Tier List Speculation

[Strong Badam]

Yeah, there's at least a small chance of that I'd say =P

 

[Nausicaa]

Lots of quotes... but really not a big post.

What stale mate breaking do you think Ness has? Besides pkfire? Because the sense I get is that bananna set ups, peanuts, and aura sphere do plenty to put a timer on the opponent. Whereas with Ness, if you aren't committing, you are pkfiring. Which is great if your opponent doesn't know how to respond...but after some matchup experience, the potency of Ness's neutral game becomes much worse.

He has enough in the mix of DD Grab/Dash-A, and DJC's, as well as PKFire, anti-airs and disjoints, to make him function. If he's getting cheesed out, there are risks he can take that give immeditate and certain high-rewards for, and he can cheese people out in the sense that taking risks on him can be risky enough to favor Ness, the threat is at least there. Lucario and Diddy can't crack neutrals universally to any hail-mary factor, as the dynamics of their games rests in control in pace and process-stock-elimination, which most characters have to deal with spacies that way instead of literally everyone.

Hence it's a speculative thing from myself as well as others, that these characters, when flushed out, won't match the calibur of process stock-taking the way people like Pika and Metaknight generally do. Fox even greatly falls in that category than other areas, just to the extreme on both sides.

Diddy's neutral game would be 5x better if you could not swat bananas. I understand that it's practical AND makes sense that people can hit them as they travel, but it makes his life so much harder. It's also abnormally hard to get the strong Side B, and the nerfed window for Side B kicking could probably be relaxed some. He's got "short + annoying" going for him but I think he needs help being less gimmicky and cheesy.

Diddy just needs an aerial that can swat them too, to be built for Banana-game implies he can do something efficient to get control of them OTHER than the initial toss. A quick tail-swat U-Air or something, swat > grab, would make it less detrimental to the already technically risky projectile to throw. Since he's all about duration through cheese and stock-taking processes, he should have things that lean towards his presence lasting even when Banana's back-fire.
Using Banana's opponents grab, AGAINST them, as a bait even, is almost essential to the make-up of the character. I've been relying on pivot-U-Tilt > AGT to counter-strike of baits. Flashy, but not exactly practical, and easy to pick off when you know it's coming.

Something just sort of bugs me seeing A/B/C/D/E tiers rather than S/A+/A/A-/B+ etc.

I guess it's that since P:M strives for balance, and generally all characters are viable (mostly), it presents a bigger gap than there really is. Tiers for stuff like SF4, P4A and BB:CSE usually only go to B- or C because of balance, so I guess it's just a little frightening to see some of these lists reach almost Brawl levels of visual gaps when they aren't anywhere near that huge.

I dunno.

Oh yeah, I've been so tempted to fuse C into B- and move B and B+ to A and A- or something. haha
What Project: M needs is one of these.
http://www.mmcafe.com/tiermaker/
So we can have every character in a big, balanced, arch.

No, he can't. Too much commitment on his movement options, and not enough overall coverage on the attacks he can use out of them in comparison to Sonic. He's significantly slower and less threatening with it.

This.
I'm still very serious about this.

Spoiler

Not nearly enough mention of F-Tilt changes in here given how many people are talking about differences between 2.5 and 2.6.
WD > F-Tilt alone was the reason Squirtle was good in 2.5, and not just ok. Take that away and he wouldn't have been able to keep up with the developing meta-game at all. Now he has a lot of dynamics to him at the cost of losing the silly-single-dimensionalness of what that gave him.

He was touched like Sonic by the PMBR, and that touching made him feel like Sheik.

Squirtle is Sheik in Turtle form... Sheik must be master Splinter.

F-Tilt saved him in 2.5, and it died.
Seriously...

That would just show how much the losing player doesn't know about the match up.

This has been a greater factor in direct results, in every happening from tournaments to friends houses, than anything else to date with PM games.
This is where the collective individuals of the community needs to bring in their MINDZ!!!
For real, crap is too complex with variables to distinctly make any accurate statement about the tiny details between the 22nd and 23rd best characters, let alone 33-40 of them. No matter how good/how much content/etc is available so far.
3.0 gon **** it awl rite ^ neway

Except Dedede, he's probably secretly Ivan Ooze.

...secret... shhhh

Tier List updating soon... I'll just repost and use that one to edit randomly.
Didn't even make it to bottom-tier.
Ganon is the worst, next to Dedede, obviously.
Squirtle has Auqua-Jet for free kills. Hits harder than Warlock-Jet-Punch-Hammer anyday.

 

[Fortress]

Just walked in from work, and I'm wanting to point out that I don't equate low-tier with 'bad'. So, whomever's freaking out about Squirtle, DK, and whomever being ranked 'low' by myself probably misunderstood me.

Lots of stuff happened while I was gone. Strongbad changed his avatar, DMG wrote a short novel on tier speculation, people rapped about Squirtle, and GnW was turned into a super viable character.

WHICH ONE DOESN'T BELONG?

