Tier List Speculation

[Kink-Link5]

it still baffles me how so many people think squirtle is the worst character

Ness and Ganon are good contenders, but Squirtle is pretty booty butt cheeks.

 

[Hylian]

My thoughts about characters after apex are..exactly the same!!! My predictions for the results were also spot on though aside from Rolex so no surprise there.

 

[Bryonato]

Aight, spent my whole flight thinking on this.

Post Apex (and my first) 3.0 Tier List

A:
Fox
Falco
Sheik
MK
Wolf
Pit
Mario
Diddy
Peach
Wario

B:
Lucas
Snake
Ivy
Marth
ZSS
Ike
Dk
Kirby
Yoshi
Link
Zelda
ROB
CF
Mewtwo
Samus

C:
Tink
Lucario
Bowser
Roy
Sonic
GnW
D3
Puff
Luigi
Ness
Zard
Squirtle
Pikachu
Olimar
Ganon



IDK what to do with this character:
ICies

hope I didn't forget anyone

 

[Taojaz]

Lucas is too low on that list. He didn't really have a great showing at Apex, but he's definitely one of the best characters.

Also, Marth and Roy are way too high. So are the Ice Climbers, to an extent. They're good but without wobbling and with the new melee mechanics I don't think anybody is able to play them well enough yet to warrant them being top tier or even high tier.

EDIT: Sorry, responding to Kaeldiar's list.

 

[Hungry Headcrab]

Ganondorf: So bad he's not even on tier lists anymore.

 

[jtm94]

Ganondorf is still really good. Having a hard time with my friend's Ganon, he's such a in-your-face character with half of his moves being KO moves.

 

[DMG]

Still really good, but so relatively bad.

 

[Frost | Odds]

I don't think Tink gets enough credit. I could be wrong, but I think he deserves to be quite a bit higher than most of these lists.

 

[pikmin.org]

Is it just me or does a lot of this thread consist of:

-Person posts arbitrary tier list with no explanation as to the placings of individual characters.

-People argue, with no explanation, against the position of various characters on said tier list

And, uh, to make this posts not useless (and ironic): I think Puff can handle most of the new characters fairly well (there seems to be a consensus that she has a lot of trouble against the newer characters comopared to melee); it just takes a really disciplined play style to play optimally, something most characters don't need nearly as much. She still has decent rest set-ups on non-fastfallers at low percents like u-tilt --> rest and n-air --> rest. And while the recovery of most characters is significantly better than the average one in melee, most characters are still very vulnerable a fair way off the stage, where Jigglypuff can reach with safety and relatively ease. The comment has been made many times that on-stage edge-guarding is worse in P:M, but few characters can contend with b-airs/f-airs far off-stage with puff, and it only takes one at a decent hit to seal the stock.

 

[NeonApophis]

Lucas is too low on that list. He didn't really have a great showing at Apex, but he's definitely one of the best characters.

Yeah, this is accurate. I'm pretty sure I ended up getting 25th as the highest placing Lucas main, since Oracle was using ROB at Apex. I got eliminated after losing a close set to a Mario player who I later money matched and crushed 3-0, so my Lucas definitely could have placed higher if I had been playing well during the tournament. One of the issues with Lucas is that it's hard to be consistent given his extremely high tech skill requirements, which will likely cause him to have higher variance in tournament placings. However, since the tier list is supposed to evaluate the characters' capabilities, Lucas's difficulty shouldn't really affect his placing. People will get consistent with him eventually. So far I think his only potentially losing matchups are against Fox, Falco, and Wolf, and everything else seems at least equal. I also think he destroys certain melee high tier characters like Marth, Puff, and Falcon. I managed to beat M2K's Marth in a money match this weekend, largely because of how bad the matchup is for Marth (he's also not that experienced in the matchup, but he did at least play Hammertime recently, so he at least knows how Lucas's moves work). The problem is that Lucas can stay safe during shield pressure, so the opponent generally has to approach Lucas in order to gain an advantage. Marth can't just DD around waiting to get a grab, since Lucas can use djc pkf and aerial magnet to retreating fair shield pressure to stay very safe and then punish extremely hard when he lands a hit. This general dynamic applies to a lot of matchups, and is the reason why spacies do so well against him; they can pressure almost as well as Lucas, but are way better on defense due to shine oos and are therefore able to maintain better control by refuting a lot of standard Lucas pressure. I'm not sure exactly where Lucas should be, but I still think he is probably top tier because of how strong his pressure is, how hard he punishes, and the fact that his oos game will probably become decent as people start using pk burst and wavedash oos more effectively.

