Tier List Speculation

[Nausicaa]

Samus has so many tools now that I try to implement all of them into my play and half the time it gets me killed.

I don't understand where you're coming from...
What 'extra' tools does she have compared to Melee? Charging Shots in the air, a Crawl + C-Attack, Double SWD, and a Roll?
What does Ice really bring to the game that puts this over the top into 'so many tools' that it messes you up?
She's still the same Samus, very Melee-esc in the form of the same Tilts and Smashes and Jabs and Aerials having the same application in the same places with the same out-come. Grab is different, and there's those few bonus-tools, but seriously, it's really not THAT much. Look at Yoshi and everything Jump OOS brings. It's like 200% more for him than Samus JUST because of that. lol

Samus vs Falco is still even because Screw Attack OoS still ruins anything he tries to do.

Samus vs Fox is just only slightly in Fox's favor imo. Just try to pick high-ceiling stages when you can.

Even with higher ceiling's, there's still bigger stages, and she can't corner a fast character or keep them out half as well as other slow-pokes. She works with a certain sweet-spot spacing, and Fox can just run everywhere when the average stage-size is DL instead of BF.
Ledge-Cing Up-B OOS on Platforms is way more tedious too. If anything, Roll will be a saving grace to not getting her killed off what will now be TRADES since she can get punished off them more often than not, trickier decisions to make for Samus, less damage for her too.

or you hard read them (sometimes you have to do it more than once, even). :x

That^
The more people take risks that are simply calculated as EVEN for their rewards, the more the diversity and balance-of-the-cast will shine through against space animals. There is a median even against spacies in neutral, and the bar HAS been reached (this could sound hopeful, but I'm under the impression people are hopeless [they think it's hopeless to beat spacies, or whatever, you know what I mean], it's just odd to apply.
Like this.

Fox < taking risks for small rewards to start a stock elimination process
Small risks for small rewards. You have to take them, and most characters will struggle with these trades and risks due to lack of process-game to make as much of them as Fox does. It's still there though. Sheik can still Needle for some %, get a knock-down on a Hail-Mary Dash-Attack, and end it. Project: M has enough dynamics on every character to make this simply too breaking for Fox to be unprocessed enough to be the best.

Other topic, there is no tangible example of what Wolf is capable of yet, from any player. Just in the way he's doing well now, when most of the players Juu mentioned are better with Fox by miles even, lol, shows how silly the character is (you could throw a 'probably' in there if you're a noob)

 

[Plum]

I think Anti Spacie stuff is overrated in the grand scheme of things, because it guarantees nothing for how well you will do vs the rest of the cast. Like if Ike were to have a tuly even MU with all Spacies, good for him. Enjoy getting bopped by Sheik or Marth or new Samus etc. If Kirby goes even because of wild Hyper Cutter gimps and Uthrow CG, cool. We're gonna find out that he is dookie against Roy and Luigi and Lucas. As odd as it sounds, other characters ARE holding down other characters from being Spacie level, but it's less cool when that is going on and Spacies + a few friends are kind of sitting above that.

There are too many MU's to consider, and patches thrown in to shake up the game to be 100% certain on anything, BUT I feel like most characters that get near Spacie level have to deal with both the "usual" stopgate of Sheik/MK/Previous Wario (Who knows how the changes will tweak him) while also having random **** tossed at them. Like how many characters have the time to go even (or beat) Spacies, while fending off random Zard or Pit or x bad MU? With as diverse and overall strong the cast is currently, it's hard to see a character that gets past the usual stalwarts of the game and also handles the literal feeding frenzy the rest of the cast looks like MU wise. To be a better character than Fox, requires a lot more than just having a good personal MU with him. If obtaining that is through "cheesy" stuff like 0-death Uthrow combos or simplified edge guarding INSTEAD of incredible neutral game, those kind of tools don't tend to break a character over Fox. Most characters with toxic neutral games get nerfed, so it's genuinely hard to find examples of characters better than Fox.


Characters that could probably challenge Fox and Falco: Old Sonic/Lucario/Ike

Characters with "stuff" on them that still "suck" outside of those things enough: Current Ike/Zelda/Bowser/Zard/etc

(I list Fox exclusively in a lot of places, because I feel he is much harder to topple in this game than Falco or Wolf. The stage ceiling changes help vs him but he's still pretty universal on stages and in MU's)

This is precisely why I tend to be baffled when I see people place Sheik outside of the top 5 on their personal tier lists. I feel like people undervalue being a fairly neutral/even character and overvalue not having her "landslide" victories that stemmed from Dthrow. Not losing to jank is just an insanely good character trait to have that not even spacies can really claim (though they overcome this through downright incredible neutral presence). Sheik doesn't lose to "stuff", and her unique neutral game (creating conversions from a combination of strong positioning, noncommittal actions, and reactive play) gives her the tools to turn any given matchup into a skill based game.
Not even spacies can claim that they don't lose to jank. They do... they just minimize its effectiveness through an often overwhelming advantage in the neutral, which is certainly effective in its own right mind you. You'll see it when you watch an on point Mango or m2k playing Fox. The jank that they can potentially lose to (say, Jiggly's Rest punishes and edgeguarding) matters less and less when they make fewer and fewer mistakes.
This is why I also can't see putting Wolf above Fox or Falco (though Falco is closer) like some people are wont to do. Wolf's combo game is downright silly, sure, but you don't get access to that without the neutral. Fox or Falco in general will have to make more conversions per stock than Wolf, but have an easier time and more opportunities to make conversions.

