place to discuss that, feel free to read through the ruleset thread and see the merits of the change.

Your second point is also why people are pushing for a standard stagelist but that's another kettle of fish.

 

[trash?]

for a good comparison when thinking of counterpick characters in a game w/ a large number of viable characters: ultra street fighter 4 has elena, who in the grand scheme of things isn't actually top tier, but has a lot of janky stuff to work with that lets her easily lame out a good chunk of the cast, and as a result there's a LOT of players who keep a pocket elena handy for any bad matchup on their main

 

[Frost | Odds]

for a good comparison when thinking of counterpick characters in a game w/ a large number of viable characters: ultra street fighter 4 has elena, who in the grand scheme of things isn't actually top tier, but has a lot of janky stuff to work with that lets her easily lame out a good chunk of the cast, and as a result there's a LOT of players who keep a pocket elena handy for any bad matchup on their main

 

[eideeiit]

ultra street fighter 4 has elena, who in the grand scheme of things isn't actually top tier,

Doesn't she have like 3 unfavorable/even MUs? Sounds pretty top tier to me, though I don't know that much about the game.

Also Frost | Odds , now that there's no Pmdt, would it be possible to have some of the rumored Balance Commitee's discussions released to the public in case they were archived? At least I'd be really interested.

 

[Strong Badam]

Also Frost | Odds , now that there's no Pmdt, would it be possible to have some of the rumored Balance Commitee's discussions released to the public in case they were archived? At least I'd be really interested.

No.

 

[Saproling]

for a good comparison when thinking of counterpick characters in a game w/ a large number of viable characters: ultra street fighter 4 has elena, who in the grand scheme of things isn't actually top tier, but has a lot of janky stuff to work with that lets her easily lame out a good chunk of the cast, and as a result there's a LOT of players who keep a pocket elena handy for any bad matchup on their main

Sounds sorta familiar...

 

[trash?]

all the players with pocket elenas got dropped really early in capcup, actually. from the little footage she had, it was clear everyone was prepared for her and not all of her polarizing matchups were as strong as ppl expected

Doesn't she have like 3 unfavorable/even MUs? Sounds pretty top tier to me, though I don't know that much about the game.

keep in mind a lot of how ppl view usf4 is... knee-jerk, to say the least. japan earnestly thought that rolento was one of the worst characters in the game only a month-ish before nemo started styling on everyone, they make this thread look calm and consistent

 

[Xykness]

Maybe this is obvious, but I think stage choice plays a huge roll in how this MU plays out. On small platform heavy stages Luigi is much harder for Ivy to pin down, and especially on WL Ivy dies really early. On larger stages where there either aren't platforms or where they're less prominent (ghz, smashville ect.) Ivy has an easier time zoning Luigi and setting up for edguards. I personally think the MU is even, maybe ever-so-slightly in Ivy's favor, but to be fair i don't have too much experience with her.

To see the MU first-hand, feel free to look up my recent set against JZ's Ivy. Super tight set in losers finals.
I personally think its in slight favor of Ivy.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

well, that's not entirely unheard of. in vanilla blazblue bang shishigami was legit, like, step above bottom tier but he was a solid counter to nu, who was pretty widely agreed on as being at least second best (all iirc, that game's pretty old at this point...). it depends on what tools you have that work to counter those characters and whether they're enough to make it matter in the meta sense.

however, i don't really know enough about the meta in pm to fully grasp how ddd works against the spacies, et al. i just vaguely understand "breaks the neutral and forces them to approach by jumping and keeping waddles out to pester and stop projectiles" which i'm sure is basic as hell.

I can vouch for that. Freaking Guard Point warps man. I actually had to play tricky gimmicky s*** like rushdown Nu then knocking him away after a combo and trying to cheese him with that almost instant low in reverse saw-blade thingy or 5D -> Command dash before he notices you're trying to do it.
Took me longer to beat him in score attack than to clear Brawl's Subspace, good times.