 

[Blondie.]

Call me crazy, but I'm fairly certain Mario wins against the sword characters.

Considering how much space he controls with a combination of fireballs, wavedashes, his high priority aerials, and his super long ranged fsmash, I really feel like he beats Marth and Roy very easily. Meta Knight might be a different story, but Mario has some really brutal combos on him too. Mario is a definite top 8 character imo.

 

[Commander]

Call me crazy, but I'm fairly certain Mario wins against the sword characters.

Considering how much space he controls with a combination of fireballs, wavedashes, his high priority aerials, and his super long ranged fsmash, I really feel like he beats Marth and Roy very easily. Meta Knight might be a different story, but Mario has some really brutal combos on him too. Mario is a definite top 8 character imo.

Everything you listed is easily beaten out by any of the FE trio. His projectiles are destroyed by jabs, the FE trio have great wavedashes, there is nothing higher in priority than a totally disjointed hit box, and Mario's fsmash does not compare to the range of the FE trio.

 

[Nguz95]

Just want to say that Ganon is crazy. He's a really good character, which tells me that PM is really bunched up in terms of character viability.

 

[B.W.]

People will sleep on Toon Link forever.

 

[Kink-Link5]

People will sleep on Toon Link forever.

People will sleep on Toon Link until he shows the capacity to do more than throw bombs until 170%. He may have been given more kill moves than Young Link, but setting them up is pretty grueling given how hard he gets punished and how much additional setting up he needs to do just to transition from a neutral to an advantageous position.

 

[metroid1117]

Wouldn't the idea that tier lists grow more accurate with time essentially imply that tier lists will always be inaccurate for an infinite amount of time unless an arbitrary cutoff point in time is determined beforehand?

To some extent yes, since Melee's metagame has continued to evolve over the past 12 years. However, in the recent years, nothing has occurred to shake the core foundations of the top characters consisting of Fox/Falco/Jiggs/Sheik/Marth/Peach/CF (in no particular order, although that's just what the current tier list is) and the characters in the top 8 from APEX 2014 reflect this. That being said, some things may still need to be considered for the lower-tiered characters, such as Young Link having an advantageous match-up against Jigglypuff and aMSa shedding light on what Yoshi can do. So yes, I think the tier list will continue to change over time, but the changes will become less and less drastic over time to a point where we can say with some certainty what tier some characters belong (like what's happened with Melee).

 

[Kink-Link5]

Melee is an amazing game that characters are still being explored and developed 12 years later. I love PM to pieces, but I feel that the mere chance of retouches to balance and design will make it harder to have the kind of thought defying results of Melee.

That being said, I'm not opposed to balance or design changes where warranted; rather it's just an observation that makes Melee, a game that is very definitely finished and won't be readdressed, still has tech being invented and reapplied over a decade later.

God **** I love Smash and the Smash community so much. Never change, and always wavedash for a better tomorrow.

 

[Deleted member]

Call me crazy, but I'm fairly certain Mario wins against the sword characters.

Considering how much space he controls with a combination of fireballs, wavedashes, his high priority aerials, and his super long ranged fsmash, I really feel like he beats Marth and Roy very easily. Meta Knight might be a different story, but Mario has some really brutal combos on him too. Mario is a definite top 8 character imo.

I have a slightly different angle on this. I agree that Mario beats Marth and Roy handily. I also think Mario does unusually well against MK, since MK basically folds to projectiles (and admittedly not much else). However, I think he's also in a weird situation where he doesn't beat out Ike, since he seems to get caught in the air more than never.

 

[Kaeldiar]

Wouldn't the idea that tier lists grow more accurate with time essentially imply that tier lists will always be inaccurate for an infinite amount of time unless an arbitrary cutoff point in time is determined beforehand?

First off, this ^

Is it just me or does a lot of this thread consist of:

-Person posts arbitrary tier list with no explanation as to the placings of individual characters.

-People argue, with no explanation, against the position of various characters on said tier list

Secondly...I didn't feel like putting an in-depth explanation about everyone. I don't really need to explain why Fox is top tier. Everyone knows. I added the tag onto my tier list so that people would start talking and questioning certain positions. If we have a problem with a placement, we can talk about it.

Well, you're certainly not on the Yoshi hype train :D

Interestingly, promises of Yoshi's potential came not from P:M performance this Apex, but aMSa's performance in Melee. Dude got top 10 with a Yoshi, right? What if aMSa had been playing P:M? Would have been interesting, certainly ...

