Tier List Speculation

[Cassio]

Lol pikachu is fine. Idk how you can argue that hes worse than melee pika when melee pika is absolute trash. Pm pika has an incredible recovery, good dashdance, solid throw game, and an upsmash thats BETTER than foxs and kills earlier with thunder. What more do you even want?

You can still gimp spacies as easily as you could in melee, but I do think that the majority of the cast having such good recoveries is a problem that shouldn't be attributed to Pikachu specifically. It's definitely my major gripe with this game.

If youre going to make bold unsupported claims while restating things already addressed, then Im assuming you have a minumum high level understanding and experience with the character to base your statements. Feel free to support this with videos or tournament placements. This is addressed to all similar types of statements without any sort of argument, if you have the knowledge/experience to back up your claims then I'll reconsider the point.

 

[Sashimi]

If we ever cross paths, I'll down throw a Hamilton on that.

Fixed.


Also to respond to the matchup question, I have yet to encounter an unfavourable matchup for Yoshi. The two worst in Melee were Sheik (Chaingrab) and Falco (lasers). The ability to jump out of shield makes lasers very easy to deal with. The ability to not get chaingrabbed to 50+% also makes Sheik much easier to deal with.

 

[Sashimi]

Whoops double post, sorry!

 

[deadjames]

Fixed.


Also to respond to the matchup question, I have yet to encounter an unfavourable matchup for Yoshi. The two worst in Melee were Sheik (Chaingrab) and Falco (lasers). The ability to jump out of shield makes lasers very easy to deal with. The ability to not get chaingrabbed to 50+% also makes Sheik much easier to deal with.

Ganon is pretty bad for Yoshi imo. Most of his moves are strong enough to break Yoshi's armor on his second jump.

 

[Sashimi]

Ganon is pretty bad for Yoshi imo. Most of his moves are strong enough to break Yoshi's armor on his second jump.

In terms of recovery, Ganondorf's aerials could break Yoshi's armor pretty early in Melee, so that doesn't surprise me (I haven't played a Ganondorf player in PM yet). Seeing as Yoshi's crazy wavelands and parrying didn't transfer well into PM, I could see this being more difficult. However, Yoshi has better pokes available (the new Ufilt and Ftilt are so silly), and based on Ganondorf's fall speed, Dair probably combos into tilts/Usmash from 0%, so I don't see it being a terrible matchup. Probably not as good as Melee (which I actually thought was in Yoshi's favour, though other Yoshi players disagree), but 6/4 Ganondorf at the most.

Also Yoshi can recover high very easily now with DJ > Side B, so Ganondorf would have a tougher time edgeguarding than in Melee.

 

[KingJacob]

The only characters from that I think they need a buff:
I think the only change Pikachu needs is a little bit better grab game (for example setting up DI traps). Ganon is probably changed massively right now so I will just wait and see... Dedede needs no change imho because of his grab range and since he is like the only character that can effectively gimp OP-recovery characters. Squirtle needs one aerial that really counters crouchcancelling (change some properties would definitely do no need to change the complete move) his grab isnt enough. Ness needs a buff definitely, not only that he isn't that good, he also plays a bit like a low tier (feels a bit to basic, not "flashy" enough, not PMish). I would like to see Olimar's pikmin to get bud and flower status sooner because otherwise he is very camp-oriented, but he probably doesn't need it its just my opinion about him.

I am pretty sure that their about 13 or so characters that every one in this entire thread will agree need buffs. They are:
Olimar, Squirtle, Game and Watch, Luigi, Pikachu, Ness, Ganondorf, Lucario, Jigglypuff, Samus, Toon Link, Sonic, and Charizard. They may not need huge buffs, but they all have something missing that keeps them in the lower half of the cast.

 

[Rᴏb]

If youre going to make bold unsupported claims while restating things already addressed, then Im assuming you have a minumum high level understanding and experience with the character to base your statements. Feel free to support this with videos or tournament placements. This is addressed to all similar types of statements without any sort of argument, if you have the knowledge/experience to back up your claims then I'll reconsider the point.