Anyway. stopped playing after finding out 3.6 beta reorganized a lot of stages and that janked off my songlist. What did I miss? How are Ganon and Samus doing?

 

[ilysm]

Samus is a pretty good character.

Ganon is really bad and will never be good except on small stages apparently?

 

[Kulty]

Samus is a pretty good character.

Ganon is really bad and will never be good except on small stages apparently?

I feel that Ganondorf is really good, but the problem is that he does a lot more even matchups than he has winnable. He may not be solo viable, but I still think that Ganondorf is very solid. A The first players that I can think of that does great things with Ganondorf are Junebug and Red Ranger. Even if Junebug mainly mains Diddy, he really makes Ganondorf seem viable and can even contend with some high-tier characters. If the PMDT stopped working in the game, there will be no more balance patches. That also means that we will maybe have a stable tier list. Even if there's a stable tier list for PM, I still think it doesn't matter that much, because PM is so balanced that you can perform so well with almost any character, no matter if they're in the lower-tiers or not. I don't own the mod and I wish I can play it more, because I feel that I didn't explore so many characters. So I have to wait and see if I'm gonna change my Ganondorf to someone else.

 

[CORY]

I feel that Ganondorf is really good, but the problem is that he does a lot more even matchups than he has winnable. He may not be solo viable, but I still think that Ganondorf is very solid. A The first players that I can think of that does great things with Ganondorf are Junebug and Red Ranger. Even if Junebug mainly mains Diddy, he really makes Ganondorf seem viable and can even contend with some high-tier characters. If the PMDT stopped working in the game, there will be no more balance patches. That also means that we will maybe have a stable tier list. Even if there's a stable tier list for PM, I still think it doesn't matter that much, because PM is so balanced that you can perform so well with almost any character, no matter if they're in the lower-tiers or not. I don't own the mod and I wish I can play it more, because I feel that I didn't explore so many characters. So I have to wait and see if I'm gonna change my Ganondorf to someone else.

June uses ganon primarily to steal counterpick on small stages, though. I think I've only seen him start ganon against gnw's and no one else.

He's far from a solid a, but he's not terrible. He probably sita around mid right now, but I can see him falling lower as other characters' metas pick up on how to just stay lower committal and players learn to respect his range.

He does have the ability to force you to respect him, though, by having the ability to go 0-50 in three hits on a lot of the cast, but once you do, he doesn't have a whole lot of ways to force interaction, especially on larger stages.

Dd characters can still dd and bait out commitment, while making it hard to push stage control in your favor, due to the nature of dd. Projectile characters can force you to react to their projectiles, and the majority of your projectile answers are "power through them with aerials", which can be baited.

It's not to say ganon is worthless, but his strengths are easier to circumvent by a lot of the cast than is readily apparent to newer players who make poor decisions and get blown up for being predictable.

He's a lot less committal with float, which helps a lot, but it only does so much. His Nair is trash and will be trash, so we lost a strong neutral tool. Fortunately uair is still great, but it's a single option (that can be.combined with jump/DJ/float mixups and afc mixups) but lacking a strong frontal walling tool makes it hard to take space back.

I'm also on mobile, in class, so I'm gonna stop before I get too rambly..

 

[Kulty]

Also, since we're talking about tier lists, I want to ask you guys this question: what will be your tier list based on how easy it is to use a X character? What I mean is how you class characters based on how technical they are to use (in other words, low technical learning curve). The top and high tiers are characters that need a lot of technical skill in order to perform well in tournaments (I think ofas examples), while the low-tiers are characters that don't require a lot of tech skill (maybeas examples). I don't know if I ask this question in the right thread, but I'll try. I ask this, because I want to find characters that can have a high learning curve as long as they're not technical, because I'm not a technical player. I haveleft. I feel that Mario and Ganon are not that technical, but what do you guys feel about MK, Wario and Diddy? Do you feel that they need a lot tech skill to perform well in neutral?