Nope, no Yoshi hype. I have yet to see anyone really effectively use Yoshi in a top tier capacity. I have watched vids of the "Top Yoshis" and my opinion is that he sits where most characters sit. If played well, he can beat any average player. If played VERY well, he can beat some good players. If played at his peak, he still loses out to top tier characters being played at a high level. I just wasn't impressed.

Mario and Marth are extremely high on that list, while Yoshi is a bit low. Wolf is a little high as well; I'm not thoroughly impressed with his pressure or control compared to the other characters around him. It looks roughly alright otherwise.

Mario has über (autocorrect added the umlaut :D ) potential in this game. He will never be top tier because he is still the "jack of all trades, master of none," but I don't see him having very many bad match ups. Let's not forget why Fox/Falco/Sheik/Marth/Jigglypuff are so high tier. At most, they have 3 disadvantageous match ups. Mario has the ability to handle anyone pretty well. An M2K level Mario could feasibly take 1st or 2nd at darn near any tournament. He has a giant toolbox of weapons that work against anyone.

Marth still seems to be Marth, so that's why he's so high. He does exactly what he did in Melee, and to only a slightly lesser degree.

First off, Wolf is one that I'm not sure about. I put him so high because I've seen some pretty good Wolfs. I was disappointed with the Apex performance, but I think he'll settle somewhere in the top 2 tiers.

it still baffles me how so many people think squirtle is the worst character

THE worst? I don't know. ONE of the worst? Yes. I've said a couple times that Squirtle is just lacking in several departments, and there are functional clones all around him. His new armor is cool, but easily handled. For one, Link can just drop a bomb and then not have to worry about Withdraw.

Lucas is too low on that list. He didn't really have a great showing at Apex, but he's definitely one of the best characters.

Also, Marth and Roy are way too high. So are the Ice Climbers, to an extent. They're good but without wobbling and with the new melee mechanics I don't think anybody is able to play them well enough yet to warrant them being top tier or even high tier.

EDIT: Sorry, responding to Kaeldiar's list.

It disappointed me to place him outside the top 10, but there aren't as many stellar Lucases out there to warrant him a higher spot. I see him moving up the list a handful of spots given enough time. He can pressure like a God.

Marth has been explained.

Roy. One word: Sethlon. Watch Sethlon at Apex and you will see why he is so high. Roy has been resurrected from the grave that was Melee, and he is actually one of my favorites in P:M. In fact, I see the potential for him to move UP some spots.

Ice Climbers are another that I'm not as sure about, but they're still the Ice Climbers, so I had trouble dropping them lower. There are some new chain-grab options out there (harder than wobbling, but still present), so IC has to be developed a bit more.

Ganondorf is still really good. Having a hard time with my friend's Ganon, he's such a in-your-face character with half of his moves being KO moves.

Ganon is pretty good against lower and mid level players, but when you reach a certain point, all that becomes obsolete. Put the best Ganon in the world against any of the top 8 at Apex, and he would get wrecked. He just feels like Brawl Ganon to me :/ I feel like he's alright, but in the same way that EVERYONE in P:M is alright.

I don't think Tink gets enough credit. I could be wrong, but I think he deserves to be quite a bit higher than most of these lists.

Tink is not good. It makes me sad. His recovery is weak. He isn't as floaty as in Brawl, and he doesn't stall-then-fall on his dair, not to mention sweetspotting it is hard. He is worse than in Brawl, and that's all to be said. He plays like Smash 64 Link, which is just not a good play style for P:M. Maybe he has some potential in doubles???

Call me crazy, but I'm fairly certain Mario wins against the sword characters.

Considering how much space he controls with a combination of fireballs, wavedashes, his high priority aerials, and his super long ranged fsmash, I really feel like he beats Marth and Roy very easily. Meta Knight might be a different story, but Mario has some really brutal combos on him too. Mario is a definite top 8 character imo.

Mario beats a sword character if he can get in, same as anyone else. He has the tools to get in, as well, which is why I think he's better than a lot of people give him credit for.

 

[Nguz95]

I think Kage could handle anyone in the top 8 except for M2K and Armada. The man is mountain of Ganon power.

 

[Soft Serve]

I think Kage could handle anyone in the top 8 except for M2K and Armada. The man is mountain of Ganon power.

Kage got knocked out of apex by neon's lucas iirc. Ganon just loses the neutral game against so many characters, its hard for me to see him as even with most of the cast.