 

[Deleted member]

low tier = relatively bad, since tiers just measure relative goodness. so yeah, low tier = bad.

 

[DrinkingFood]

yes but people naturally compare their relative goodnesses with other characters to other games' characters' relative goodnesses with each other
in which case low tier = pretty good

 

[JOE!]

*not good enough

 

[Deleted member]

yes but people naturally compare them their relative goodnesses with other characters to other games' characters' relative goodnesses with each other
in which case low tier = pretty good

that just sounds like flawed thinking to me. i think we can safely ignore it.

 

[DrinkingFood]

that just sounds like flawed thinking to me. i think we can safely ignore it.

but no matter what you do you're never going to have perfectly even characters unless they are all mechanically the same; relative only to each other and not to other games, you're always gonna have a low tier and thus there will always be something "bad" about those characters. That's a pretty ****ty premise for calling something bad tbbq

 

[metroid1117]

Question - in some games, "bad" characters are not viable in competitive play. Do you guys feel like that's the case with PM, where "bad" / low tier characters are not viable, or that "bad" characters are only "bad" because they aren't as good?

 

[Deleted member]

sure, it might be shitty but it's true regardless. if you have to choose between accepting or denying reality, i think it's best to side with accepting it.

edit: the latter at metroid. i think the tiers are wonderfully close in this game, and that's a good thing. but yes, they are still bad.

 

[DMG]

PM has done a pretty good job of narrowing the gap between characters, and the overall "freshness" the game has by adding characters and throwing in buffs makes it harder to exactly say who's viable or not, BUT there tend to be swings between characters on opposite sides of the spectrum, if someone or something is "tailored" in a way to stand up to the more top tier characters and traits. Like to design Ivy or Lucas such that they can fathom going even with any Spacie, Sheik, etc also has the downside that people like Ganon just may never win the MU. If your character is geared towards strong gimping, this has collateral damage to people like Falcon. Etc so on and so forth. You can have characters that on the surface seem decently viable, all of a sudden get swept up by other characters. There are some very hard, and some janky ass MU's introduced lately between characters who aren't even aiming high on the tier list.


I think some people assume we have a PM cast where most MU's aren't harder than 6:4 for any side, and everyone can basically "win". I think this actually only feels true for some of the best characters in the game atm, and everyone else is in a janky Rock Paper Scissors of holding quite the advantage over each other (while then losing or not doing extremely well vs characters above them). Like if you took 6 of the best characters:

Fox
Falco
Sheik
Wolf
MK
Ivy

Something along these lines right? These characters can go fairly even between themselves, and probably don't lose many MU's outside of this core group.


Now take:

Falcon
Zard
Link
TL
Luigi
Pika
G^W
DK
Ness
ROB
etc

What you have here, is a vicious back and forth of one character winning and then losing just as badly to someone else. I think there are a ton of 6:4ish (and sometimes harder) MU's lurking around among the cast. With the buffs people have gotten and the aspiration for chars to not suck, it's bound to happen. Now, if everyone in the cast were taking part in this, it would be OK. Just means some MU's you probably need to switch and some you get to win a bit freely. I think some of the better characters though operate outside of this RPS, and effectively you're dealing with wild stuff. Like watching Bowser go even with a Falco, just to get manhandled by Zelda or D3. Stuff like that is why it feels hard to say who's truly viable, when most characters have something dark out there to fear that would make them look crappy or not that good.

 

[KayB]

If shield pushback is fixed, some characters WILL get better, and some characters WILL get worse. Fixing this one mechanic can make a huge difference in gameplay and even in the tier list.

 

[Zwarm]

I missed the Squirtle discussion

I've said all I've had to say about the matter, so that won't change anyone's opinion. But I got 33rd at Big House 3 going all Squirtle, and I know I could've made top 16 or better if I didn't make so many mistakes day two. Like Burnsy, I got a LOT of players saying Squirtle is not as bad as they thought, and I had a lot of people complaining about how dumb Squirtle can be, and all I do is just run around the stage the whole match using his mobility options to keep the pressure on

On top of that, I got 9th in doubles out of like 60 or 70 teams I think? I can't remember. And my teammate was a guy who just started playing the game like a month and a half prior to TBH3.

Also wtf at anyone saying TL is bottom 5, that character is literally like top 10 material.

 

[Vashimus]

Toon Link's only top 10 if Jolteon or Aero are playing.

 

[Zwarm]

...which would make the character top 10

 

[Oracle]

Lunchables tho

 

[Vashimus]

...which would make the character top 10

Toon Link needs #autocombos for that.

 

[Zwarm]

Down throw up B thooooo

Kills at like 80 on characters that aren't fat

Lunchables are in like a tier above Fox, there's no argument here on that.

 

[Juushichi]

DMG's most recent post is probably one of the best posts in the thread.