 

[migul]

Also, since we're talking about tier lists, I want to ask you guys this question: what will be your tier list based on how easy it is to use a X character? What I mean is how you class characters based on how technical they are to use (in other words, low technical learning curve). The top and high tiers are characters that need a lot of technical skill in order to perform well in tournaments (I think ofas examples), while the low-tiers are characters that don't require a lot of tech skill (maybeas examples). I don't know if I ask this question in the right thread, but I'll try. I ask this, because I want to find characters that can have a high learning curve as long as they're not technical, because I'm not a technical player. I haveleft. I feel that Mario and Ganon are not that technical, but what do you guys feel about MK, Wario and Diddy? Do you feel that they need a lot tech skill to perform well in neutral?

I can vouch that Meta Knight doesn't have a very high echnical learning curve, at least at the entry level. The fundamental techniques are absolutely necessary, but I dont know what there is beyond that. Meta Knight definitely requires good fundamentals though.

 

[Kulty]

I can vouch that Meta Knight doesn't have a very high echnical learning curve, at least at the entry level. The fundamental techniques are absolutely necessary, but I dont know what there is beyond that. Meta Knight definitely requires good fundamentals though.

I like characters that rewards me for having good fundamentals like Ganon. So I'm totally up for. For example, Ganon rewards me for using all possible mobility options in order to actually make him look fast even with his slow dashing speed since Ganon has an amazing waveland. Also, Ganondorf rewards me for proper recovery by using his limited recovery options and also proper spacing on his moves. Even if it's not Marth, Ganon still does the job fine enough to teach me proper spacing. I don't know aboutif they are very technical or not?

 

[_Chrome]

Meta Knight is incredibly easy to pick up if you have good fundamentals and knowledge about the game, but he requires smart play since he can't just get a rando waft like Wario or a knee with Falcon (not to say you can be dumb and do well with those characters) since he doesn't have quick killers besides a frame-3 nair at higher percentages. Meta Knight requires precision when you play: your spacing should be on point as well as your timing since many of his moves only have active hitboxes for 1-frame. He gets punished pretty hard.

I'd recommend Meta Knight if you want to play a top tier because he's fun and easy to pick up. In addition, he's rewarding to play as since he hasn't been optimized yet and there are many ways you can implement tech skill into his game. He's kinda similar to Marth in many regards.

EDIT: I can't speak for Wario but to use Diddy at tournament levels you should have great item play.

 

[Kulty]

Meta Knight is incredibly easy to pick up if you have good fundamentals and knowledge about the game, but he requires smart play since he can't just get a rando waft like Wario or a knee with Falcon (not to say you can be dumb and do well with those characters) since he doesn't have quick killers besides a frame-3 nair at higher percentages. Meta Knight requires precision when you play: your spacing should be on point as well as your timing since many of his moves only have active hitboxes for 1-frame. He gets punished pretty hard.

I'd recommend Meta Knight if you want to play a top tier because he's fun and easy to pick up. In addition, he's rewarding to play as since he hasn't been optimized yet and there are many ways you can implement tech skill into his game. He's kinda similar to Marth in many regards.

EDIT: I can't speak for Wario but to use Diddy at tournament levels you should have great item play.

Thanks! Was just a quick question. I thought of replacingforas a secondary forin PM, because I already main. Just to not mess up my playstyle. I know that MK is a high-risk high-reward character since he's a glass-canon, and I find him more rewarding than Brawl, since he actually makes you work harder.

EDIT: I'm not good at item play and item management. So thank you so much!

 

[_Chrome]

Thanks! Was just a quick question. I thought of replacingforas a secondary forin PM, because I already main. Just to not mess up my playstyle. I know that MK is a high-risk high-reward character since he's a glass-canon, and I find him more rewarding than Brawl, since he actually makes you work harder.

EDIT: I'm not good at item play and item management. So thank you so much!

