Tier List Speculation

[eideeiit]

Anyone is solo-mainable at the level most people play at.

 

[Life]

People, especially low-level players (no offense--I'm not that great either LOL), focus way too much on trying to win by picking the right character when they'd be better served by focusing on just getting good at one.

You're best off picking the character you'll have the most fun with (and be aware that that's actually a pretty hard thing to predict--fans of Bowser might say "this character is so cool" and then they show up to a tournament and realize their scene has like seventy TL players or whatever).

 

[Kulty]

People, especially low-level players (no offense--I'm not that great either LOL), focus way too much on trying to win by picking the right character when they'd be better served by focusing on just getting good at one.

You're best off picking the character you'll have the most fun with (and be aware that that's actually a pretty hard thing to predict--fans of Bowser might say "this character is so cool" and then they show up to a tournament and realize their scene has like seventy TL players or whatever).

Me neither. Not that great, but I have a ton of fun playing PM along with Smash 4. I just realized recently that I might like someone else more than Marth. I mean there are a ton that I love along withlike. I just want to play one character since I don't plan to focus much on PM compared to Smash 4. Picking just one character is so hard since I enjoy so many of them...

 

[Player -0]

Naw, see the dash dance basically IS the bait. No matter how many times it's written down, it's a difficult concept to grasp until you really feel it work for you. Because Roy can threaten Dtilt out of a DD really easily (run cancel DD or a WD in if the spacing is off), your opponent will feel an itch to react to you dashing up close to them. That's why you keep going back and forth if you can, waiting for them to rebuff a Dtilt that isn't going to happen until it's punishing what they throw out (what Lunchables means by them "cracking"). Your opponent's 'itch' will get harder and harder to resist the more you cut off their options, by having them at the ledge or stuck in shield or on a platform or something, which is what makes stage control the concept it is, and how important it is.

I get that dash dancing stuff as mentioned earlier but my problem lies with getting the D-Tilt out.

To run cancel into D-Tilt I actually need to be in the run animation. It seems like my main options for getting a D-Tilt out lie in wavedashes or pivots. Pivots are weird and consistently doing them sounds dumb.

Part of my question was getting a reconfirm on using wavedashes to D-Tilt and I'll just have to practice wavedash turnaround D-Tilt. Turnaround D-Tilts I can do so just need to implement stuff I guess

 

[Life]

Me neither. Not that great, but I have a ton of fun playing PM along with Smash 4. I just realized recently that I might like someone else more than Marth. I mean there are a ton that I love along withlike. I just want to play one character since I don't plan to focus much on PM compared to Smash 4. Picking just one character is so hard since I enjoy so many of them...

Just remember there's not really pressure to pick the right one on the first try, just stay honest with yourself if you decide to pick up a new main, know why you're changing characters and what you want to accomplish by doing so (e.g. "I want to learn to escape combos without the threat of Luigi nair so I'm gonna switch off him to a fastfaller" or something).

(Spoilers, it's Wolf Kappa)

 

[Kulty]

Just remember there's not really pressure to pick the right one on the first try, just stay honest with yourself if you decide to pick up a new main, know why you're changing characters and what you want to accomplish by doing so (e.g. "I want to learn to escape combos without the threat of Luigi nair so I'm gonna switch off him to a fastfaller" or something).

(Spoilers, it's Wolf Kappa)

I just want to explore the characters since I feel I didn't explore the game fully enough to judge if Marth is my main or not. I used Marth right away because I used to main him in Melee and Brawl and PM is like 90% and 10%if I have to say so. I just need more exploration and maybe Marth might not be my true main in this game...Maybe who knows? It is a struggle just choosing one character...

EDIT: btw, is there a way to organize this thread since I feel that it's going in all kinds of directions in terms of the topic of conversations. It's like we don't talk about tiers in this thread...XD

 

[Life]

This is pretty much standard Tier List Spec. Has a habit of turning into PM Social from time to time. Then Strongbad yells at us and we flounder around desperately looking for a way to make our conversation relevant to tier lists.

Also still testing the Wolf thing I mentioned.

 

[Journal]

This is pretty much standard Tier List Spec. Has a habit of turning into PM Social from time to time. Then Strongbad yells at us and we flounder around desperately looking for a way to make our conversation relevant to tier lists.

Also still testing the Wolf thing I mentioned.

OMG Life is that you??? From the hitbox chat??? Also cool wolf thing. Will certainly bump up in the tier list.

