Tier List Speculation

[JOE!]

The top there looks good except for Falcon I'd say. Going by your own definition, he fits the bill of what you'd call a High tier.

 

[Hat N' Clogs]

The top there looks good except for Falcon I'd say. Going by your own definition, he fits the bill of what you'd call a High tier.

I mainly slipped Falcon into top tier because of the rise of ThunderzReign, and how he uses both Falcon and DK with excellence, but I appreciate the input
Do you have any thoughts on the other tiers?

 

[Bazkip]

No seriously why are people still using the old tier list maker

https://quetzle.github.io/smash-apps/tier/

The new one has this fancy share feature so you don't have to go through the difficulty of cropping a screenshot

 

[Hat N' Clogs]

No seriously why are people still using the old tier list maker

https://quetzle.github.io/smash-apps/tier/

The new one has this fancy share feature so you don't have to go through the difficulty of cropping a screenshot

I still use the new one most of the time, but I like how the old one has the menu selection icons of the characters :3 It's got that old, rustic charm ya know?

But yeah, I see your point. I use the new one 95% of the time. I just wanted to use the old one to spice things up, be different for teh lolz, etc.

 

[Player -0]

Or just use snipping tool.


So in Melee (from what I'm understanding from what I'm reading. Was reading about ICG again: https://www.ssbwiki.com/Ceiling_glitch), attacks on shields push attackers back ALSO. I know it pushes back a fair amount in Project M (much more than Melee from what I recall). Is the pushback in Project M higher?

 

[Narpas_sword]

Wasn't one of the changes in one of the later versions (might have been 3.5 or 3.6beta) to control slide towards/away depending on your shield Di?

 

[JOE!]

Does anybody know what "DI Strength" is, or how it is calculated?

DI apparently works from 0-90* away from the original Angle, with DI being +/- 18* at maximum when you are a full 90* away. One would think that DI then would work like, every 5 degrees (90/18 = 5) being +/- 1*, but according to some sources it is more like a Sin wave of effectiveness....?

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

Does anybody know what "DI Strength" is, or how it is calculated?

DI apparently works from 0-90* away from the original Angle, with DI being +/- 18* at maximum when you are a full 90* away. One would think that DI then would work like, every 5 degrees (90/18 = 5) being +/- 1*, but according to some sources it is more like a Sin wave of effectiveness....?

I always thought of di as a sort of "deflection force" that always acts perpendicular to the vector of knockback

think of your knockback vector as being a 0 on a unit circle. your "di vector" is the angle your stick is pointed in relative to that unit circle, ie literally tracing out an arc around the unit circle.
the effectiveness of di is essentially the "y-value" of any point on your unit circle. at an angle of 90 degrees that y-value will be at a maximum, and thus the entire possible amplitude of the "di vector" will be added to the "knockback vector" altering your path. at other angles the amplitude of the di vector will be less, and thus you will be deflected less. This situation is quite literally the definition of the sin(theta) function, as sine defines the y coordinates of points on the unit circle.

this is how I understand it when it's in a "strong knockback" situation where the motion is roughly linear and we don't have to worry about acceleration due to gravity and the natural decay of knockback etc

 

[JOE!]

I always thought of di as a sort of "deflection force" that always acts perpendicular to the vector of knockback

think of your knockback vector as being a 0 on a unit circle. your "di vector" is the angle your stick is pointed in relative to that unit circle, ie literally tracing out an arc around the unit circle.
the effectiveness of di is essentially the "y-value" of any point on your unit circle. at an angle of 90 degrees that y-value will be at a maximum, and thus the entire possible amplitude of the "di vector" will be added to the "knockback vector" altering your path. at other angles the amplitude of the di vector will be less, and thus you will be deflected less. This situation is quite literally the definition of the sin(theta) function, as sine defines the y coordinates of points on the unit circle.

this is how I understand it when it's in a "strong knockback" situation where the motion is roughly linear and we don't have to worry about acceleration due to gravity and the natural decay of knockback etc

Oh duh! So it is stick angle (in relation to attack angle and max DI) / 90 = DI strength %

Thanks!

 

[Hat N' Clogs]

I'm watching Bigger Balc, and the more I watch, the more I am confident that MK and Wolf are the best 2 in this game. MU is also pretty even as well, from what I've seen.

I'm also excited that Jose V is still in winners bracket

Edit: In other news, this tournament has a lot of upsets so far...Thunderz is in losers, my other boi Gallo is out ( ), Lucky beat Strong Bad...this tournament is hype.