There have been many things I've said about this game but one of the most consistent is this --- I believe this game at a tournament level with force you to do a few things:

- Pick a solo top/high tier (who will have the most general success against most of the cast) [New Oro <3]
and if you don't:
- Struggle through hard (bad, and or terrible) MUs. [metroid, kirk, etc]
- Pick up a secondary for the above. [StrongBad?]

I hope that we'll go the way of a lot of the AE 2012 scene where, while we do see a lot of top tier play... that there are still equally amazing players who play weaker, but still good characters (ex: Xian's Gen, FChamp's Sim, Aquasilk/SnakeEyes Zangeif, various Ken players, Wao Oni, etc, etc). It seems like it's kinda like that. There are a lot of character loyalists in this game, I think.

For the most part.

 

[Zwarm]

Kirk will never not play Bowser tho

 

[Oro?!]

Pick a top tier! If they aren't worred about your Fox/MK pockets, then you are doin it wrong!

 

[TrainerLITTLER]

I hope they don't mess up Marth.

Who do you think will be bottom of the tier?

 

[Fortress]

Question - in some games, "bad" characters are not viable in competitive play. Do you guys feel like that's the case with PM, where "bad" / low tier characters are not viable, or that "bad" characters are only "bad" because they aren't as good?

I'd say that the gaps between tiers are closed enough to the point where a stellar GnW with experience in general tech skill can beat a Mario player with some basic skill. With characters being more balanced, and the mechanics of the game tailored to their skillsets, player skill is a stronger factor than just character matchup (if that makes sense to anybody).

 

[Juushichi]

Mario vs GnW is probably not the best example, since it's a relatively even MU in the first place.

Maybe something like... Sheik v Pika? Sheik vs Luigi? idk. Something that was more of a Squash than GnW v Mario.

 

[TrainerLITTLER]

I can use Marth to beat Meta Knight, but I'll admit it's tough.

 

[Deleted member]

PM viability post.

This post is fucking incredible. 10/10.

edit: I've gotten good at Marth vs MK but I still hate it. Marth feels hard outclassed. That's not to say that I think Marth needs changed (although I do think MK needs minor changes) but the resulting MU fully follows DMG's post.

 

[Fortress]

Mario vs GnW is probably not the best example, since it's a relatively even MU in the first place.

Maybe something like... Sheik v Pika? Sheik vs Luigi? idk. Something that was more of a Squash than GnW v Mario.

Yeah, I guess something more polarizing would be appropriate. ****, I don't know, G-dubs against Ivy. But, yeah, you're right about that.

 

[TrainerLITTLER]

Umbreon, what are those characters under your name? The ? and the other one.

 

[Fortress]

Umbreon, what are those characters under your name? The ? and the other one.

'Random' and 'moderator', at least, I think it's moderator.

You're a mod, Umby? I'm slow on the punch.

 

[TrainerLITTLER]

There has to be a way to fight those with advantages.

 

[Zwarm]

The explosion means he used to be a mod but isn't anymore

Also RIP in pieces Umbreon. Dat ban

 

[Fortress]

You gon' get shield-grabbed, Marthy boy.

 

[TrainerLITTLER]

Well, I could potentially continue the final 2 hits of Dancing Blade, but I'd have to roll with some luck to not get punished.

 

[Xebenkeck]

It is impossible to make the 1599 match-ups in the game 6 - 4 or better.

No matter what, someone will have a hard-counter.

I don't think there is much problem with the balance right now because everyone is capable of dealing out something nasty no matter the match-up. In melee certain characters couldn't do anything in any match-up that was threatening.

P:M has every character capable of dealing "good" offense. That is all a person can really ask for, because then the game comes down to spacing, zoning, and winning the neutral game for 1st hit, and consistency.

 

[Nausicaa]

I think almost everyone has commented on how polarizing match-ups will naturally be everywhere in a game that's catered towards all characters being functional and as balanced as possible in the same environment.
Hence it's so difficult to speculate-the-tiers, there's still room for better-and/or-worse, but it's loaded with variables and complexity.
Fun, isn't it? :D
Add to the fact that everyone is a scrub to date, and it's a funny mix of community speculation.

 

[JOE!]

It is impossible to make the 1599 match-ups in the game 6 - 4 or better.

1599 - 41 (dittos) = 1558 / 2 (mirrored) = 779 MU's

bit less drastic, but still a ton lol

 

[Nausicaa]

DOUBLES IS BETTAR

 

[SpiderMad]

1599 - 41 (dittos) = 1558 / 2 (mirrored) = 779 MU's

bit less drastic, but still a ton lol

how does math work again?

 

[JOE!]

crap, messed it up lol, lets break it down:

41 characters as of 3.0

41 x 41 = 1681 total matchups

41 / 1681 are ditto matches, so they can be excluded (1681 - 41 = 1640)

from the 1640 remaining, half of them are "Zelda vs Mario" and "Mario vs Zelda", so it can safely be split in half to eliminate "mirrored" match-ups

1640 / 2 = 820

 

[Nguz95]

Or you could just use the random combinations formula. n!/[k!(n-k)!]. You could also just just plug in 41C2 into your calculator.