 

[Nausicaa]

What do you mean, 'doesn't lose to jank' stuff? She gets clobbered if she gets touched, but thrives off stale-mating everyone from Doc to Peach, not over-cheesing them with combos. She neutralizes the neutral, she's good at that, but it's her best bet BECAUSE she gets cheesed hard with every combo in the book. Hence she can struggle so hard with space-animals. The neutral is where jank thrives (see-spacies jank-neutrals), not the other way around. If her OR Doc grab each-other, they get clobbered for it. Doc lacks cheese in neutral, the match-up has NOTHING to do with her land-slides from D-Throw, or even beast combos, since they BOTH have them on each other. This is the same throughout the entire cast, and she's still gravitating to stale-mating the neutral-game.
She doesn't win it any other way. The more nuances are worked out with the rest of the cast, the more trouble she'll have throughout the game. This is basic stuff and I'm sure it's been covered in this thread alone like 10 times. XD

 

[Jolteon]

Sheik still loses to "jank" (that's really vague also... >_> what do you even mean?). She's extremely good because her reactionary defense and punish game are incredible.

 

[Hylian]

More stuff to talk about:

Diddy...holy crap diddy why u so stronggg x.x.

 

[Nausicaa]

She's extremely good because her reactionary defense and punish game are incredible.

Neutralizing and stale-mating the neutral game is how she wins. Exactly!

Jank is super vague, I'm just going to assume Plum meant 'silly stupid cheesy things' unless corrected. lol
The paragraph I wrote was confusing. Simpler terms.
She gets combo'd by everything in the game, but can combo everything in the game. So if there's anything silly (jank) in neutral, then there's a chance she'll struggle. If there's nothing silly (jank) in neutral, then she likely won't struggle very much. (She can neutralize a more neutral-neutral than she can a jank-neutral)

The silly (jank) punishes that everyone has don't matter as much against her, since she gets punished hard anyway, hence it's the jank in neutral that makes or breaks her. Due to the 'everyone-must-beat-Fox-in-neutral' direction that a buff-heavy game will naturally take, there's a LOT more jank in Neutral in PM, and she don't like no jank.


*Note on Jank: As far as I understand from the definition/how it's used... I think this is a sentence.
The Jank Jank is Jank.
Because it can describe itself, AS itself, and having it describe itself can also be defined using itself.
It's also a double pun in that phrase.

Edit: Hylian, you still didn't answer why you think Samus does really well against spacies, and I'm still curious. Is there something with Ice that breaks it? Or how crawl is working out? If it was just a hype thing, that's cool, but if serious, lemme know. I like killing spacies more.

Diddy lame.

 

[Hylian]

I've been too busy to answer, off to work in 5 mins as well. Crawling plays a big part as well as ice upsmash and missiles.

 

[Scythe]

samus is getting really overrated by you guys, she's pretty much the same as melee. Which means she is almost unviable.

 

[shadow0x0cloud]

samus is getting really overrated by you guys, she's pretty much the same as melee. Which means she is almost unviable.

I can't hear you! LA LA LA LA LA LA LA

 

[NWRL]

samus is getting really overrated by you guys, she's pretty much the same as melee. Which means she is almost unviable.

She's been out for 3 days dude what are you talking about

 

[Sanity's_Theif]

Pk fire is a n00b killer.

Like Ike's fsmash in Brawl, ZOMG SO OP, NERF IKE"S PLZ

PK fire is easy to deal with, I wasn't complaining about that

 

[DMG]

Samus floaty and approaches like sissy woman

Universe will not be kind to her

 

[Overswarm]

More stuff to talk about:

Diddy...holy crap diddy why u so stronggg x.x.

I know, right? You don't even need bananas. You can approach with fair and land behind shield. It's nuts.

 

[ELI-mination]

Not only is it nuts, its bananas!

Eli (?) Yes, Eli too. I mostly like using Wolf in doubles specifically, especially if I'm teaming with a defensive player.

Diddy is gahlike now, finally has the **** he deserves.

Ness sucks but is mad fun to use. I don't even use PK fire when I play and its like his best move lol.

Samus is mad good.

I'm really thinking of just straight up dropping Luigi... I just don't have the same drive to play Luigi as I used to have.

Also PMBR really needs to stop making pointless changes to characters. But for the most part 3.0 is awesome. I just don't understand a lot of random changes. Like wtf @ Pit's dtilt...? Like, what discussion prompted that change lol? Like was there any actual data that was relevant to that or was it just a "eh lets tweak this for no reason because somebody dtilted a level 5 cpu once and it felt a little too good"

 

[Vixen]

pits dtilt is actually better in 3.0 than in 2.6. the iasa frames at the end make existing dtilt frame traps significantly better. Fair is +1 on block, dtilt hits frame 6, meaning only frame 5 oos options can be used, and if they're inputted even a frame slow you'll beat them out.