You're very welcome! Just for your knowledge, Meta Knight can be played in a high-risk high-reward style (like Tealz) or more carefully (like Holy). Those two are the first I think of when I compare cautious to aggressive. To get better faster, use the resources in the Meta Knight boards and look up videos online; there are a lot of Meta Knight matches. Have fun!

EDIT: Another reason why MK requires precision is because his damage output for individual hits is most certainly on the low end of the cast, especially when compared to characters such as heavies (especially Ganondorf), Falco and of course (lol here it comes guys) Fox.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

MK as a secondary is actually something that appears to be at least somewhat popular (at least, it was a little bit of a thing at Paragon) because of said low skill floor and because of his mostly even to positive match up spread. You won't be disappointed playing with MK since he's got so much depth and versatility.

 

[Idostuff]

he can't just get a rando waft like Wario or a knee with Falcon (not to say you can be dumb and do well with those characters) since he doesn't have quick killers besides a frame-3 nair at higher percentages.

This is the exact reason that I can't play Sheik drunk, despite her being my best character by far. I play better with fox bc run in upsmash just works, and I don't play fox at all.

Fox for #1 on drunken tier list. That actually sounds like a fun thing to make.

 

[_Chrome]

Imma get on it... someone get me a drink. Also when are we gonna talk about anything remotely related to "tiers" or the meta of this game again? But yeah, I'll make a drunken tier list eventually... while I'm having a drink.

 

[JOE!]

Gonna toss this out here, ordered left -> right.

One thing to think about in the future though, does a tier list reflect just "solo" performance? Lets say that for whatever reason, GW and DDD perfectly cover each other's Bad MUs to the point of circumventing character counter-picking vs these two paired. Would both shoot up in tiers despite neither being as good "solo"?

 

[Kulty]

MK as a secondary is actually something that appears to be at least somewhat popular (at least, it was a little bit of a thing at Paragon) because of said low skill floor and because of his mostly even to positive match up spread. You won't be disappointed playing with MK since he's got so much depth and versatility.

What I'm scared about MK is that I don't want to get bored by this character. Do you guys feel that as MK mains or does the character keeps you interest? Sorry if I'm a bit off topic.

 

[Player -0]

I mean, you can get bored by any character. Just play and have fun. If you stop having fun with that character (hopefully) you'll still have the fundamentals to do well with other characters

 

[Kulty]

Anyway, back to the topic of tier list. We just have to try and find some dominant characters as of ver. 3.6. Since PM development has stopped, we expect the metagame to stabilize sooner or later. Because development has stopped, does that mean that PM will be dead at some point? I really don't want PM to die, because it's such a balanced game that every character has a fare chance to win tournaments.

 

[Spralwers]

One thing to think about in the future though, does a tier list reflect just "solo" performance?

Yes.

What I'm scared about MK is that I don't want to get bored by this character. Do you guys feel that as MK mains or does the character keeps you interest? Sorry if I'm a bit off topic.

You can't get bored of Metaknight. The character has such a powerful toolkit you can experiment with him in so many ways and have many different styles that are potent in their own way. He isn't forced to play a specific certain way for top level play, and that's huge if the main concern is being boring to play. Meta Knight dittos are incredible, btw. PM could just be Meta Knight and the game wouldn't lose any of its charm.

 

[Chevy]

Nah Sword Ball is a boring dork.

 

[JOE!]

Yes.

What I find interesting about this is how that will hold up in practicality:

Lets say Character X has fairly even MUs across the board, but gets bopped by Character Y. Conceivably, one could either be a main of CharY or have a pocket CharY for the Match-Up and put a stop to CharX's bracket run. CharZ however has a much better time vs CharY and the CharX main can use him to "patch" his hole vs CharY.

Given that CharZ exists to even out the hole of CharX's match-ups, is it not fair to say that CharX is better by the fact that CharZ exists? Also, if somebody wins using both CharX and CharZ, isnt that technically not a "solo" win?

 

[Player -0]

That's metagame kek.