I'll admit that I have zero tournament experience, but I don't think you necessarily need that to understand how Pikachus upair works against spacies, or how most recoveries are simply better in this game. You don't even have to be that good of a player to understand such basic things, you literally just need to have played the game.

But if you wanna hold that over my head, then so be it.

And Oracle placed pretty highly at Apex, so at least take his word.

 

[Oracle]

If youre going to make bold unsupported claims while restating things already addressed, then Im assuming you have a minumum high level understanding and experience with the character to base your statements. .

unsupported

Pm pika has an incredible recovery, good dashdance, solid throw game, and an upsmash thats BETTER than foxs and kills earlier with thunder

Is pika gonna have to be another character i pick up to prove he isn't bad?

also i'm really confused why you think pika can't edgeguard because his long recovery allows him to go super deep offstage with very little risk of not making it back. Even chars like zelda will usually die to an offstage tail spike

 

[Paradoxium]

The only characters from that I think they need a buff:
I think the only change Pikachu needs is a little bit better grab game (for example setting up DI traps)

Pikachu's f throw is a DI trap, he can also chain grab with it. Come to think of it, all of his grabs can chain grab except his bthrow

All of his throws are easilt combo'd into aswell

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

I do not agree that Lucario and Charizard need buffs, at all.

And with Sonic I have no idea, because his playerbase refuses to touch him until he is restored to borked.

 

[Nazo]

Sonic's fine.

 

[shadow0x0cloud]

Is pika gonna have to be another character i pick up to prove he isn't bad?

Ugh. This would be much easier to settle if we were all face to face. Its hard to express how we ( or I ) feel without people misunderstanding.

I dont doubt you or I could play pika and show people a thing or two, but relatively speaking, Pika is a bad character. Fortunately, that is still good. All you need is a basic understanding of pika's hitboxes and you can win. If you can get the tail spike on every characters recovery, then pika is an offstage god. Just understand if you miss, they get back on stage for free. These back and forth comments aren't to prove pika will neither place in a tournament nor have any good matchups, it was mostly to quash people's false beliefs that QAC and staying mostly the same from melee is enough to bring pika to top tier.

 

[Infil]

That's another interesting question, where should these characters' targets be? Should we be hoping they become as good and as prevalent as Fox, or should they just be mostly usable and kinda cool? Like... it takes a LOT to make a character as good as Fox, and I don't think it's necessarily a good thing. I would rather they shoot for everyone to be in that A tier (based on my earlier definition); this way maybe a few of them end up being S, but most of them hang around A or B.

So, are Lucario/Charizard (to take random examples from that list) in that position right now? Do they have the capability to hang around the A or high B tier? If so, I think it's dangerous to buff them, even though they're not as good as Fox, and it's especially dangerous if they already have decent matchups against the spacies, or have the advantage against another "random" top tier (like Sheik or Marth).

 

[KingJacob]

I do not agree that Lucario and Charizard need buffs, at all.

And with Sonic I have no idea, because his playerbase refuses to touch him until he is restored to borked.

Ok, while you may not agree they need buffs, do you at least agree that they are in the lower half of the tier list? Because I have almost never seen any one say that they are above position 22. Lucario also has bad tournament results.

I think that all characters should be at least as strong as Captain Falcon currently is, but it is safest and most essential to buff the characters that every one agrees are in the lower half of the tier list. Also, I disagree with nerfing any character. It is also alright if a character ends up stronger than CF as long as they are not centralizing and they have a well constructed move set.

 

[shadow0x0cloud]

That's another interesting question, where should these characters' targets be? Should we be hoping they become as good and as prevalent as Fox, or should they just be mostly usable and kinda cool?

If there as good as Link than they're fine imo

 

[Oracle]

I don't even know what to say anymore. Pikachu has everything he needs to win any matchup, same as 90% of the characters in this game, and his tools are a lot stronger than a lot of other characters. Thats really all you can ask for in a character. I still haven't been convinced that pikachu is 'bad' and it seems like you're ignoring a lot of the insane stuff pika has.