 

[shairn]

Isn't wolf already considered top tier

 

[Zach777]

Kulty

It is kind of true that PM can be more about matchups than what other Smash games feel like. Mainly because of everyone (well almost) being viable to a degree. Sure there is Fox but he is hard to play as without practice and he gets stomped on by strange characters that catch him off guard.

Your best bet is playing as the character you like the most.

The characters who are solo-mainable without fear of being completely destroyed. (Some in the list still have harder mus but are at least doable to win in). When I say hard in parentheses it means something about them takes practice.

Fox(really hard)

Falco (hard, get caught off guard the most)

Wolf (pretty much like Fox)

Mewtwo (shoutouts to my main, hard, struggles vs TL)

Captain Falcon (I might be wrong)

Mr. Game and Watch (struggles against swords)

Diddy

MK (kind of hard for some people)

Toon Link (struggles vs swords with more range)

ROB (other people think he is really good so I just put him here)

Marth

Roy (could be wrong)

Ike (he is cool. Don't know what he struggles vs)

Sheik (could be wrong)




Did this off the top of my head.
I know there is a few more I am forgetting.


With most opponents you face in tournament you would have probably been able to beat them with any character regardless of MU.

 

[Kulty]

Kulty

It is kind of true that PM can be more about matchups than what other Smash games feel like. Mainly because of everyone (well almost) being viable to a degree. Sure there is Fox but he is hard to play as without practice and he gets stomped on by strange characters that catch him off guard.

Your best bet is playing as the character you like the most.

The characters who are solo-mainable without fear of being completely destroyed. (Some in the list still have harder mus but are at least doable to win in). When I say hard in parentheses it means something about them takes practice.

Fox(really hard)

Falco (hard, get caught off guard the most)

Wolf (pretty much like Fox)

Mewtwo (shoutouts to my main, hard, struggles vs TL)

Captain Falcon (I might be wrong)

Mr. Game and Watch (struggles against swords)

Diddy

MK (kind of hard for some people)

Toon Link (struggles vs swords with more range)

ROB (other people think he is really good so I just put him here)

Marth

Roy (could be wrong)

Ike (he is cool. Don't know what he struggles vs)

Sheik (could be wrong)

Oh thanks a lot man! From this list, I do like and feel okay playing with:
1): the only spacie I like because I findquite obnoxious because of Melee.
2): I love this guy. Can struggle due to the harsh environment but he still feels so good... (I don't know if there's any Falcon mains in there, but is he solo-mainable? Not sure myself. I tend to say yes, and no due to the harder PM environment)
3): Did not expect that, but I think I might like him a lot in this game especially. Is Diddy one of these technical characters that require heavy button execution due to his advanced techniques with his bananas? I'm not a technical player when it comes to heavy button execution like Fox.
4) All the Fire Emblem boys (): I love swords
Do you have any opinions onbeing solo-mainable? I'm more curious about them, since I'm interested in them as well along with the six characters I've just mentioned.

 

[DMG]

Solo or dual main is not applicable question for 80% of PM players. Regardless, everyone should have 1 specific char grinded out and refined. Probably MK loll

There are people who solo main Bowser, DDD, ICs, Oli, etc that you still have to respect in bracket due to their skill. So git gud before any harder questions are posed.

 

[Life]

Journal uhh that's the second time I've gotten approximately this reaction today, is there like a new meme I don't know about or something?

And I stand by what I said, which is largely in accord with what DMG said (although I think it's more like 98%)

 

[_Chrome]

Sonic is a super technical character if you want to be good with him. Expect to get 20XXitis with him sometimes. As for the other three, Snake (like with Diddy) requires good item play, but Luigi and Wario aren't too technical, especially Wario.

 

[DMG]

Naw theres pretty decent players who clearly would benefit from char swap or dual. A 7/10 may do better without say Yoshi and doing top 4 char instead. Still, that person likely grinded the crap out of 1 choice to git gud in the first place so mainly people should clear a path of progress with 1 choice

 

[Kulty]

Sonic is a super technical character if you want to be good with him. Expect to get 20XXitis with him sometimes. As for the other three, Snake (like with Diddy) requires good item play, but Luigi and Wario aren't too technical, especially Wario.

When I play characters that are super technical in terms of heavy button execution, my hands really do hurt after a while no matter how hard I try not to press the buttons too hard on the controller. It really does hurt my hands and I don't want this to happen every time. However, I don't mind other types of technical characters (strategy, precision and spacing, little tools to win neutral and low reward) as long as they don't brake my hands. I might feel that hand cramp pain with characters like. So yeah. Don't want that to happen, but that's just me. I don't know if players do feel that way, but I do...