Let's go Jose V

 

[Strong Badam]

I don't consider Lucky beating me to be an upset, personally. He's a great player and knows his stuff when it comes to most of the PM matchups.

 

[Hat N' Clogs]

I don't consider Lucky beating me to be an upset, personally. He's a great player and knows his stuff when it comes to most of the PM matchups.

Oh hai, speak of the devil haha.
But yeah, Lucky is a really strong player. I like how he's playing PM alongside Melee.
Honestly, I've never seen Lucky play in a PM tournament before. This is new for me, and cool as well.

 

[Strong Badam]

He has a history of playing the game. In 2015 he was arguably top 10 for a bit. He got 9th at Paragon I think.

 

[mimgrim]

http://i.imgur.com/X9s1xLH.png

Bored, wanna see tears and blood and salt everywhere so have a list and tear it apart.

Disclaimer: This list is left as vague as it is on purpose because I can't with 100% certainty say how I really think these characters place on a tier list due to various things, aside from the top 2 and even though I'm for sure certain on them right now that is still super liable to change later on. I expect a lot of contention from not having the likes of Fox or MK in the def top tier because they "should obviously" be there. Like I get and mostly agree with the theory as to why people put them so high but both lack results to really prove that foundation and in the case of Fox I have heard some good arguments as to why he might not be the best or even at the top, even if I may not really agree with them they still make sense and I can see why people make that post that way. Its also a general reflection on the fact that I know and realize I'm actually bad at this game currently which further makes me less sure about many placements. I also purposely avoided using terms such as low tier because its gives a kind of bad impression that those characters suck when they really don't and still have things going for them and that they are only low tier relative to the rest of the cast but can still do work. I just decided to completely avoid that stigma though to make it easier and get my point across more effeciently.

Special note: While I'm fully expecting people to post things like x character shouldn't be in x tier and should higher/lower and blah blah blah and as entertaining as they are I will not reply unless some thought out, doesn;t have to be well thought out but I need to see that you at least tried to explain why x character shouldn;t be here but here instead, explanation as to the why is included.

Get to tearing down guys.

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

you overrate marth, lucas, falco, and lucario. also think you underrate snake and possibly wario. I think wario should be where lucas currently is (if that tier is ordered within itself) but no higher

 

[Bleck]

fox mccloud

 

[Nausicaa]

you overrate lucas, and lucario. also think you underrate possibly wario. I think wario (if that tier is ordered within itself) but no higher

You sure about this stuff?
Doesn't sound like Wario is the underrated one give that's only 3 or 4 spots away, and only 2 if you drop the 2 you think are overrated. So CF + maybe 1 of the other 6 are overrated instead given Wario would end up exactly where you said he should be. Which do you think really is the case?
There's a Lucas player you can use as reference to see how good the character is, and he places (very) well at every tournament he goes to, yet drops roughly 1 combo every 5 seconds on average against anyone. How 'overrated' are you thinking this character is here?
Lucario is already 16th there, 4 away from 'bottom half' of the cast. Even if you think he's roughly a middle-of-the-pack character, he's already there. If you think he's a top-half-of-the-game character, he BARELY made it. Unless you think Lucario is a hard 'bottom-50%-character' then it might be a lot of other stuff that needs shuffling.

Nit-picking your nit-picking.

Also yeah Lucky and Hbox and peeps are beasts. Great to have topend meleers playing the game.
It's like a secret since they can't stream it, but juicy because you know they're labbing it at least SOMETIMES off-screen.

 

[mimgrim]

I meam I already stated in my post, of course of which I'm sure people didn't read, that I'm not going to reply to posts that x character should be higher/lower without reasonimg as to why. So that I can reply to said reasoning so discussion can get made.

Also I state in the goddamn ****ing picture that the tier rows are not ordered within each other. Holy **** people. ****ing read everything for once in your life please.

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

You sure about this stuff?
Doesn't sound like Wario is the underrated one give that's only 3 or 4 spots away, and only 2 if you drop the 2 you think are overrated. So CF + maybe 1 of the other 6 are overrated instead given Wario would end up exactly where you said he should be. Which do you think really is the case?
There's a Lucas player you can use as reference to see how good the character is, and he places (very) well at every tournament he goes to, yet drops roughly 1 combo every 5 seconds on average against anyone. How 'overrated' are you thinking this character is here?
Lucario is already 16th there, 4 away from 'bottom half' of the cast. Even if you think he's roughly a middle-of-the-pack character, he's already there. If you think he's a top-half-of-the-game character, he BARELY made it. Unless you think Lucario is a hard 'bottom-50%-character' then it might be a lot of other stuff that needs shuffling.