 

[The_Enlightenment_]

I have a slightly different angle on this. I agree that Mario beats Marth and Roy handily. I also think Mario does unusually well against MK, since MK basically folds to projectiles (and admittedly not much else). However, I think he's also in a weird situation where he doesn't beat out Ike, since he seems to get caught in the air more than never.

Mario loses to nobody and has the the tools to go at least even with everyone. If you cant beat someone with him it means you need to be better end of story. Solids traits in nearly every aspect make him perfect wonderful and definitely top tier. Allow me to enlighten you:

First of hes rather mobile. Decent ground mobility, okay ddance, great wavedash for burst mobility, and unfortunate jump height. This is all accounted for by his other traits though. His approach is strong with fast aerials, good shffl, and buffed fireballs along with a fantastic jab for mixups. He has a good grab that can pile on damage and set up combos, great combo extenders in the form of his bair nair and usir, great combo starters in the form of his usmash utilt uair dair dtilt and great kill moves/combo finishers in the form of dsmash fsmash and fair. Hes very bulky with a buffed crouch cancel game with the addition of dtilt, can tank most attacks at low damage, and has great priority with no fear of trades, unlike lighter chars like fox marth etc. Buffed and nearly unfair recovery with fireballs to help cover it and unhimpability, great edgegaurdgame with bair reverse uair dair and stage spike nair along with fireballs and cape.

He is incredibly good and if you arent succeeding with him you are probably bad at the game(no surprise). Ive seen all of the marios around here that pretend they are good with the only actual good mario being chaddd's mario, everyone else is just mildly cute. Nobody else is dedicated enough and are too willing to quit and whine about bad matchups and cry about fox being op, who has more weaknesses than people usually account for. Marth vs doc is actually one of docs better matchups in melee and this mario is better in every aspect aside from uair usmash and fair which is a huge let down but fsmash compensates for these and more. I havent been to a tournament yet but I play with people who habe and am hoping to go to one soon. After i destroy the texas pm scrubs hopefully ill be able to prove marios power, until then ill just have to listen to you guys whine about sword characters beaten mario which is painful but powerful motivation. Just watch yourselves, especially you strong bad i have my eye on you the most

 

[Time2Play]

Just watch yourselves, especially you strong bad i have my eye on you the most

That escalated quickly

 

[CORY]

hahahaha, shots fired. 3 days registered, already calling out umbreon and strong bad.

 

[Vashimus]

Isn't that how Leffen came to the community?

Also, Marth is one of Doc's BEST matchups in Melee? He's obviously trolling.

 

[Deleted member]

Somebody certainly thinks very highly of themselves.

 

[Deleted member]

hahahaha, shots fired. 3 days registered, already calling out umbreon and strong bad.

I mean, I've been enlightened. I didn't really disagree with anything in that post, trust me I read it lol.

 

[The_Enlightenment_]

Isn't that how Leffen came to the community?

Also, Marth is one of Doc's BEST matchups in Melee? He's obviously trolling.

For real baddy, ill upload videos of me smashing top texas players soon enough. Melees been out for like 12 years and still people cant figure out how to beat marth, its not that hard and if you all werent a bunch of quitters and migrate to pm because it was easier then you would probably be aware of docs great crouch cancel on marths aerials and great spacing and approach. Maybe worse than fox but hes relatively balanced and easy to handle, nowhere near as bad as sheik. I havent been playing long but just from observing i can tell that all of you have the wrong mentality if you want to succeed, just drop the whining and better yourself, especially you strong bad i saw that garbo dk at big house 3 get flattened by sfat and he started crying like holy wow. If this is your jesus then i have nothing to worry about when i snipe your next national

 

[The_Enlightenment_]

I mean, I've been enlightened. I didn't really disagree with anything in that post, trust me I read it lol.

This man knows whats up. Props and +rep

 

[NWRL]

For real baddy, ill upload videos of me smashing top texas players soon enough. Melees been out for like 12 years and still people cant figure out how to beat marth, its not that hard and if you all werent a bunch of quitters and migrate to pm because it was easier then you would probably be aware of docs great crouch cancel on marths aerials and great spacing and approach. Maybe worse than fox but hes relatively balanced and easy to handle, nowhere near as bad as sheik. I havent been playing long but just from observing i can tell that all of you have the wrong mentality if you want to succeed, just drop the whining and better yourself, especially you strong bad i saw that garbo dk at big house 3 get flattened by sfat and he started crying like holy wow. If this is your jesus then i have nothing to worry about when i snipe your next national

>Migrating to P:M because its easier

Thanks for proving you're ********. Some of us want to play Brawl's cast with better physics.