 

[Life]

You can avoid hand injury by stretching and taking frequent breaks. There's a guide floating around somewhere...

 

[DMG]

GC hand injuries probably stem from poor grip or erratic pressure used to hold the controller. Playing Fox is way more grueling if you squeeze the controller like it's a wilderbeast you gotta strangle

 

[Kulty]

You can avoid hand injury by stretching and taking frequent breaks. There's a guide floating around somewhere...

I always try to take breaks, and I don't have flexible hands...XD So that's why I can't play technical characters.

 

[Life]

I always try to take breaks, and I don't have flexible hands...XD So that's why I can't play technical characters.

Everyone's body is different, but the point of stretching is that it improves flexibility and reduces the chance of the exact thing you're complaining about.

 

[_Chrome]

Diddy really isn't technical at all, so long as you know how to wavedash and catch items you're set. He's definitely not one of the harder characters to pick up. For you though I'd definitely recommend a more simple, honest character to start off with, like Roy for example (who requires light work on the hands). Pretty much every player has a backup Roy for use in at least friendlies because he's competitive, fun, and easy to use. He's relatively fast, SHFLLs and dash-dancing is great with him, and he doesn't have any jank properties like Wario, Snake, or Squirtle.

Other really simple but effective characters are Sheik and Mario (with Sheik being almost indisputably in the Top 10), or Kirby and Bowser (who are unfortunately lower in viability). Meta Knight is a good choice but his moves take precision to hit with and you'll probably get wrecked if you're just starting off with him since he doesn't have very high damage output for individual moves.

So yeah, imo the easiest characters to start with, in no particular order:

Mario
Sheik
Kirby
Bowser
Roy
Donkey Kong
Wario
Ganondorf
Ivysaur
Link
Toon Link
Captain Falcon

I may be missing a few but this can hopefully get you started. Look up some gameplay of these characters and try them out too to see which one is a good fit.

 

[Kulty]

Diddy really isn't technical at all, so long as you know how to wavedash and catch items you're set. He's definitely not one of the harder characters to pick up. For you though I'd definitely recommend a more simple, honest character to start off with, like Roy for example (who requires light work on the hands). Pretty much every player has a backup Roy for use in at least friendlies because he's competitive, fun, and easy to use. He's relatively fast, SHFLLs and dash-dancing is great with him, and he doesn't have any jank properties like Wario, Snake, or Squirtle.

Other really simple but effective characters are Sheik and Mario (with Sheik being almost indisputably in the Top 10), or Kirby and Bowser (who are unfortunately lower in viability). Meta Knight is a good choice but his moves take precision to hit with and you'll probably get wrecked if you're just starting off with him since he doesn't have very high damage output for individual moves.

So yeah, imo the easiest characters to start with, in no particular order:

Mario
Sheik
Kirby
Bowser
Roy
Donkey Kong
Wario
Ganondorf
Ivysaur
Link
Toon Link
Captain Falcon

I may be missing a few but this can hopefully get you started. Look up some gameplay of these characters and try them out too to see which one is a good fit.

Still thanks a lot man. I managed to find my top 2 characters and I'll pick between one of them to focus on: eitheror. I'll use characters liketo learn on how to avoid getting comboed hard,for precision in terms of wavedashing,for tech-chase punishes,for technical precision of stage control,for aggressive punishes,for tech skill, etc.

 

[_Chrome]

Oh yeah, Mr. Game and Watch is definitely one of the easiest. As far as training goes, I would stick to your two main characters to learn those specific traits since it varies between each character (for example: how Bowser avoids being hit is completely different than Sonic or Marth, who will use speed/dash-dancing/curling up in a ball or sword spacing respectively versus Bowser who has to be much more cautious than Sonic and doesn't have the advantage of Marth's range).

TLDR; Don't practice your what you need to know with a bunch of different characters. Playing a bunch of different characters can help you learn more, but practicing individual traits with each is a terrible idea to be blunt.

 

[Kulty]

Oh yeah, Mr. Game and Watch is definitely one of the easiest. As far as training goes, I would stick to your two main characters to learn those specific traits since it varies between each character (for example: how Bowser avoids being hit is completely different than Sonic or Marth, who will use speed/dash-dancing/curling up in a ball or sword spacing respectively versus Bowser who has to be much more cautious than Sonic and doesn't have the advantage of Marth's range).

TLDR; Don't practice your what you need to know with a bunch of different characters. Playing a bunch of different characters can help you learn more, but practicing individual traits with each is a terrible idea to be blunt.