Nit-picking your nit-picking.

Also yeah Lucky and Hbox and peeps are beasts. Great to have topend meleers playing the game.
It's like a secret since they can't stream it, but juicy because you know they're labbing it at least SOMETIMES off-screen.

I think my thing about wario is that I'd put him at a hard six or seven spot rather than a waflling between 6 and like 16

honestly, I really don't think lucario is that good, or not nearly as good to be within the same unordered tier as the rest of the characters he shares a tier with. lucario's relative goodness in comparison to the rest of the cast is something that I'm still unsure about, but I just feel uncomfortable enough watching a lucario attempt to play neutral that I don't think lucario can force a game open into his expansive combo tree (and the locations and percents of his opponent necessitate a vast knowledge of said combo tree) like other characters can force neutral situations into far more lenient and damaging combo systems

also as for using hyperflame as a total barometer for the tierlist as a whole, I'm really unsure. Obviously hyperflame is good and I'd put lucas definitely in the upper half of the cast (which isn't exactly rarefied air at this point) but ya. lucas definitely has good tools (magnet on shield lmao wut) and hyperflame is really fast and really good at comboing people but oftentimes I see hyper occasionally just fold to people and characters (for example, malachi's sheik vs hyper is kinda demoralizing for fans of the kid).
also comparing current tourney performance of hyperflame to a tier placing when sosa's wario consistently outperforms hyper himself as well as fox being above lucas in said tierlist with little to no top 8 reps at nationals is an ehh

btw, probably going to make a "totally reactionary to recent events" tierlist post-sns3 regarding recent nationals

 

[eideeiit]

I love lucas and think he's good etc. but if you're gonna say Hyperflame drops a combo every 5 secs then also try to see when the opponent drops a tech chase or something.

 

[Nausicaa]

Thunderz doesn't drop combos
He just plays with his food lol

 

[Rᴏb]

How outdated are my opinions?

 

[Avro-Arrow]

A few hangups I have with the list:

1) Sonic's way too low. Character's way too fast with auto-beat CC options, (nearly?) unreactable dd, guaranteed kill options, and streamlined comboes. Personally I drop him in A-tier because I don't think he loses more than five matchups.

2) Mewtwo's really really good. Not only does he have a low number of losing matchups, but he benefits from not losing to marthritis as can some other really good characters like lucas/zss, which is important for tournament performance. I see him also doing better vs the top 3 than a lot of other A-tier characters.

3) Rob and Samus in A-tier: I personally think both of these characters are pretty solid overall but most people (and me included) wouldn't have them top 10-15. Rob maybe top 15 according to most but Samus rarely gets much better than 20th.

It's really not that different from most lists anyways. Only the third point makes it look a little different asides from maybe the bottom 4-5 of C tier being in the same tier as Pika etc. Personally I'd move Rob, Ness, and Luigi down a tier for sure, Samus down two, and then re-jig the order within tiers and your list looks completely normal (Ness is arguable I guess). I might have a few changes I'd make asides from that but they're more minor.

 

[DMG]

Grouping is more important than order, but first ~8 or so are ordered

Lords: You clearly want to win if you're playing one of these chars. I'm looking directly at you, MK mains

Degenerates: Your character probably routinely ruins fun for the opponents, and also has the results to prove it

Standards: Stay in this lane. Moving up or down may make you less cool or less successful

Funs: "If Thunderz can win with Donkey Kong, so can I!" *DISCLAIMER: You are not Thunderz, unless you are Thunderz*

These character mains are probably cool people irl and you should totally say hi to them and not be awkward about it please

Hards: These people prefer to run Marathons backwards, eat cereal with forks, and get lost in heavily wooded forests because having a smartphone or a compass would be too easy.

We get it already: your character isn't easy and you have a lot of skill. You don't get a medal for taking on a challenge like this

Bads: You're probably trying to quit Smash if you're still playing one of these goons. Either that or you are so aggressively charismatic and overwhelming charming, you could pull off wearing a Smoking Jacket with a Speedo and Crocs in public and still look great. Congratulations, now pick a real character plz

 

[CORY]

Congratulations, now pick a real character plz

No

 

[Boiko]

Grouping is more important than order, but first ~8 or so are ordered

Lords: You clearly want to win if you're playing one of these chars. I'm looking directly at you, MK mains

Degenerates: Your character probably routinely ruins fun for the opponents, and also has the results to prove it

Standards: Stay in this lane. Moving up or down may make you less cool or less successful

Funs: "If Thunderz can win with Donkey Kong, so can I!" *DISCLAIMER: You are not Thunderz, unless you are Thunderz*

These character mains are probably cool people irl and you should totally say hi to them and not be awkward about it please

Hards: These people prefer to run Marathons backwards, eat cereal with forks, and get lost in heavily wooded forests because having a smartphone or a compass would be too easy.