I dont doubt you or I could play pika and show people a thing or two, but relatively speaking, Pika is a bad character. Fortunately, that is still good. All you need is a basic understanding of pika's hitboxes and you can win. If you can get the tail spike on every characters recovery, then pika is an offstage god. Just understand if you miss, they get back on stage for free.

How are you even gonna use the player missing an edgeguard as an argument for pika being bad? If I **** up then OBVIOUSLY my opponent gets back on stage, same as literally every other character in any smash game sans like brawl mk. The sheer distance of pikas recovery allows him to go extremely far out where characters are too vulnerable to protect themselves when recovering, a luxury that most characters don't have access to. Even if you don't want to go deep and you choose to edgeguard closer to the stage, the lagless qac means that if you do miss, you can quickly get back to the stage to guard from there.

People complaining about **** like pika and olimar is how we got 2.6 ivy.

 

[BJN39]

Mario can walljump in Melee, wallclinging isn't anything new and they took it away from Lucario actually, Zelda has the same recovery she does in Melee, Ike's walljump off of his SideB is much better than his UpB, but I guess it goes pretty high. Link and Young Link can float indefinitely in Melee not new.

So basically you just mostly brought up characters that already had decent recoveries, they just don't suck now and that makes it a problem?

Mewtwo, Kirby, and G&W also have decent recovery straight out of Melee, I guess they're all a problem in PM too.

@ bolded part.

jtm94, you're very mistaken if you think zelda has the same recovery she does in melee, unless, of course you just mean the fact that she is intangible in the middle of it.

In melee, if you reappeared in the air, you had to wait like, three dozen frames before you could even move side to side. In P:M, you can maneuver almost immediately. This is huge. P:M has also reduced the special fall landing lag, the grounded reappear length, and the ledge grabbing ability. (You can grab backwards.) They also added "no poof" above ledge grabbing to further improve it.


So yeah, it's definitely not the same, and it's definitely improved.

 

[Ripple]

3 dozen? try 6 dozen

 

[BJN39]

3 dozen? try 6 dozen

Well, I almost said a hundred.

EDIT; Went and checked for fun. (GIF courtesy of standardtoaster!)

Teleport

Total: 114
Hit: 10-11
Invincible: 33-53
Time to aim: 33

So that would be 79 frames of lag!

And that's just for the grounded version!

 

[NightShadow6]

Lets let the metagame develop for longer than 6 months. Everyone is in a decent spot where they can compete.

 

[B.W.]

Being a Toon Link main and having Pikachu as an on and off second, I think these characters are mostly fine. There are only a few things I'd like to see fiddled with with both of these characters, but they have the tools to compete and shouldn't be anywhere near the bottom of any tier. With a letter tier list with S at the highest and D at the lowest I'd place both of these characters anywhere from top to mid B tier probably.

 

[KingJacob]

Lets let the metagame develop for longer than 6 months. Everyone is in a decent spot where they can compete.

I disagree. While it is true that the game is more balanced than any other version of smash ever has been, their is no harm whatsoever in giving extremely minor buffs to the members of the cast that are universally recognized as being in the lower half. No danger could possible come from it, and it would give motivation for more players to try to advance the metagames of those characters. As long as you are careful with your buffs, their is no way a lower tier character will ever become too powerful.

 

[Metazoa]

I disagree. While it is true that the game is more balanced than any other version of smash ever has been, their is no harm whatsoever in giving extremely minor buffs to the members of the cast that are universally recognized as being in the lower half. No danger could possible come from it, and it would give motivation for more players to try to advance the metagames of those characters. As long as you are careful with your buffs, their is no way a lower tier character will ever become too powerful.

But what happens if you give unexplored characters who are secretly very strong a buff? You can never know what "fix" can lead to "super overpowered".