Oops...I'll rephrase myself. I simply wanted to say that I play other characters for fundamentals purposes and for fun of course. As for G&W, I just don't like him honestly. I like characters that are easy to pick up and hard to master, but not characters that are easy to pick up and have a high reward which can lead to being mindless. Thank god...I don't think there's any character that is mindless like that in PM, except maybe Sheik for some people. But honestly, I don't think that Sheik is as mindless as people think. I find her hard to be honest. Maybe she's not for me...

EDIT: I just plan to play one character in PM since it doesn't come naturally in terms of my comfort zone unlike Smash 4 in my case. However, I'll still learnand make my final decision between the two after I feel I mastered both...

 

[Life]

People find different things easy. I can't play either GnW or Mario to save my life and those are two of the most commonly cited easiest characters--yet I main Wolf and I used to main Squirtle, which are commonly cited difficult characters, and while I'm no master they really don't feel bad to me outside a couple things (low laser WL on Wolf, small hitboxes on Squirtle).

 

[Kulty]

Anyway, sorry if I was off topic, guys. We should resume conversations about tiers apparently. I just don't know where to start since I don't follow PM metagame as much, but I'll plan to in the future. I don't hear a lot about PM these past few months ever since the PMDevTeam has discontinued the project... How's the metagame currently in a nutshell?

 

[Journal]

Journal uhh that's the second time I've gotten approximately this reaction today, is there like a new meme I don't know about or something?

And I stand by what I said, which is largely in accord with what DMG said (although I think it's more like 98%)

That was me. I just wanted to make a callback because I'm a comedy nerd and never mind I'm just going to go to bed.

 

[_Chrome]

Kulty Sheik isn't mindless. A lot of her combos are based on DI so at really low levels of play where people don't know how to DI she shreds, but by no means does she allow you to be carried by your character. G&W would definitely carry you a little, since lots of people have the slightest of ideas of counterplay against him, but at a top level or even higher levels of intermediate play each character takes skill.

Sheik is more honest than ever since she doesn't have the busted dthrow that she did in Melee.

As for the current meta game, I'm not the best player around by any means but Meta Knight is the new black. Everyone is becoming interested in the character, trying him out and hopeful that one day they might switch over to maining him. Zero Suit Samus is another topic of discussion, as lots of people are finally realizing that she is a pretty good character. Fox is still the best, but some people argue Wolf or Meta Knight are better. There's a lot more than this but you'll have to stick around to find out.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

I'll just say this about choosing Sonic: I think he's really good, but he requires you understand what you're going up against perhaps a bit more than with other characters (since his hitboxes are small, he can run into a lot of stuff). Sonic also requires a lot of tech skill to be good (lots of character-specific tech); he's got a lot of options to keep his mobility, unpredictability and recovery effective. He's definitely solo-viable though and a lot of fun. I get 20XXitis with him after playing for awhile though because he has high APM. Hands gotta go fast bruv.

 

[DMG]

MK is very bueno. I also dont recommend Falcon to the average lay person cause he requires a lot to be effective. You need to be a fast nerd with sick feel to make him top tier: miss one move and you might as well serve a big plate of dookie and eat it. I cant even manage like 60% and I grinded him out for idk how many patches lol. Props if you wanna main Falcon cause it takes a lot close to the top for success as Race Car Man. Solid fundamentals or go home

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

fundamentals are for brawl players

 

[DMG]

Only truly universal thing about Brawl and PM is that you should pick MK if you want to win

 

[Kulty]

I'll just say this about choosing Sonic: I think he's really good, but he requires you understand what you're going up against perhaps a bit more than with other characters (since his hitboxes are small, he can run into a lot of stuff). Sonic also requires a lot of tech skill to be good (lots of character-specific tech); he's got a lot of options to keep his mobility, unpredictability and recovery effective. He's definitely solo-viable though and a lot of fun. I get 20XXitis with him after playing for awhile though because he has high APM. Hands gotta go fast bruv.

I want to learn Sonic and I'm really new to him. Sorry for the stupid question, but what is 20XXitis?

 

[Journal]

I want to learn Sonic and I'm really new to him. Sorry for the stupid question, but what is 20XXitis?

Arthritis. Learning and using all of the tech will give you arthritis. He's just being cute and memey

 

[Deleted member]

Kulty Sheik isn't mindless. A lot of her combos are based on DI so at really low levels of play where people don't know how to DI she shreds, but by no means does she allow you to be carried by your character. G&W would definitely carry you a little, since lots of people have the slightest of ideas of counterplay against him, but at a top level or even higher levels of intermediate play each character takes skill.