We get it already: your character isn't easy and you have a lot of skill. You don't get a medal for taking on a challenge like this

Bads: You're probably trying to quit Smash if you're still playing one of these goons. Either that or you are so aggressively charismatic and overwhelming charming, you could pull off wearing a Smoking Jacket with a Speedo and Crocs in public and still look great. Congratulations, now pick a real character plz

Fox is bad. Has no results.

 

[KakuCP9]

How can Squirtle be in the fun tier if he ruins fun for people ? .-.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

Gotta agree with Pimpstick here, and I'd add Luigi and Mario to that list. Also Mario mains irl are nose pickers; I've wrote a thesis paper on it, believe me.

 

[Player -0]

Ness is top tier. He has a lot of results.

 

[Bazkip]

That tier list is incorrect, every character ruins fun.

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

hi i made a "tierlist" that is actually just a list of descriptors with fuzzy membership where characters closer to the "boundaries" of the tier could be described by the tiers above/below

kinda want to cut off viability of "can win a national with a typically 'top-skilled' player" between roy and link
(side note: we saw sothe almost win a national but that's because a. sothe is a gawd and b. i think that was the last time we'll see a character of similar tier to ivysaur come that close to winning a national)

some thoughts/elaborations:
first tier is characters that other characters are measured up to in terms of quality and are on top of the game in at least two of the major "categories" of gameplay (fox with run and gun lazer camping and rushdown/shield pressure, diddy with ambiguous rushdown/sheild pressure and space control w/ items, metaknight with mobility and dashdancing to create favorable situations as well as with winning neutral of beneficial trades and pokes, and wolf with all of the above)

second tier I've just kinda had a working definition of being "less finicky" than the tier below them although not as metagame-definingly good as the characters above them. these are "plug and play" characters where a fundamental knowledge of the game can take them far and cover a lot of options that other characters might have to drastically alter their gameplans to deal with.

third tier is characters that have a lot of answers to a lot of situations but also have to alter what they're doing a lot of the time and play passive/campy in order to wait for their moment to capitalize because some of their options just don't work well sometimes. sonic is probably the biggest standout in this tier because his form of camping is literally just running around until he confuses someone into a mistake but he also has to run around really carefully otherwise he'll end up accomplishing nothing and die. sonic is probably theoretically "better" than characters above him but this list doesn't measure direct "quality" so idc

fourth tier is characters that definitely can perform and do well but need to have a player who is better than their opponent in order to do so. these characters don't get freebies but aren't held back so much by their inherent quality that they'll struggle fruitlessly against a higher tier to no avail

roy tier is characters that have the potential to look good/dominating but also struggle with very relevant bad matchups where they just can't do things. also lunchables is a gawd because roy is a hard character to win a national with and lunchables came so close so many times

pit tier is characters that can still do some times but their options are all either painfully dicerolly and obvious (ganon) or esoteric and read-based without any clear pathway towards a kill (pit and kirby, pit is better because arrows. that being said, kirby with arrows is better than pit)

bottom tier is sad. they can do things but the struggle to do things against an opponent that knows what they're doing and isn't scared of them is an issue. bowser being "all you gotta do is stay away and press the z button when he's not doing things and you have free followups until he dies" and olimar being "you have the worst recovery in the game and an rng-based neutral that requires micromanagement (with good benefits if done right!) along with a lot of your normals being highly variable, kinda laggy (even with long-lasting hitboxes), sometimes extremely stubby, and they lose a LOT off of a trade not to mention the burden of doing micromanagement even to get to the point where he's remotely playable just isn't worth it in terms of what you practically get with realistic match conditions and reaction time

this is probably the highest I've rated mario, samus, and charizard and the lowest I've rated luigi and olimar

at this point I spend more time thinking of fun gimmicks to do with tierlists than I probably do with putting original reasoned thought into the tierlist itself (as opposed to just forming passive opinions while watching streams/vods and recording them later)

 

[Frost | Odds]

Bads: ...or you are so aggressively charismatic and overwhelming charming, you could pull off wearing a Smoking Jacket with a Speedo and Crocs in public and still look great. Congratulations

Why, thank you. :3

 

[Player -0]

if wearing socks. What kind of sandal-y footwear is wearable besides crocs?