And if the prevailing idea becomes "If we mess up, we can just patch it out", I don't think Project M should continue to be used as a competitive platform. A proper metagame cannot be very well-developed if the game is hit with patches everytime someone cries "x is too weak" or "y is broken".

 

[NightShadow6]

I disagree. While it is true that the game is more balanced than any other version of smash ever has been, their is no harm whatsoever in giving extremely minor buffs to the members of the cast that are universally recognized as being in the lower half. No danger could possible come from it, and it would give motivation for more players to try to advance the metagames of those characters. As long as you are careful with your buffs, their is no way a lower tier character will ever become too powerful.

But what if those characters aren't nearly as bad as people think? All it takes is one dedicated main to make a character look scary. If we want an example look at olimar, the character has such a myriad of different moves because of the different pikmin. Even though he is looked at as the worst in the game, he could possibly have the most damage output of any character with the right line up. Which isn't that difficult to achieve with the right line up. (Somewhat random but you can survive while trying to get the one you prefer)

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

As long as you are careful with your buffs, their is no way a lower tier character will ever become too powerful.

This is literally the kind of thinking that led to 2.6 Ivy and Wario. While the latter was not as close to "mindlessly OP and thus too good" as Ivy, he had to be taken down a peg in the latest version.

Lucario spawning with an aura charge each stock goes a long towards improving his game. You can argue whether Lucario is still in the bottom half of the cast once 3.0 has been out for more than a month. Preferably, like 6 months minimum.

Charizard has above average speed, killing power, juggle game, grab range and recovery. I have no idea how he needs buffs, given that his difficulty with projectiles and susceptibility to pressure are not crippling weaknesses that only serve to balance him out. Zard's match-up spread looks a lot like Bowser's (without going even with Falco).

Edit: Also as a philosophical point, P:M tier lists aren't Best --> Worst, they're "Mostly Even Matchups --> Polarizing Match-Ups", with the exception of the few characters whose kits leave them with few good options and thus few good match-ups. Ganon, Dedede and Ness are good examples of the latter, who do need to be looked at. The entire second half of the cast, not so much.

 

[KingJacob]

But what if those characters aren't nearly as bad as people think? All it takes is one dedicated main to make a character look scary. If we want an example look at olimar, the character has such a myriad of different moves because of the different pikmin. Even though he is looked at as the worst in the game, he could possibly have the most damage output of any character with the right line up. Which isn't that difficult to achieve with the right line up. (Somewhat random but you can survive while trying to get the one you prefer)

This is understandable, and I agree that we should be careful and give characters time to grow. This is why I think we should focus on the characters who are considered the lowest, and not stray even above the half way point of the tier list. I would also focus on characters who have had not had changes in a long time, because most of them are quite explored. Ganondorf is a great example of a character whose metagame is very fleshed out, and it still obviously lacking. Their is no way that buffing him slightly is risky.

To Lordling:
Ivysaur 2.6 is nothing like what I am describing because he was buffed a lot from 2.5. If Ivysaur had been taken directly from 2.5 to his version in 3.0, then that would be what I am looking for. Buffs need to be very small and incremental.

 

[Paradoxium]

I don't even know what to say anymore. Pikachu has everything he needs to win any matchup, same as 90% of the characters in this game, and his tools are a lot stronger than a lot of other characters. Thats really all you can ask for in a character. I still haven't been convinced that pikachu is 'bad' and it seems like you're ignoring a lot of the insane stuff pika has.
How are you even gonna use the player missing an edgeguard as an argument for pika being bad? If I **** up then OBVIOUSLY my opponent gets back on stage, same as literally every other character in any smash game sans like brawl mk. The sheer distance of pikas recovery allows him to go extremely far out where characters are too vulnerable to protect themselves when recovering, a luxury that most characters don't have access to. Even if you don't want to go deep and you choose to edgeguard closer to the stage, the lagless qac means that if you do miss, you can quickly get back to the stage to guard from there.