The only thing that's gonna be smashed in Texas is your mom's cooter by my dingus

 

[NightShadow6]

So why do people rate olimar so low? Hes only bottom if he doesn't have a purple.

 

[Deleted member]

i know more than a few people that migrated to PM because it's easier. like myself.

 

[The_Enlightenment_]

>Migrating to P:M because its easier

Thanks for proving you're ********. Some of us want to play Brawl's cast with better physics.

The only thing that's gonna be smashed in Texas is your mom's cooter by my dingus

Then how do you explain the sentiment towards species and spacy mains in the pm community, spurred on by strong bad and his salty gang of quitter baddies? Im sorry, but every time I see an anti fox/falco thread come up claiming how theyre op and that theyre slaying the innocence of virgin project m I can really be blamed for feeling these types of players are too susceptible to getting angry about losing to great solid characters (not op though, just lik how there hasnt been too many op chars in the pm history aside from pre build sonic and ike) and are playing pm because the matchups are more lenient on them and they feel less pressured to improve. Maybe thats just me but Ive always felt that way and I couldnt stand lurking the pm boards any more when all this was going on. I like the game though, lots of interesting details and features that were added, and I like playing against every character as cpus, but im very disappointed in the community. Also thanks for blowing me off and talking about banging my mom dude, guess thats only a testament to the maturity of this community.

 

[Frost | Odds]

T_E is pretty rude and his post formatting sucks, but I think I like him.

i know more than a few people that migrated to PM because it's easier. like myself.

Sort of same? That is, I like the idea of an as-yet undeveloped metagame. I'd rather map it out myself than follow someone else's guide.

 

[NWRL]

Then how do you explain the massive sentiment against spacies in the

Then how do you explain the sentiment towards species and spacy mains in the pm community, spurred on by strong bad and his salty gang of quitter baddies? Im sorry, but every time I see an anti fox/falco thread come up claiming how theyre op and that theyre slaying the innocence of virgin project m I can really be blamed for feeling these types of players are too susceptible to getting angry about losing to great solid characters (not op though, just lik how there hasnt been too many op chars in the pm history aside from pre build sonic and ike) and are playing pm because the matchups are more lenient on them and they feel less pressured to improve. Maybe thats just me but Ive always felt that way and I couldnt stand lurking the pm boards any more when all this was going on. I like the game though, lots of interesting details and features that were added, and I like playing against every character as cpus, but im very disappointed in the community. Also thanks for blowing me off and talking about banging my mom dude, guess thats only a testament to the maturity of this community.

I agree with you on the spacie hate, it's undeserved.

But with anything dealing with forums you may see a lot of people ******** and whining instead of improving and that's because angry/bads are more vocal. Look at the GD forums for WoW/LoL etc and you'll see exactly what I mean. Loud vocal minority =/= the majority of players.

The mom joke was in bad taste but I couldn't resist the opportunity.

 

[MLGF]

TBQH, I picked up Project M because of how some of rebalanced characters have flow more reminiscent of a traditional fighting game compared to many Melee characters, and I was playing plenty of traditional fighters at the time so it was a much easier transition then if I went Melee.

 

[Deleted member]

Also thanks for blowing me off and talking about banging my mom dude, guess thats only a testament to the maturity of this community.

We get a lot of the sad-life members from other communities. The best answer is to ignore them usually. Or be better than them after a week of playing (this is alarmingly easy lol).

 

[NWRL]

Hey my life is only sad when I stop to think about it.

 

[Thor]

T_E: If you don't like people whining about MUs and making P:M lenient, demand that the P:M backroom import Melee Pichu as is and start stomping everyone with him. Then no one will say you are switching to P:M cuz it's easier.

Oh wait, you're claiming you'll be better than others because you use the character that [you say] goes even with or beats everyone, someone who benefited from moving over to P:M. THAT makes sense and OBVIOUSLY proves you're super skilled. Sort of like how Nairo and CT Zero use MK and I'm sure you've got loads of respect for their Brawl skillz. Or like when you beat a Kirby with Fox in Melee. Great skills man!

Also Marth beats Doc, first four minutes are enough to see this (Shroomed is the best Doc I can think of or have ever seen, and he's stomped because it's Marth): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61B5STtPoQM

 

[popsofctown]

How can any competitive game be "easier" or harder than another? If it's easier for you, then it's easier for the guy trying to beat you, and thus not so easy for you.

If your point is that the group of people playing the game is easier to overcome, then I guess every melee player out there is a scrub who switched to melee because it's easier because no one can beat Isai.