I socks and crocs all day.


...P:M stuff uhh. Pit's down b is still awesome and his throw mixups are jank af

 

[nickultra]

Someone explain to me why Roy isn't top tier or high tier? Great mobility, great combo tools, great edge guarding tools, reliable kill setups, long disjointed hitboxes... This guy seems to do it all.

 

[KakuCP9]

Someone explain to me why Roy isn't top tier or high tier? Great mobility, great combo tools, great edge guarding tools, reliable kill setups, long disjointed hitboxes... This guy seems to do it all.

While I have been out of the loop for awhile, I've played a fair bit of Roy and I can tell you that Roy squarely fits into mid tier. While he is a good character in a vacuum , there are about 30ish other good characters that he is compared to. Unlike Marth, his disjoints usually come at the cost of damage due to his gimmick. Couple that with sketchy aerial mobility and aerials that are piss easy to crouch cancel, his neutral usually becomes either unrewarding or risky. Also his kill setups while reliable tend to require some fishing (d-tilt ->aerial, grab-> tech chase->f-smash/f-tilt) which can be detrimental against characters with superior mobility/pokes . Theory aside, the most damning thing about Roy is that his best players, Sethlon and Lunchables drifted away from PM leaving his results to be lackluster, preventing him from moving up in tiers.

 

[nickultra]

While I have been out of the loop for awhile, I've played a fair bit of Roy and I can tell you that Roy squarely fits into mid tier. While he is a good character in a vacuum , there are about 30ish other good characters that he is compared to. Unlike Marth, his disjoints usually come at the cost of damage due to his gimmick. Couple that with sketchy aerial mobility and aerials that are piss easy to crouch cancel, his neutral usually becomes either unrewarding or risky. Also his kill setups while reliable tend to require some fishing (d-tilt ->aerial, grab-> tech chase->f-smash/f-tilt) which can be detrimental against characters with superior mobility/pokes . Theory aside, the most damning thing about Roy is that his best players, Sethlon and Lunchables drifted away from PM leaving his results to be lackluster, preventing him from moving up in tiers.

Well for one thing, his aerials being easy to CC doesn't seem like that big of a deal, considering he can space well with disjoints especially Nair. Or alternatively he can approach with D tilt and his grab game is very good. The way Lunchable plays Roy also makes him look unstoppable, only landing a few hits on the opponent until there offstage and there is no chance of them coming back on.

 

[eideeiit]

Afaik Roy's kill setups are extremely MU dependant. Like, against fastfallers and semifastfallers he has it good, but them floaties give him marth-ritis hard and since his recovery and staggered games and combo weight are bad the disparity in punishes causes him to have a lot of MUs that are, if not unwinnable, very difficult against players as good as you are.

https://discordapp.com/invite/0qBxfYTIuWgzovqo <--Link to PM Roy discord, if you feel like you want people maining him to tell you their opinions or something.

 

[nickultra]

What common matchups do you consider very difficult for Roy? And does Roy win against fastfallers in your opinion?

I main Mario and Falcon, and I usually switch to Marth when I play good Roys.

 

[DMG]

Heavy chars that can hold down and body Roy right back, generally with nice grab game. DK, D3, maybe Bowser and Zard. There's other MU's he can have a hard time with: I'm not sure if his MU with Diddy improved after the item toss "standardization" or how doable Peach MU is etc

Roy is alright but eventually at top level people are generally competent enough to properly edgeguard, properly deal with a lot of mixups onstage, properly DI Dtilt / SDI Uair chains etc that it starts to become a lot of work and you have to play increasingly perfect as Roy to win. You can't say that about a lot of top tiers / higher tier chararacters in this game: the stuff they have generally works regardless of DI, OR they are given a broad enough room that you can change course to react to their DI if you are creative and experienced enough.

You don't want that in PM. You want a character that basically bodies people for free and half the time you can play like a predictable idiot except whatever is almost totally safe, or still generates strong pressure even if they KNOW what you're gonna do etc

 

[Strong Badam]

Roy is actually secretly slow. His max speed is 1.61 IIRC. Not all that stellar. He has a good dash window and great options out of DD, so his neutral is fairly strong. But he doesn't actually have high mobility in the context of chasing people down or being evasive in a long-term sense.