People complaining about **** like pika and olimar is how we got 2.6 ivy.

FINALLY, someone who shares my point of view on Pikachu, all it takes is one person doing good with the character and everyone is gonna change their minds, it happens so often

 

[jtm94]

@ bolded part.

jtm94, you're very mistaken if you think zelda has the same recovery she does in melee, unless, of course you just mean the fact that she is intangible in the middle of it.

In melee, if you reappeared in the air, you had to wait like, three dozen frames before you could even move side to side. In P:M, you can maneuver almost immediately. This is huge. P:M has also reduced the special fall landing lag, the grounded reappear length, and the ledge grabbing ability. (You can grab backwards.) They also added "no poof" above ledge grabbing to further improve it.


So yeah, it's definitely not the same, and it's definitely improved.

I was talking distance. And the fact that it can sweetspot the ledge.

Grabbing from backwards at the apex of the special jump applies to any character and doesn't necessarily make hers better in any way.
Her side B does give her better recovery because of how it slows her decent, if you would have brought that up I would have no response, and I did in fact forget to account for that aspect. Take away the glide from dins fire.

 

[THK]

I disagree. While it is true that the game is more balanced than any other version of smash ever has been, their is no harm whatsoever in giving extremely minor buffs to the members of the cast that are universally recognized as being in the lower half. No danger could possible come from it, and it would give motivation for more players to try to advance the metagames of those characters. As long as you are careful with your buffs, their is no way a lower tier character will ever become too powerful.

Careful with that, even the most minor of fixes can be a huge gamechanger. I've seen this in too many other games.

 

[Kink-Link5]

See also:

"-All throws (up, down, forward, and back) release points adjusted to be closer to Melee"

And thus about 30 openings from a grab became readily available.

 

[Sashimi]

Careful with that, even the most minor of fixes can be a huge gamechanger. I've seen this in too many other games.

THK is right.

I mean look at spacies. Remove just a single frame of invincibility on shine, and suddenly they're garbage tier.





But jokes aside, buffing characters is always risky, and I think letting the metagame develop a bit will tell us who needs to be changed.

 

[Soft Serve]

To be honest, even though I've said I don't like zelda's design before, Its grown on me. Not in that its gotten any more interesting, but that I don't mind fighting it anymore. I resent started seriously playing to win so I don't have any quarrels with "lame" tactics anymore. Hell, In a recent melee bracket at a weekly I platformed camped IC's as fox for 6 min minimum per match. I have no problems with having 18+ min best out of 3's.

I know I would be incredibly upset if people were complaining about Diddy being too easy to camp as (Don't get me started, on this) or that his options were lame, and thus Diddy was changed drastically. It would be like all my ****ing work to improve my character's meta and my own gameplay was just thrown out the window. Imagine that all that time spent on how to fully optimize the output of what you're doing with your character didn't matter anymore. I would never ever wish that upon zelda mains, or anyone else for that matter. I understand that certain characters in the past have been a bit overbearing and had to be toned down, and I applaud those character mains that stuck through the changes (Mainly Lucario, sanic and ivy mains), but at this point in the game I'm certain that every character has the capacity to perform well. Pikachu is fine, Olimar is fine, Squirtle is fine. except ganon *** him

I also don't want matchups that I had learned to drastically change either. I think nerfs (and buffs) should be done incredibly carefully and very very slight, as the PMBR has been doing for the most part bar 2.6>3.0 Ivy.

I've finally found a character that I truly, truly enjoy in a smash game, and at the end of the day, I just want to play that character without worrying that he will change with the next update. Let the meta-game settle before we call out for drastic changes. If the game is slower than you would want then oh well, adapt to it. Smash should be played slowly and patiently. Offensive options are strictly worse than defensive options in most cases, and I don't think that should change.

PMBR please leave diddy the way he is he is perfect

 

[Infil]

In fact, if people are too quick to react to character being broken or top tier, what you get is players actively keeping technology to themselves, lest they show it off in a tournament and it gets nerfed later. People are scared to flesh out a character, and the game just starts to stagnate.