 

[ELI-mination]

I assume that was a bunch of technical smash bros stuff

I just hit the opponents

 

[Vixen]

you can interrupt the dtilt near the end of the animation with any action, such as another move, a shield, a dash, etc.

 

[SpiderMad]

Diddy is gahlike now, finally has the **** he deserves.

Spoiler

 

[Scythe]

She's been out for 3 days dude what are you talking about

I played melee for way longer than 3 days and she's pretty much the same. She's really fun but is going to have a lot of trouble in a lot of matchups.

 

[GP&B]

The extra range and faster startup on FSmash are pretty legit, Ice USmash finally gives Samus a good anti-air KO option, and Brawl Zair is greatly appreciated. Maybe not enough to push her into amazing, but they're all very nice.

 

[Ripple]

scythe....allow me.

samus still sucks.

 

[Soft Serve]

Samus feels good. I'm not the best samus but our local melee samus main enjoys the new options that she gets with Ice everything. In ice mode she now has more than one OoS option with u-smash, and crawling is pretty crazy good at avoiding attacks, especially considering you can crouch cancel most moves anyway up until like 80%. Lacking wall tethers makes her recovery more linear, but holy hell that tether range is insane.

Ice-fair is really amazing as well, imo. great spacing/punishing tool, gives her the kill power in ice form that the ice-missles give up.


But I play diddy so what do I know. I couldn't be happier with 3.0 at this point, Diddy got all the tweaks he needed. His tech chase game is even better, trips into grab/jab/utilt/smashes/side-b yes please.
he feels smooth as butter.

 

[GP&B]

Maybe I haven't been following Melee enough, but when did Samus start to fall out of the meta so much?

 

[Zwarm]

Maybe I haven't been following Melee enough, but when did Samus start to fall out of the meta so much?

When Rat started playing P:M instead.

 

[Vixen]

Ice Beam samus deals with some of her issues.

 

[Rat]

yeah Samus is still samus. Sure she's got a lot of new tools. But it's still floaty samus. It's gonna lose hard to shiek and jiggs.

One thing that she has going is that Her tools do well in a fresh metagame. Projectiles, Weight, and high priority attacks do well against random stuff.

Also are people saying bad stuff about Wolf's neutral game? wtf internet. His Neutral game is incredible. I think what you're trying to say is that he doesn't have NAir planes for days. He's still one of the highest mobility characters. (Also Has a shine and an amazing projectile.)

internet pls. Wolf stongk.

 

[Mr.Pickle]

Lol rat you're a cool guy. Wolf is pretty amazing btw, doesn't he have near falcon level aerial mobility or better?

 

[Rat]

yep. Wolf has real good aerial control. His physics are sort of a combination of Falcon and Fox.

Which is what he feels like to me lol.

 

[Deleted member]

idk how good zelda is

but i just hate her fucking guts

she's just so fucking annoying

i just loathe her. i wish she weren't in the game.

 

[Noxuz]

>Ness
>Anything but top 5

As a ness main, you are on crack if you think hes bottom tier

 

[Deleted member]

sign me up for the crack

 

[TheReflexWonder]

I'm pretty confident that Ness is no better than average (if even that). He's got some good tools, but it's clear that they aren't as great as a lot of people's.

 

[KayB]

In the year 20XX, PM players no longer play matches. As soon as the Character Select screen boots up, they race to see who can pick the Zelda icon first. The one who picks Zelda wins due to the opponent automatically forfeiting due to the intense amount of salt.

 

[Noxuz]

Wow im shocked, to you nay sayers i would like to wreck you with ness please.

 

[DMG]

Good attitude I GUESS but Ness poop so lost

 

[Vixen]

ness sucks. I'll just beat you at the character select screen. :|

 

[Bryonato]

>Ness
>Anything but top 5

As a ness main, you are on crack if you think hes bottom tier

"as a ness main" sorry, but he really isn't that good. he has **** range and is nearly unable to exert stage control without pkf spam which in the end isn't even that good. His weight/gravity get him comboed to all hell. pretty much anyone with a sword dunks on him due to stubby arm syndrome and it's generally easier to outcamp him unless you have a energy based projectile but even then you'll probably be stuck in absorb lag until your opponent comes up and smacks you in the face.

That said, I love the character and he's a lot of fun, but i'm not going to sit here and tell people that are better than me that they're scrubs and l2p ness top 5 lel

 

[Vixen]

Ness loses at character select. Poor kid.

 

[Xebenkeck]

Spam D-air more,

no seriously spam the **** out of it like your Falco.

 

[Juushichi]

Since when was Jiggypuff relevant in this game? Or is the implication that a Pocket Jigglypuff will beat a Samus?

People barely play sheik as it is as well.

Is "viability" the ability to solo in this game? If so, a lot of characters are on the cusp or not viable. Samus is just fine.