Sheik is more honest than ever since she doesn't have the busted dthrow that she did in Melee.

even though its somewhat infrequent, i generally find that i learn the most about the game when i go deep into the tank with @Dakpo and we've had a few conversations similar to this, since i think GAW and sheik are both fairly misunderstood.

for the last year or so since i got to and started playing in texas, i get unfathomable levels of trash talk for being a bad player, how my character is broken and carries me, how she takes no skill, whatever. now let me get this out of the way- if you are a mid level player or worse, sheik can be absolutely stifling to play against and is probably the best in the game, S Tier by herself. at mid level, you have two people flailing at each other that are mildly informed on what being good means, so you have an educated guess on how to flail but ultimately it is still flailing- in this environment, sheik is basically just going to do what other characters do but with better frame data. at top level play, she actually balances out nicely as her weaknesses become more apparent: poor combo weight, no aerial drift (can't avoid juggles), very exploitable recovery, difficulty beating good CC use, approaches are easily pigeon-holed into forcing her to go for grab as her only conversion tool. and then she just has a bunch of matches where you have to tech chase at low % because you dont have a reliable combo (fox falco wolf falcon mk diddy lucas roy, the latter 4 you can throw combo around 20%, the prior 4 never). sheik is still really good at tech chasing, but ultimately its never going to be as good as something that just_works and you could make a fair argument that a character like ike has a throw game of similar quality.

now don't get me wrong, i'm not complaining about my character, sheik is obviously amazing and everyone puts her in the top 10 (i have her at exactly 9th), but the point is she has quite a few game plans that can negotiate her and is still generally overrated by swaths of mid level players or biased higher level players. sheik is very far from autopilot because her general gameplan is defensive/reactive due to her weak approach tools, which means she must generally know the MU well, and must constantly play around the opponent. in my experience, the braindead characters tend to be the ones that are aggressive/proactive because you just do your thing and force the opponent to negotiate you instead of the opposite. see: melee falco. again, at mid level and below you can throw this all out, sheik can just steam roll people.

anyway at this point whenever people say anything like "sheik is broken" i pretty much just agree with them because its easier to be dishonest and feed into that mentality than it is to candidly explain the nuances as to why sheik is more or less fine in the bigger picture. so yeah, sheik carries me and takes no skill and if you meet me IRL i'll probably say the same thing in person.

---

dakpo and i had a talk about GAW after MrLz won paragon, concerned that GAW was a mindless character that carried him, so he branched out to falco. after a couple months we went deep and started talking about marginal win rate. i and many others agree that falco is better than GAW, but falco very easily loses on the margin since he is forced to play nearly flawless the entire event and is very unforgiving in the face of more clever opponents who understand this and play the long game in an effort to make you punt rather than playing you heads up. so which one is better for a real bracket? well, the dirty answer is "it depends", because if you can bracket magic your way into dodging characters with disjoints, GAW allows for more error over a long event, and it wasnt surprising to see MrLz winning playing zero marth players, whereas falco makes it super easy to punt on the big stage.

in the end, you can't really say that either character is braindead or carries you over a real event, because like sheik you still have to negotiate the holes that other people will find over X rounds. are some characters easier than others? yes, absolutely, and it can be tempting to pull the escape clause and say "why am i just not playing that character?". but its generally best to not do it. regardless of how good you are, when you switch you are effectively restarting over at mid level and as you get better you will start seeing more and more holes that people can get you on, and suddenly your new character has just as many issues as your old one except you could have spent all that time labworking your old character instead looking for answers rather than running from them. this is the abridged version as to why dakpo shouldnt switch to falco, or IPK to fox, or ripple to samus, etc. and its also why i more or less dropped marth

 

[ThegreatVaporeon1]

fundamentals are for brawl players

It is the game for intellectuals after all.

 

[Tomaster]

Snake is the new meta

 

[eideeiit]

DDD too high

 

[OrientalAmazing]

Snake is clearly the best character. Diddy is second and maybe Wario or Sonic at 3rd

IC's are all the terribad in PM condensed into one.

Also if you choose to go the way of the 20SS, let me just tell you, he's not as auto or simple as people make him out to be. You need to know tech, framedata, hitboxes, and so much more. He takea very precise inputs and one choke can lead to a fatal stock. You will definetly experience 20XXitis but at the mastery of squirtle you can just brush it off. Good Luck on your path to achieve complete 20SSness. ~IW

 

[eideeiit]

For reals tho let's not do this.

At least like this.

For me the real surprise was reslived. I've always thought of him as a "meh" guy, but I guess with this and that one other good showing he had a while ago at that one tournament whose name I can't remember I'll have to revise that.