This is really bad for the game, and it's why constant patching in either direction is scary. People will either not care to develop tech because they think a character will be buffed if they don't, or they'll keep tech to themselves so they don't get nerfed if they share it. It becomes a game of chicken between the developers and the players, and nobody wins.

The PM guys really should decide on a final build (bugs notwithstanding) and let the community have at it for, like, 6 months minimum, and probably longer. The sad thing is that they kind of have a small window to "get it right", in the sense that the community is already somewhat divided between games and will only get even more divided when Smash 4 comes out. They have this small window to solidify themselves as the next big competitive game and grow a player base, and I think the best way to do that is not to continually nerf or buff characters once they've made up their mind.

 

[Ghetto Blush]

Can we talk about how gdlk Kirby's dash attack is?

 

[Soft Serve]

Ignore the da, sure its safe on shield against most characters and clanks with a lot of moves, but why bother when you have like... the best tech chacing downthrow in the history of smash

 

[Ghetto Blush]

Ignore the da, sure its safe on shield against most characters and clanks with a lot of moves, but why bother when you have like... the best tech chacing downthrow in the history of smash

Charizard?

 

[jtm94]

I brought up Kirby's dash attack as being super good, and it was just overreacting. Recently I have become more open as to learn ways to play around moves and that there are in fact ways around moves. The dash attack is very good, but it is stuffed out by aerials or almost any sort, unless they are really tiny or brief. The move can infact be crouch-cancelled to a fair degree by other characters.

I've been working on my Kirby because inhale, bair, and footstools are SO dirty feeling, but in a completely good way. Kind of like how it feels to shine spike, or needle someone.

 

[Cassio]

I'll admit that I have zero tournament experience, but I don't think you necessarily need that to understand how Pikachus upair works against spacies, or how most recoveries are simply better in this game. You don't even have to be that good of a player to understand such basic things, you literally just need to have played the game.

But if you wanna hold that over my head, then so be it.

I didnt mean like that, I only meant with pika specifically. But there is a difference between getting the 'gist' of how a character works vs a more complex understanding, it's frustrating to hear people try to talk about what sort of character pika is when they don't even use him seriously.

Is pika gonna have to be another character i pick up to prove he isn't bad?

also i'm really confused why you think pika can't edgeguard because his long recovery allows him to go super deep offstage with very little risk of not making it back. Even chars like zelda will usually die to an offstage tail spike

It was more addressed towards things already mentioned. Pikas grab game is definitely underwhelming (justification given earlier). And yeah, if someone is in such a bad spot with no jump and pika needs to go deep to kill them he can, but pika was much more capable at tailspiking them or something else into those positions in the first place which he cant do reliably anymore unless the opponent falls for something gimmicky. The basic point is this, compared to melee pika's edge and grab game are worse. QAC while nice doesnt make up this, it just improves an area he didnt need improvement in (mobility). Theyre just notable deficiencies in areas pikas traditionally been strong in which make him feel underwhelming.

And not that I dont think youre clearly skilled, but extremely talented smashers such as axe, esam, anther, chu, and others already tried/been trying. If you can do better than them power to you.

 

[Juushichi]

But all of those players already do or did well in Project M's environment.

 

[The_NZA]

I am pretty sure that their about 13 or so characters that every one in this entire thread will agree need buffs. They are:
Olimar, Squirtle, Game and Watch, Luigi, Pikachu, Ness, Ganondorf, Lucario, Jigglypuff, Samus, Toon Link, Sonic, and Charizard. They may not need huge buffs, but they all have something missing that keeps them in the lower half of the cast.

I don't see Samus as a character that needs much of anything! She has a LOT and is wicked unexplored. At least let the metagame catchup...she's been out for a month. Olimar might need help, mostly because he seems uninteresting (not because he actually is bad in any way). Also, I think Lucario might have everything he needs to be successful at a high level. Just look at Frozen.